In one of the earliest examples of reparations, an ex-slave named Belinda petitioned the government and was granted an annuity. By Matthew Wills, JSTOR Daily — Inspired in part by journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, conversations about reparations for slavery and its aftermath have become mainstream. But they aren’t new: Reconstruction’s unfulfilled promise of “forty acres and a mule” had antecedents dating back to America’s founding. Belinda was a slave under Royall…
Her grass-roots efforts shaped the conversation and presented a path forward. By Ashley D. Farmer, The Washington Post — The reparations hearings in the House of Representatives last week turned…
By The Real News Network — This week, the first congressional hearing on reparations in nearly 12 years was held on Capitol Hill. As the discussion on reparations matures, what needs to happen politically for the effort to move forward? Story Transcript TA-NEHISI COATES For a century after the Civil War, black people were subjected to a relentless campaign of terror. A campaign that extended well into the lifetime of…
HR 40 calls the country to account for racist predation inflicted upon black folks living and dead. By Aaron Ross Coleman, The Nation — When I saw a little black boy standing outside the Rayburn House Office Building holding a placard that read “Cut the Check—MLK,” I knew it was going to be an extraordinary day in Washington, DC. This Juneteenth, Congress held its first hearing on the resolution to…
Full Video: Washington, DC — On June 19, 2019 (Juneteenth), the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties held a hearing on H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act. The purpose of the hearing was to examine, through open and constructive discourse, the legacy of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, its continuing impact on the community and the path to restorative justice.…
By The New York Times — The writer argued that African-Americans were exploited by nearly every American institution, before and after slavery ended. Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose 2014 article “The Case for Reparations” in The Atlantic rekindled the…
By Peter Birkenhead — How can it be that, in 2019, writer Ta-Nehisi Coates was forced to give testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committeethat sounded like it could have…
By Amy Goodman & Nermeen Shaikh — On the heels of Wednesday’s historic hearing on reparations, we speak with renowned writer Ta-Nehisi Coates on the lasting legacy of American slavery,…
Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and Actor Danny Glover to testify House subcommittee will discuss issue on 19 June – ‘Juneteenth’ The topic of reparations for slavery is headed to Capitol Hill for its first hearing in more than a decade with the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and actor Danny Glover set to testify before a House of Representatives panel. 6.19.19 Event NAARC and ACLU Present a National Forum: Healing and Reconciliation, HR-40 and the…
HR 40 is about more than money. It’s about grappling with history. By The Christian Century — In a widely discussed 2014 essay in the Atlantic titled “The Case for Reparations,”…
By Dorothy Wickenden, The New Yorker — When Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote “The Case for Reparations” for The Atlantic, in 2014, he didn’t expect the government to make reparations anytime soon. He told David Remnick that he had a more modest goal. “My notion,” Coates says, “was you could get people to stop laughing.” For Coates, to treat reparations as a punch line is to misunderstand their purpose. He argues that reparations…
By Inimai M. Chettiar, Priya Raghavan, Michael Waldman, Adureh Onyekwere — The American public has decisively concluded that our approach to criminal justice isn’t working. Mass incarceration is the civil rights…
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