Slavery Reparations Time Is Now

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Slavery Reparations Time Is Now

Author : Nora Wittmann Ph D
Publisher : Power of the Trinity Publishers
Page : 530 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 2013-07-26
Category : African Americans
ISBN : 3200031557

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Slavery Reparations Time Is Now by Nora Wittmann Ph D Pdf

"The book presents an arguable case that at the relevant time slavery was illegal....a prima facie case for the illegality of slavery, notwithstanding the difference in the practice followed in the colonies....My thanks to Ms. Wittmann, particularly for the wealth of material she has unearthed." - "Patrick Robinson," (Former President) Judge of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. "Dr. Nora Wittmann...has written a brilliant work of deeply researched scholarship....The book is particularly valuable in refuting the arguments commonly advanced against the payment of reparations....Most significantly, she rebuts the argument that 'slavery was legal at the time'....In all that I have read on the subject, this argument has never been presented with such wide-ranging and convincing research....Dr. Wittmann is to be highly praised for the huge contribution to the raising of consciousness...through her work on this eloquent, readable and scholarly book." - "Lord Anthony Gifford," QC, lawyer in Jamaica and the UK, legal pioneer for slavery reparations. "Slavery Reparations Time Is Now" breaks important ground on the matter of reparations for transatlantic slavery and European colonialism. It charts the international legal determinates of the matter in detail, as never done before, and should be part of every home library and of our children's curricula. "Slavery Reparations Time Is Now" pertinently retraces the anchorage of the legal entitlement to reparations within a historical international law perspective, exposing simultaneously the intrinsic link between the necessity of comprehensive reparations and solutions to other major problems that threaten human survival on Earth, such as nuclear and industrial pollution, wars and contemporary forced labor. By proving clearly, based on in-depth research, that the practice of transatlantic slavery was illegal throughout the time it was perpetrated, the book topples the dominant legal and political opinion that aims to deny the right to reparations on grounds that "slavery" would have been "legal" at that time. Yet, although argued totally contrary to the hegemonic opinion, "Slavery Reparations Time Is Now" has been welcomed as making a solid case for transatlantic slavery reparations by erudite experts on the matter, such as Patrick Robinson (former President Judge of the UN Tribunal for Ex-Yugoslavia), Hilary Beckles, Verene Shepherd and Anthony Gifford. Recent years have seen a continuous upsurge of the global movement for reparations for transatlantic slavery and colonialism. In response, the powers-that-be are mounting multiple strategies to confuse the public about reparations. It is therefore crucial that the people get their knowledge right about what is legally due. Sticking to international law, reparations have to be economic, educational, historic, and structural. This profound historico-legal analysis provides the ammunition for the final blow to the hegemonic lie that there would be no legal base for slavery reparations, and is presented in a readable way that lay people without legal formation can easily relate to. Yet, although this book clarifies the legal appropriateness of reparations, it is the people who will at last have to take reparations. A passionate and scientifically solid call for justice, "Slavery Reparations Time Is Now" provides guidance to get there, also addressing the role of popular culture movements such as hip-hop and reggae, and highlighting the fact that icons such as Tupac Shakur were advocating reparations. Only when comprehensive reparation is effectuated for transatlantic slavery can the planet get in balance again and humanity live. "Slavery Reparations Time Is Now" also contains never-before published comments on reparations by Ayi Kwei Armah.

Time for Reparations

Author : Jacqueline Bhabha,Margareta Matache,Caroline Elkins
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 413 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2021-09-03
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780812299915

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Time for Reparations by Jacqueline Bhabha,Margareta Matache,Caroline Elkins Pdf

In this sweeping international perspective on reparations, Time for Reparations makes the case that past state injustice—be it slavery or colonization, forced sterilization or widespread atrocities—has enduring consequences that generate ongoing harm, which needs to be addressed as a matter of justice and equity. Time for Reparations provides a wealth of detailed and diverse examples of state injustice, from enslavement of African Americans in the United States and Roma in Romania to colonial exploitation and brutality in Guatemala, Algeria, Indonesia, Jamaica, and Guadeloupe. From many vantage points, contributing authors discuss different reparative strategies and the impact they would have on the lives of survivor or descent communities. One of the strengths of this book is its interdisciplinary perspective—contributors are historians, anthropologists, human rights lawyers, sociologists, and political scientists. Many of the authors are both scholars and advocates, actively involved in one capacity or another in the struggles for reparations they describe. The book therefore has a broad and inclusive scope, aided by an accessible and cogent writing style. It appeals to scholars, students, advocates and others concerned about addressing some of the most profound and enduring injustices of our time.

Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade

Author : Ana Lucia Araujo
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 318 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2023-11-02
Category : History
ISBN : 9781350297685

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Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade by Ana Lucia Araujo Pdf

Slavery and the Atlantic slave trade are among the most heinous crimes against humanity committed in the modern era. Yet, to this day no former slave society in the Americas has paid reparations to former slaves or their descendants. Ana Lucia Araujo shows that these calls for reparations have persevered over a long and difficult history. She traces the ways in which enslaved and freed individuals have conceptualized the idea of reparations since the 18th century in petitions, correspondence, pamphlets, public speeches, slave narratives, and judicial claims. Taking the reader through the era of slavery, emancipation, post-abolition, and the present day and drawing on the voices of various of enslaved peoples and their descendants, the book illuminates the multiple dimensions of the demands of reparations. This new edition boasts a new chapter on the global impact of the Black Lives Matter movement, the seismic effect of the killing of George Floyd, calls for university reparations and the dismantling of statues. Updated throughout, this edition includes primary sources, further readings, and many illustrations.

From Here to Equality, Second Edition

Author : William A. Darity Jr.,A. Kirsten Mullen
Publisher : UNC Press Books
Page : 443 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2022-07-27
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781469671215

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From Here to Equality, Second Edition by William A. Darity Jr.,A. Kirsten Mullen Pdf

Racism and discrimination have choked economic opportunity for African Americans at nearly every turn. At several historic moments, the trajectory of racial inequality could have been altered dramatically. But neither Reconstruction nor the New Deal nor the civil rights struggle led to an economically just and fair nation. Today, systematic inequality persists in the form of housing discrimination, unequal education, police brutality, mass incarceration, employment discrimination, and massive wealth and opportunity gaps. Economic data indicates that for every dollar the average white household holds in wealth the average black household possesses a mere ten cents. This compelling and sharply argued book addresses economic injustices head-on and make the most comprehensive case to date for economic reparations for U.S. descendants of slavery. Using innovative methods that link monetary values to historical wrongs, William Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen assess the literal and figurative costs of justice denied in the 155 years since the end of the Civil War and offer a detailed roadmap for an effective reparations program, including a substantial payment to each documented U.S. black descendant of slavery. This new edition features a new foreword addressing the latest developments on the local, state, and federal level and considering current prospects for a comprehensive reparations program.

Know Your Price

Author : Andre M. Perry
Publisher : Brookings Institution Press
Page : 271 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2020-05-19
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780815737285

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Know Your Price by Andre M. Perry Pdf

The deliberate devaluation of Blacks and their communities has had very real, far-reaching, and negative economic and social effects. An enduring white supremacist myth claims brutal conditions in Black communities are mainly the result of Black people's collective choices and moral failings. “That's just how they are” or “there's really no excuse”: we've all heard those not so subtle digs. But there is nothing wrong with Black people that ending racism can't solve. We haven't known how much the country will gain by properly valuing homes and businesses, family structures, voters, and school districts in Black neighborhoods. And we need to know. Noted educator, journalist, and scholar Andre Perry takes readers on a tour of six Black-majority cities whose assets and strengths are undervalued. Perry begins in his hometown of Wilkinsburg, a small city east of Pittsburgh that, unlike its much larger neighbor, is struggling and failing to attract new jobs and industry. Bringing his own personal story of growing up in Black-majority Wilkinsburg, Perry also spotlights five others where he has deep connections: Detroit, Birmingham, New Orleans, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. He provides an intimate look at the assets that should be of greater value to residents—and that can be if they demand it. Perry provides a new means of determining the value of Black communities. Rejecting policies shaped by flawed perspectives of the past and present, it gives fresh insights on the historical effects of racism and provides a new value paradigm to limit them in the future. Know Your Price demonstrates the worth of Black people's intrinsic personal strengths, real property, and traditional institutions. These assets are a means of empowerment and, as Perry argues in this provocative and very personal book, are what we need to know and understand to build Black prosperity.

Uncivil Wars

Author : David Horowitz
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 168 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2002
Category : History
ISBN : UOM:39015053496421

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Uncivil Wars by David Horowitz Pdf

In this well researched and carefully argued book, Horowitz traces the origins of the reparations movement and its implications for American education and culture.

