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Slavery

The University of Glasgow has announced it made £200 million ($255 million) from the transatlantic slave trade according to a comprehensive report, and because of that, will make reparations through a “reparative justice program” and by establishing ties with the University of the West Indies.

University of Glasgow Commits to Pay Reparations for Profiting From African Enslavement, Providing A Model for Others to Follow

By News & Current Affairs, Reparations

By David Love, Atlanta Black Star — Even as those who oppose reparations argue it is unfeasible or too costly, one British university is proving that it is both possible and necessary to make amends for the enslavement and genocide of African people. While the steps made so far may not seem so substantial, this institution could provide a model for others to follow. The University of Glasgow made £200…

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Five nations in the Indian Territory - the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole - kept back slaves for decades

How Native Americans adopted slavery from white settlers

By Reparations

And how black people in Indian Territory were denied their rights even after their emancipation. By Alaina E Roberts, Al Jazeera — Last week marked the 153rd anniversary of the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1865. Rightly celebrated as a milestone for the black American community, the 13th Amendment led to the eventual liberation of all African Americans enslaved in the United States of the late…

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White supremacists gather under a statue of Robert E. Lee during a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, August 2017.

America’s Original Sin

By Editors' Choice

Slavery and the Legacy of White Supremacy. By Annette Gordon-Reed, Foreign Affairs — The documents most closely associated with the creation of the United States—the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—present a problem with which Americans have been contending from the country’s beginning: how to reconcile the values espoused in those texts with the United States’ original sin of slavery, the flaw that marred the country’s creation, warped its prospects, and eventually…

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Left: Joe Stewart and Patricia Bayonne-Johnson, both descendants of people sold as slaves by Georgetown University, arrive to hear about moves aimed at acknowledging and encouraging dialogue about the Jesuit-run university's ties to slavery in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 1, 2016

UN panel says the U.S. owes reparations to African-Americans

By Reparations

By Eugene Mason, PBS — The United States owes African-Americans reparations for slavery, a recent report by a United Nations-affiliated group said. The UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent said that compensation is necessary to combat the disadvantages caused by 245 years of legally allowing the sale of people based on the color of their skin. The U.N. group warned that the U.S. has not confronted its legacy of “racial terrorism.”…

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The Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, on Oct. 5, 2015.

Southern Baptist Convention’s flagship seminary details its racist, slave-owning past in stark report

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Marisa Iati, The Washington Post — More than two decades after the Southern Baptist Convention — the country’s second-largest faith group — apologized to African Americans for its active defense of slavery in the 1800s, its flagship seminary on Wednesday released a stark report further delineating its ties to institutionalized racism. The year-long study by the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary found that all four founding faculty members owned slaves…

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Christiansborg Castle, Osu, Ghana

Ghana’s Danish Osu castle and its role in the slave trade

By Reparations

What a Danish slave trade castle in Accra revealed about Ghana’s history and my family. By Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann, Hampshire College — As a Ghanaian archaeologist, I have been conducting research at Christiansborg Castle in Accra, Ghana. A UNESCO World Heritage site, the castle is a former seventeenth century trading post, colonial Danish and British seat of government, and Office of the President of the Republic of Ghana. Today,…

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Danny Glover Requests Your Support for IBW and the Reparations Movement

By NAARC News, Reparations, Video/Audio

We are profoundly thankful to Danny Glover for his support of the work of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW) and the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC). As a tireless advocate for the U.N. Decade for People of African Descent and reparatory justice, Danny Glover has been with IBW every step of the way in our successful effort to intensify the U.S. and global reparations movements. We urgently need your support to continue this vital work.

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‘A reparative justice programme’ … Glasgow University has completed a two-year review of how it grew wealthy from the slave trade. Photograph: University of Glasgow

Reparations for slavery are not about punishing children for parents’ sins

By Editors' Choice, Reparations

Reparative justice, whereby communities are compensated for losses caused by the slavery or the Holocaust, is morally fair. By Julian Baggini, The Guardian — Justice requires a good memory, one that is both accurate and not self-servingly selective. But whether it is well-served by a long memory is more contentious. We know that many still pay the price for sins previous generations never paid for. But most agree with the…

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