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
White Activist and Group of Progressives Launch “Fund for Reparations Now” Will Support the National African American Reparations Commission. Los Angeles, CA — As support for reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans in America continues to build momentum across the country, David Gardinier, a Los Angeles-based racial justice activist, has assembled a group of like-minded White progressives to launch the Fund for Reparations Now (FFRN). The objective of this…
By Robert Gudmestad — Millions of people voted in an online poll in 2015 to have the face of Harriet Tubman on the US$20 bill. But many might not have known the…
We must atone for the sins of imperialism By Priya Satia, Washington Post — Every Thanksgiving, Americans trot out the self-congratulatory myth that colonization was a harmonious, bloodless affair —…
By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq. — Whenever Black people bring up the subject of white Americans acting to cure years of discriminatory acts against Black people when our ancestors were forced to work without compensation, they usually pivot to the term “reverse discrimination” or they question whether reparations would be constitutional. My good friend, Gloria Dulan Wilson, responded to the constitutional argument by saying, “It was once constitutional to beat,…
Myths about physical racial differences were used to justify slavery — and are still believed by doctors today. By Linda Villarosa, New York Times — The excruciatingly painful medical experiments went on…
By Shore News Network — “New Jersey Reparations Task Force.” The task force would conduct research and develop proposals and recommendations to address the generational harms caused by the state’s…
By Dr. Maulana Karenga — Part 1. The conversations and controversy surrounding the movie “Harriet” of Hollywood seems, at first sight, to be simply about Harriet Tubman, the liberator, the…
This essay is an adaptation of the fourth annual Philip Roth Lecture, delivered at the Newark Public Library on November 4, 2019. The lecture began with an appreciation of Roth’s merging of fiction and history. An admirer of great historical writing, Roth understood that, to be truly great, it had to grapple with what he called, in The Plot Against America, “the relentless unfolding of the unforeseen.” Flipped on its…