By Tyrone Beason, Los Angeles Times — CHARLESTON, S.C. — Five years before the first shots of the Civil War rang out from the harbor here in 1861, alderman Thomas Ryan and a business partner opened Ryan’s Mart at No. 6 Chalmers St. Their merchandise was slaves: African men, women and children who were prodded, picked over and auctioned off to the highest bidders. The finest adult males could fetch…
Southern aristocrats wanted armed militias mainly to control their slaves. So they wanted language in the new nation’s constitution protecting that right. By Nicolaus Mills, Daily Beast — Mass shootings…
Here’s what you need to know. By Jameelah Nasheed, Teen Vogue — For over 250 years, people of African descent were enslaved in the United States. Tricked and stolen from…
U.S. Senate candidates, Ga. officials voice support for bill to study options. By Tamar Hallerman, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution — Two of the top Democrats seeking Georgia’s U.S. Senate seat in…
By David Commissiong — The recent announcement that the University of Glasgow has apologised for its role in slavery and has agreed to provide ₤20 Million to fund Caribbean developmental projects that…
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia Grange, has announced the appointment of the National Council on Reparations for the period 29 July, 2019 to 28…
By Barbara Rodriguez, Des Moines Register — U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris says she supports studying reparations, but she’s not sure what any resultant program would look like. The senator from California and Democratic presidential hopeful said Sunday during a Des Moines Register editorial board meeting that the idea, which would grant compensation to individuals impacted by slavery and racial discrimination, is complex and deserves to be examined carefully. “This stuff…
As Democratic candidates running for president are being asked to weigh in on reparations for slavery — the idea that the United States would give restitution, in some form or…
By Danyelle Solomon — 2019 marks the 400th anniversary of Africans sold into bondage arriving on Virginia’s shores. It has been 156 years since the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, 55 years since the end of Jim Crow, and 51 years since the civil rights movement. All of these moments in U.S. history represent crossroads—moments where the country made a choice or where people demanded that the words on the pages of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights became more than words; that policies and practices were equitably distributed among all people, not just a select few…
By Calvin Schermerhorn, African American Intellectual History Society — This is an excerpt from Calvin Schermerhorn’s Unrequited Toil: A History of United States Slavery (Cambridge University Press, 2018). This excerpt…
Regional Headquarters, Jamaica. July 31, 2019 — A historic Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed by the Vice-Chancellor of The University of the West Indies (UWI), Professor Sir Hilary Beckles and a senior official of the University of Glasgow (UoG), at a ceremony held at The UWI Regional Headquarters in Kingston, Jamaica, on Wednesday, July 31, 2019. The document, framed as a “Reparatory Justice” initiative, acknowledges that while the…
By John Gage, Washington Examiner — Sen. Bernie Sanders received applause from the NAACP convention after explaining to the audience why he was against slave reparations. Moderator April Ryan asked…