America, It Is Time to Talk About Reparations
If reparations are the right path for America, how do we get there? Join the ACLU for a tough but necessary conversation about racial justice.
It’s time we start having honest, direct conversations about reparations. August will mark the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved people being sold into bondage in America. America used 246 years of enslaving millions of African Americans to enrich, develop, and create our nation. And for the last 154 years, we have avoided confronting this horrific history and its continuing legacy.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee showed leadership by re-introducing H.R. 40, a bill to establish a commission to study reparations proposals for African Americans. And this time, the nation is paying attention like never before. To further this conversation at this historic moment, the ACLU invited prominent Black thinkers and activists to write about why reparations are needed to right the wrongs of the past and the legacy of those wrongs that continue to 2019.
These articles and essays are merely the beginning of a necessary conversation that we as a nation have put off for far too long. Justice, however, demands it, and the ACLU couldn’t be more honored to provide a forum for these critical voices.
If reparations are the right path for America, how do we get there? Join the ACLU for a tough but necessary conversation about racial justice.
The conversation surrounding reparations is underway and the U.S. government must take a leading role.
I have been in the reparations movement for nearly 50 years, and I’ve never been more optimistic about its chances for success.
White supremacy is not linear; it is structural, circular, and pervasive. So is this article. To historically address the issue of reparations, it is important to excavate the past and understand the many ways that seemingly random events are incredibly interconnected.
Institutions of higher education should establish reparation funds to finance the educations of African-Americans descended from slaves.
The Chicago reparations ordinance for police torture represents a model for reparations for slavery.