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Defiant: Jesse Owens after winning the 100m at the Berlin Olympics, August 1936

The Hitlers in Our Own Country

By Commentaries/Opinions

How the Nazi persecution of Jews shaped the African-American freedom struggle. By Clive Webb, History Today — Martin Luther King delivered his celebrated ‘I Have a Dream’ speech on 28 August 1963 at the March on Washington. Less well known is that one of the other speakers that day was Rabbi Joachim Prinz, a political émigré who had fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s. His presence at the march demonstrated…

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Toni Morrison

A Documentary That Shows Another Side of Toni Morrison

By Commentaries/Opinions, Reparations

This moving and profound portrait serves as a fitting biographical tribute as well as a piercing, often painful recount of African American history from slavery and the Civil War to the Jim Crow era, the Civil Rights movement and beyond. By Syreeta McFadden, The Atlantic — One of my white teachers in high school insisted that Toni Morrison would be confusing to me as a reader. So I approached the…

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General William Tecumseh Sherman in May 1865. Portrait by Mathew Brady.

The Truth Behind ’40 Acres and a Mule’

By Editors' Choice, Reparations

By Henry Louis Gates, Jr. — We’ve all heard the story of the “40 acres and a mule” promise to former slaves. It’s a staple of black history lessons, and it’s the name of Spike Lee’s film company. The promise was the first systematic attempt to provide a form of reparations to newly freed slaves, and it was astonishingly radical for its time, proto-socialist in its implications. In fact, such…

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Grandchildren of slaves. Schomburg

How an Ex-Slave Successfully Won a Case for Reparations in 1783

By Reparations

In one of the earliest examples of reparations, an ex-slave named Belinda petitioned the government and was granted an annuity. By Matthew Wills, JSTOR Daily — Inspired in part by journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, conversations about reparations for slavery and its aftermath have become mainstream. But they aren’t new: Reconstruction’s unfulfilled promise of “forty acres and a mule” had antecedents dating back to America’s founding. Belinda was a slave under Royall…

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Where Do the Politics of Reparations Go From Here?

Where Do the Politics of Reparations Go From Here?

By HR 40 Congressional Hearing, Reparations

 By The Real News Network — This week, the first congressional hearing on reparations in nearly 12 years was held on Capitol Hill. As the discussion on reparations matures, what needs to happen politically for the effort to move forward? Story Transcript TA-NEHISI COATES For a century after the Civil War, black people were subjected to a relentless campaign of terror. A campaign that extended well into the lifetime of…

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Ta-Nehisi Coates and Danny Glover testify about reparation for the descendants of slaves during a hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, June 2019.

‘Cut the Check’: The Americans Who Deserve Reparations Walk Among Us

By HR 40 Congressional Hearing, News & Current Affairs, Reparations

HR 40 calls the country to account for racist predation inflicted upon black folks living and dead. By Aaron Ross Coleman, The Nation — When I saw a little black boy standing outside the Rayburn House Office Building holding a placard that read “Cut the Check—MLK,” I knew it was going to be an extraordinary day in Washington, DC. This Juneteenth, Congress held its first hearing on the resolution to…

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Congressional Hearing on H.R. 40, Legislation to Study Slavery Reparations. Washington, DC — On June 19, 2019 (Juneteenth)

Congressional Hearing on H.R. 40, Legislation to Study Slavery Reparations

By HR 40 Congressional Hearing, News & Current Affairs, Reparations, Video/Audio

Full Video: Washington, DC — On June 19, 2019 (Juneteenth), the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties held a hearing on H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act. The purpose of the hearing was to examine, through open and constructive discourse, the legacy of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, its continuing impact on the community and the path to restorative justice.…

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