The Debt

Author : Randall Robinson
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2001-01-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781101191491

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The Debt by Randall Robinson Pdf

Both an unflinching indictment of past wrongs and an impassioned call to America to educate its citizens about the history of Africa and its people, The Debt says in no uncertain terms what white America owes blacks—and what blacks owe themselves. In this powerful and controversial book, distinguished African-American political leader and thinker Randall Robinson argues for the restoration of the rich history that slavery and segregation severed. Drawing from research and personal experience, he shows that only by reclaiming their lost past and proud heritage can blacks lay the foundation for their future. And white Americans can begin making reparations for slavery and the century of racial discrimination that followed with monetary restitution, educational programs, and the kinds of equal opportunities that will ensure the social and economic success of all citizens. “Engaging...Robinson continues an important conversation...His anecdotes support his attempts to reclaim African American heritage and empower African Americans.”—The Washington Post

Reparations to Africa

Author : Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2018-04-13
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781512821734

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Reparations to Africa by Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann Pdf

What is the just measure of Western obligations to Africa? As Africans and their supporters mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the United States and Great Britain, the question becomes increasingly salient. Calls for reparations for the evils of slavery, as well as for past colonial and current economic and political abuses, can be heard across Africa and the African diaspora. Human rights scholar Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann examines these calls for redress in Reparations to Africa. Her study analyzes the reparations movement from the perspectives of law, philosophy, political science, and sociology. While acknowledging the brutal background of the slave trade and colonialism, and the mistreatment of the peoples of Africa, Howard-Hassmann finds that the complexity of this history, along with facts of the contemporary situation, weakens the case for financial compensation, although she does recommend acknowledgment of, and apologies for, some actions. The book not only provides a bold reckoning of the root causes, both internal and external, of African underdevelopment and unrest but also suggests alternative means for restorative justice and examines the role that institutions such as the International Criminal Court can play. By including the voices of 74 African academics, diplomats, and activists interviewed by Howard-Hassmann and Anthony P. Lombardo, Reparations to Africa makes a valuable contribution to the reparations debate. In an emotionally and politically charged postcolonial environment, this book serves as a judicious guide to the search for economic justice for Africans today and into the future.

Repair

Author : Katherine Franke
Publisher : Haymarket Books
Page : 169 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2019-05-21
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781608466269

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Repair by Katherine Franke Pdf

A compelling case for reparations based on powerful, first-person accounts detailing both the horrors of slavery and past promises made to its survivors. Katherine Franke makes a powerful case for reparations for Black Americans by amplifying the stories of formerly enslaved people and calling for repair of the damage caused by the legacy of American slavery. Repair invites readers to explore the historical context for reparations, offering a detailed account of the circumstances that surrounded the emancipation of enslaved Black people in two unique contexts, the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Davis Bend, Mississippi, Jefferson Davis’s former plantation. Through these two critical historical examples, Franke unpacks intergenerational, systemic racism and white privilege at the heart of American society and argues that reparations for slavery are necessary, overdue and possible. Praise for Repair “Essential . . . Franke engages the original debates concerning the conditions upon which newly freed Black people would rebuild their lives after slavery. Franke powerfully illustrates the repercussions of the unfilled promise of land redistribution and other broken promises that consigned African Americans to another one hundred years of second-class citizenship. Franke passionately argues that the continuation of those vast disparities between Black and white people in U.S. society—a product of slavery itself—means that the struggle for reparations remains a relevant demand in the current movements for racial justice.” —Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation “Repair revisits the revolutionary era of Reconstruction . . . when the redistribution of land and wealth as recompense for unrequited toil could have secured genuine freedom for Black people rather than a future of racial inequality, exploitation, marginalization, and precarity . . . . Franke makes a persuasive case for reparations as at least a first step toward creating the conditions for genuine freedom and justice, not only for African Americans but for all of us.” —Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination “Katherine Franke argues for a type of Black freedom that is material and felt—freedom that is more than a poetic nod to claims of American moral comeuppance. Repair . . . is a critical text for our times that demands an honest reckoning with the consequences, and afterlife, of the sin that was chattel enslavement. It is bold call for reparations and costly atonement.” —Darnell L. Moore, author of No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black & Free in America “Katherine Franke is consistently one of the sharpest, most conscientious thinkers in progressive politics. In a time defined by crisis and conflict, Katherine is among that small number of thinkers whom I find indispensable.” —Jelani Cobb, New Yorker columnist and author of The Substance of Hope

Who Will Pay Reparations on My Soul?: Essays

Author : Jesse McCarthy
Publisher : Liveright Publishing
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2021-03-30
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN : 9781631496493

