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Reparations

Reparations for slavery is the idea that some form of compensatory payment needs to be made to the descendants of Africans who had been enslaved as part of the Atlantic Slave Trade. The most notable demands for reparations have been made in the United Kingdom and in the United States, where slavery was the most pervasive. Caribbean and African states from which slaves were taken have also made reparation demands.

Kids play basketball at Wilson Park near where Interstate 81 slices through a public housing complex in Syracuse, N.Y.

In Syracuse, a road and reparations

By Editors' Choice, Reparations

By Robert Samuels, Washington Post — This city’s south side was devastated when a highway section went up. Now that there’s talk of taking it down, residents think they should be protected — and compensated. SYRACUSE, N.Y. — When Ryedell Davis heard the 1.5-mile stretch of elevated highway slicing through this city might be torn down, he had a vision about what could emerge from its dust. He could open…

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A slave auction in the South is depicted in a sketch circa 1861 by Theodore R. Davis.

It was the nation’s largest auction of enslaved people.

By Reparations

Now, a search for descendants of the ‘weeping time.’ Historians Henry Louis Gates Jr. and James Swanson are writing a new account of the notorious 1859 auction of 429 slaves and searching for descendants. By Michael E. Ruane, The Washington Post — It poured rain at the Georgia racetrack that Wednesday and Thursday, and the wind blew water into the covered grandstand where the merchandise was gathered for auction. Many…

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Prime Minister Gaston Browne

Prime Minister Gaston Browne on Western Banking, Colonialism and Reparations

By Reparations

Address by Prime Minister Gaston Browne during the Caribbean Reparations Commission Regional Symposium on Western Banking, Colonialism and Reparations, October 10, 2019. I bring no special expertise or unique perspective to the issue of reparations. However, I am here primarily to signify my personal commitment to the fight to achieve reparatory justice. Approximately five years ago, on October 14, 2014, at the second regional conference on reparations, held at…

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Students at Georgetown University have called on the school to create a fund to help descendants of enslaved people sold in the 19th century.

Georgetown students protest, demanding action on reparations for descendants of enslaved people

By News & Current Affairs, Reparations

By Lauren Lumpkin and Susan Svrluga, The Washington Post — A couple dozen Georgetown University students broke into a chant Thursday outside a meeting of the school’s board of directors, seeking to put pressure on the university to do more to redress historical wrongs. “Respect our vote! Respect our vote!” they called out. A student vote in April overwhelmingly called on Georgetown to create a fund to help descendants of…

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Members of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights October 31, 2012.

International Human Rights Bodies Provide a Case for Reparations

By Editors' Choice, Reparations

By Justin Hansford, ACLU — It is common for nations where mass atrocities have taken place to engage in the process of reparation and repair. This process happened in Germany after the Holocaust, South Africa after apartheid, and here in the United States, forty years after the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. As a result, international human rights bodies have sought to lend their expertise to the process, often by…

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Slave Descendant - Illustration by Ojima Abalaka

The Descendants of Slaves in Nigeria Fight for Equality

By Reparations

Slavery existed among the Igbo long before colonization, and accelerated with the transatlantic trade. Today, slave descendants still retain the stigma of their ancestors. By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, The New Yorker — On a sunny morning in November, 2018, twelve men and two women gathered in a lavishly furnished living room in Oguta, a town in southeastern Nigeria, with the air-conditioning at full blast. They had come to discuss the caste…

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Vantage Point Radio: Cherokee Nation Demands Seat in Congress, Black Land Loss in Gullah Country

By Vantage Point Radio, Video/Audio

Vantage Point Radio September 23, 2019 with host Dr. Ron Daniels aka The Professor. Topics: Cherokee Nation Demands Seat in Congress Crisis of Black Land Loss in Gullah Country. Guests: Marilyn Vann, President Descendant of Freedmen’s Association, Oklahoma City, OK and Heather L. Hodges, Executive Director, Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission, Johns Island, SC Commentary. And commentary on Reparatory Justice by Dr. Ron Daniels aka The Professor

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