More than 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, there were black people in the Deep South who had no idea they were free. These people were forced to work, violently…
The Dark History of New Year’s Day in American Slavery “Of all days in the year, the slaves dread New Year’s Day the worst of any,” one 1842 account explained….
Health justice funds could be used to support Black and Indigenous health initiatives and provide mental and physical health services to deal with the impact of transgenerational trauma. By Roberta…
From slavery to Reconstruction to Dylann Roof, the idea of “race war” has a long and bloody legacy in the United States. By Michael E. Miller, The Washington Post — It was high noon on Easter 1873 when the white mob came riding into Colfax. Five months earlier, Louisiana had held its second election since the end of the Civil War and the beginning of black male suffrage. But some…
More than a dozen medical students from Tulane University posed at the former slave quarters in the hopes of inspiring others. By Mohammed Syed and Suzanne Ciechalski — It wasn’t by chance that more than a dozen black medical students dressed in white coats and posed outside the slave quarters of a Louisiana plantation. Russell Ledet and classmates from Tulane University planned the trip and photos at the Whitney Plantation…
By Edna Whittier, The Roanoke Times — In 1988, President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act to compensate Japanese Americans who were in internment camps during World War II. Offering a formal apology it paid $20,000 to each surviving victim and their heirs. In 2004, the State of Virginia established the Brown v. Board of Education Scholarship fund setting aside $1 million (with another $1 million contributed by philanthropist John…
The Union for Reform Judaism is calling for a study on reparations to redress the continuing effects of slavery and systemic racism against Black Americans. By Carol Kuruvilla, Huff Post — The Reform movement, America’s largest Jewish denomination, has passed a resolution supporting the need to make reparations for slavery. The resolution, approved by delegates to The Union for Reform Judaism’s biennial meeting on Friday, supports the creation of a…
Union for Reform Judaism declares its support for reparations for the descendants of slaves in the US. By Ben Sales, TGA — The Reform movement declared its support for reparations for African-Americans at its biennial conference. The resolution, which was approved Friday by voice vote at the 5,000-person gathering of the Union for Reform Judaism, calls for “a federal commission to study and develop proposals for reparations to redress the…
By Jacqueline Charles, Miami Herald — Harvard University and the island of Antigua and Barbuda are talking about an educational partnership following a letter the Caribbean island’s prime minister sent to the university requesting slavery reparations. A Harvard University spokesman confirmed to the Miami Herald that the school’s president, Lawrence Bacow, recently reached out to Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador to the United States, Sir Ronald Sanders, to discuss how the prestigious university…
By Carolyn Thompson, AP News — BUFFALO, N.Y. — The promise of reparations to atone for historical ties to slavery has opened new territory in a reckoning at U.S. colleges, which until now have responded with monuments, building name changes and public apologies. Georgetown University and two theological seminaries have announced funding commitments to benefit descendants of the enslaved people who were sold or toiled to benefit the institutions. While…
By Jonah Pesner, Chicago Tribune — Americans in general and faith groups in particular increasingly find ourselves reckoning with our nation’s bigoted history and struggling with how to dismantle the racist systems and structures that persist to this day. As the largest Jewish denomination in the United States, it’s time for the Reform movement to join this conversation. It’s time for us to talk reparations. When I first read Ta-Nehisi…
A Swiss historian backed by dozens of public figures has launched a committee that makes the case for slavery reparations in the context of Switzerland. The supporters of the Swiss Committee on Slavery Reparations (SCORES) believe that reparations must be negotiated through dialogue between those who benefited from the transatlantic slave trade and the descendants of the victims. “The centuries-old human crime of slavery within the framework of the exploitation of the American colonies by Europe demands