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Who Will Pay Reparations on My Soul?: Essays by Jesse McCarthy Pdf

2022 Whiting Award Winner for Nonfiction Finalist • National Book Critics Circle Award (Criticism) Best Books of the Year: TIME, Kirkus Reviews "This is a very smart and soulful book. Jesse McCarthy is a terrific essayist." —Zadie Smith A supremely talented young critic’s essays on race and culture, from Toni Morrison to trap, herald the arrival of a major new voice in American letters. Ranging from Ta-Nehisi Coates’s case for reparations to Toni Morrison’s revolutionary humanism to D’Angelo’s simmering blend of R&B and racial justice, Jesse McCarthy’s bracing essays investigate with virtuosic intensity the art, music, literature, and political stances that have defined the twenty-first century. Even as our world has suffered through successive upheavals, McCarthy contends, “something was happening in the world of culture: a surging and unprecedented visibility at every level of black art making.” Who Will Pay Reparations on My Soul? reckons with this resurgence, arguing for the central role of art and intellectual culture in an age of widening inequality and moral crisis. McCarthy reinvigorates the essay form as a space not only for argument but for experimental writing that mixes and chops the old ways into new ones. In “Notes on Trap,” he borrows a conceit from Susan Sontag to reveal the social and political significance of trap music, the drug-soaked strain of Southern hip-hop that, as he puts it, is “the funeral music that the Reagan Revolution deserves.” In “Back in the Day,” McCarthy, a black American raised in France, evokes his childhood in Paris through an elegiac account of French rap in the 1990s. In “The Master’s Tools,” the relationship between Spanish painter Diego Velázquez and his acolyte-slave, Juan de Pareja, becomes the lens through which Kehinde Wiley’s paintings are viewed, while “To Make a Poet Black” explores the hidden blackness of Sappho and the erotic power of Phillis Wheatley. Essays on John Edgar Wideman, Claudia Rankine, and Colson Whitehead survey the state of black letters. In his title essay, McCarthy takes on the question of reparations, arguing that true progress will not come until Americans remake their institutions in the service of true equality. As he asks, “What can reparations mean when the damage cannot be accounted for in the only system of accounting that a society recognizes?” For readers of Teju Cole’s Known and Strange Things and Mark Greif’s Against Everything, McCarthy’s essays portray a brilliant young critic at work, making sense of our disjointed times while seeking to transform our understanding of race and art, identity and representation.

How the Word Is Passed

Author : Clint Smith
Publisher : Little, Brown
Page : 312 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2021-06-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9780316492911

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How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith Pdf

This “important and timely” (Drew Faust, Harvard Magazine) #1 New York Times bestseller examines the legacy of slavery in America—and how both history and memory continue to shape our everyday lives. Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks—those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's collective history, and ourselves. It is the story of the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, the estate where Thomas Jefferson wrote letters espousing the urgent need for liberty while enslaving more than four hundred people. It is the story of the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations devoted to preserving the experience of the enslaved people whose lives and work sustained it. It is the story of Angola, a former plantation-turned-maximum-security prison in Louisiana that is filled with Black men who work across the 18,000-acre land for virtually no pay. And it is the story of Blandford Cemetery, the final resting place of tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers. A deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our country's most essential stories are hidden in plain view—whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth, or entire neighborhoods like downtown Manhattan, where the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women, and children has been deeply imprinted. Informed by scholarship and brought to life by the story of people living today, Smith's debut work of nonfiction is a landmark of reflection and insight that offers a new understanding of the hopeful role that memory and history can play in making sense of our country and how it has come to be. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction Winner of the Stowe Prize Winner of 2022 Hillman Prize for Book Journalism A New York Times 10 Best Books of 2021

The 1619 Project

Author : Nikole Hannah-Jones,The New York Times Magazine
Publisher : One World
Page : 625 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2024-06-04
Category : History
ISBN : 9780593230596

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The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones,The New York Times Magazine Pdf

