Skip to main content
Tag

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.

The Capitol stands in the background of this 1830 engraving.

When Slaveowners Got Reparations

By Reparations

Lincoln signed a bill in 1862 that paid up to $300 for every enslaved person freed. By Tera W. Hunter, New York Times — On April 16, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill emancipating enslaved people in Washington, the end of a long struggle. But to ease slaveowners’ pain, the District of Columbia Emancipation Act paid those loyal to the Union up to $300 for every enslaved person freed. That’s right, slaveowners got…

Read More
Hans Sloane collected this specimen of cacao in Jamaica in the 1680s. Sloane often collected on or near slave plantations, taking advantage of slavery’s infrastructure to advance his science.

Historians Expose Early Scientists’ Debt to the Slave Trade

By Editors' Choice, Reparations

By examining scientific papers, correspondence between naturalists, and the records of slaving companies, historians are now seeing new connections between science and slavery and piecing together just how deeply intertwined they were. By Sam Kean, Science Magazine — At the dawn of the 1700s, European science seemed poised to conquer all of nature. Isaac Newton had recently published his monumental theory of gravity. Telescopes were opening up the heavens to…

Read More
Hurricane Katrina evacuees outside the New Orleans Superdome in 2015.

The Green New Deal Should Include Reparations

By Commentaries/Opinions

The Democratic Party is talking about both issues separately. They make more sense in tandem. By Emily Atkin, The New Republic — Environmental justice activist Anthony Rogers-Wright lives full-time in Seattle, Washington, but just happened to be in Massachusetts last weekend when he heard that Senator Ed Markey was holding a town hall about the Green New Deal in Northampton, a crunchy college town in the heart of the state.…

Read More
Buildings at Princeton University’s Princeton Theological Seminary are pictured in Princeton, N.J. Last year, the university released a report on the school’s role in American bondage. Although the seminary did not own slaves and slave labor was not used on constructing the school, slave owners were major donors and responsible for as much as 40 percent of the seminary’s revenue.

‘We are therefore demanding …’ : Reparations in the Christian church

By Editors' Choice, News & Current Affairs

By Wyatt Massey, Frederick News Post — The Rev. Dr. Ernest Campbell said no, James Forman could not speak at his church service the next day. Campbell was the senior pastor at Riverside Church, a predominantly white church on the west side of Manhattan. Forman, a black civil rights leader, wanted to read something to the congregation at the next day’s service on May 4, 1969, according to a history…

Read More
The text was approved by 535 MEPs in a vote at the European parliament on Tuesday.

MEPs pass ‘watershed’ resolution calling for action against racism

By News & Current Affairs

Text calls on member states to tackle discrimination against people of African descent. By Jennifer Rankin, The Guardian — The European parliament has called for action to tackle the “structural racism” facing millions of Europeans of African descent in an unprecedented resolution that was overwhelmingly approved by MEPs. The resolution calls on European Union member states to develop national anti-racism strategies to deal with discrimination in education, health, housing, policing, the justice…

Read More

Combating Gentrification with Beloved Streets, The Mueller Report — March 25th Vantage Point Radio

By Gentrification, Vantage Point Radio, Video/Audio

3/25/19 Vantage Point Radio with Dr. Ron Daniels — Topics Combating Gentrification with Beloved Streets • The Mueller Report. Guests Melvin White (President/CEO, Beloved Streets of America, St. Louis, MO) Mark Thompson (Host of Make It Plain, SIRIUS XM, New York, NY)

Read More
Tamara Lanier is suing Harvard University for ownership of daguerreotypes of slaves who she says are her ancestors.

Who Should Own Photos of Slaves? The Descendants, not Harvard, a Lawsuit Says

By News & Current Affairs, Reparations

By Anemona Hartocollis, The New York Times — NORWICH, Conn. — The two slaves, a father and daughter, were stripped to the waist and positioned for frontal and side views. Then, like subjects in contemporary mug shots, their pictures were taken, as part of a racist study arguing that black people were an inferior race. Almost 170 years later, they are at the center of a dispute over who should…

Read More
Prince Charles and Camilla Duchess of Cornwall with Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados, 19 March 2019.

What if the Caribbean refused royal visits until reparations were paid?

By Commentaries/Opinions, Reparations

Charles and Camilla are the latest to arrive and help whitewash the injustices of slavery and empire. By Nalini Mohabir, The Guardian — Once upon a time monarchs ruled by divine right, then later with charismatic authority. The future king Prince Charles (#NotMyPrince) has neither. Yet Caribbean governments are paying for Prince Charles and Camilla’s royal tour of the Caribbean which began on Sunday and continues for 12 days, to…

Read More