For relations with the DRC to truly improve, the Belgian state must acknowledge its historical responsibility more strongly.
A multiracial crowd sings the South African National Anthem at 2019 memorial service for the late rugby Springbok Chester Williams.
Rodger Bosch/AFP/ via GettyImages
The US has frozen tens of billions of dollars worth of assets belonging to Russians and their government. A legal scholar explains why confiscating them is a bit trickier.
Mother and child fleeing fighting between DRC and rebels backed by Ugandan forces shelter at a refugee camp in Zambia in 2003.
Photo by Natalie Behring-Chisholm/Getty Images
A school finance expert and an education law scholar make the case for why reparations should be paid to African Americans by changing the way schools are funded.
Labor violations disproportionately affect Black Americans.
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Rebalancing labor relations so that workers are empowered would be an effective way to address racial wealth disparities and atone for the legacy of slavery, a scholar argues.
A $378 million scheme has just been launched for Stolen Generations survivors. This is the latest example of ‘money justice’, which is more common than you might realise.
Consulting with the communities that have suffered the most harm from past acts of mass violence is a key part of a successful reparations process.
Steven Senne/AP
German’s commitment of €1.1bn for development projects in Namibia over 30 years is too cheap a price to pay for remorse.
Some ancient theologians argued that the Israelites deserved a share of Egypt’s wealth after being enslaved for centuries.
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Even Colonial-era abolitionists like Alexander Hamilton enjoyed centuries of generational wealth built from slavery.
Students at Georgetown University protest in 2019, demanding the school make amends for its history with reparations.
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History is full of examples of nations paying out to compensate for slavery. But the money never went to those who suffered under the system, only those who profited.
The Port of Savannah used to export cotton picked by enslaved laborers and brought from Alabama to Georgia on slave-built railways. Cotton is still a top product processed through this port.
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Geographers are documenting slave-built infrastructure, from railroads to ports, in use today. Such work could influence the reparations debate by showing how slavery still props up the US economy.
Kwame Akoto-Bamfo’s sculpture dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Transatlantic slave trade on display in Montgomery, Alabama.
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The turn towards authoritarianism, xenophobia and racism in Western democracies makes it unlikely that former Western slave-trading nations will agree to reparations in the near future.
Efforts to build wealth for Black Americans could focus on property ownership.
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Some calls to resolve racial inequities in the US have raised an idea with roots more than a century old: community land trusts to assemble property for the benefit of Black Americans.
Haitian President Jean-Pierre Boyer receiving Charles X’s decree recognizing Haitian independence on July 11, 1825.
Bibliotheque Nationale de France
After enduring decades of exploitation at the hands of the French, Haiti somehow ended up paying reparations – to the tune of nearly $30 billion in today’s money.
Pub owner Greene King’s founder was connected to slavery.