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAACP IMAGE AWARD WINNER • A dramatic expansion of a groundbreaking work of journalism, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story offers a profoundly revealing vision of the American past and present. “[A] groundbreaking compendium . . . bracing and urgent . . . This collection is an extraordinary update to an ongoing project of vital truth-telling.”—Esquire NOW AN EMMY-NOMINATED HULU ORIGINAL DOCUSERIES • FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, NPR, Esquire, Marie Claire, Electric Lit, Ms. magazine, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country’s original sin, but it is more than that: It is the source of so much that still defines the United States. The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning 1619 Project issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This book substantially expands on that work, weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. The essays show how the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and our democracy itself. This book that speaks directly to our current moment, contextualizing the systems of race and caste within which we operate today. It reveals long-glossed-over truths around our nation’s founding and construction—and the way that the legacy of slavery did not end with emancipation, but continues to shape contemporary American life. Featuring contributions from: Leslie Alexander • Michelle Alexander • Carol Anderson • Joshua Bennett • Reginald Dwayne Betts • Jamelle Bouie • Anthea Butler • Matthew Desmond • Rita Dove • Camille T. Dungy • Cornelius Eady • Eve L. Ewing • Nikky Finney • Vievee Francis • Yaa Gyasi • Forrest Hamer • Terrance Hayes • Kimberly Annece Henderson • Jeneen Interlandi • Honorée Fanonne Jeffers • Barry Jenkins • Tyehimba Jess • Martha S. Jones • Robert Jones, Jr. • A. Van Jordan • Ibram X. Kendi • Eddie Kendricks • Yusef Komunyakaa • Kevin M. Kruse • Kiese Laymon • Trymaine Lee • Jasmine Mans • Terry McMillan • Tiya Miles • Wesley Morris • Khalil Gibran Muhammad • Lynn Nottage • ZZ Packer • Gregory Pardlo • Darryl Pinckney • Claudia Rankine • Jason Reynolds • Dorothy Roberts • Sonia Sanchez • Tim Seibles • Evie Shockley • Clint Smith • Danez Smith • Patricia Smith • Tracy K. Smith • Bryan Stevenson • Nafissa Thompson-Spires • Natasha Trethewey • Linda Villarosa • Jesmyn Ward

My Face Is Black Is True

Author : Mary Frances Berry
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2009-07-16
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0307538710

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My Face Is Black Is True by Mary Frances Berry Pdf

Acclaimed historian Mary Frances Berry resurrects the remarkable story of ex-slave Callie House who, seventy years before the civil-rights movement, demanded reparations for ex-slaves. A widowed Nashville washerwoman and mother of five, House (1861-1928) went on to fight for African American pensions based on those offered to Union soldiers, brilliantly targeting $68 million in taxes on seized rebel cotton and demanding it as repayment for centuries of unpaid labor. Here is the fascinating story of a forgotten civil rights crusader: a woman who emerges as a courageous pioneering activist, a forerunner of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Atonement and Forgiveness

Author : Roy L. Brooks
Publisher : University of California Press
Page : 346 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2019-07-02
Category : History
ISBN : 9780520343405

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Atonement and Forgiveness by Roy L. Brooks Pdf

Roy L. Brooks reframes one of the most important, controversial, and misunderstood issues of our time in this far-reaching reassessment of the growing debate on black reparation. Atonement and Forgiveness shifts the focus of the issue from the backward-looking question of compensation for victims to a more forward-looking racial reconciliation. Offering a comprehensive discussion of the history of the black redress movement, this book puts forward a powerful new plan for repairing the damaged relationship between the federal government and black Americans in the aftermath of 240 years of slavery and another 100 years of government-sanctioned racial segregation. Key to Brooks's vision is the government's clear signal that it understands the magnitude of the atrocity it committed against an innocent people, that it takes full responsibility, and that it publicly requests forgiveness—in other words, that it apologizes. The government must make that apology believable, Brooks explains, by a tangible act that turns the rhetoric of apology into a meaningful, material reality, that is, by reparation. Apology and reparation together constitute atonement. Atonement, in turn, imposes a reciprocal civic obligation on black Americans to forgive, which allows black Americans to start relinquishing racial resentment and to begin trusting the government's commitment to racial equality. Brooks's bold proposal situates the argument for reparations within a larger, international framework—namely, a post-Holocaust vision of government responsibility for genocide, slavery, apartheid, and similar acts of injustice. Atonement and Forgiveness makes a passionate, convincing case that only with this spirit of heightened morality, identity, egalitarianism, and restorative justice can genuine racial reconciliation take place in America.

Why We Can't Wait

Author : Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Publisher : Beacon Press
Page : 120 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2011-01-11
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780807001134

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Why We Can't Wait by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Pdf

Dr. King’s best-selling account of the civil rights movement in Birmingham during the spring and summer of 1963 On April 16, 1963, as the violent events of the Birmingham campaign unfolded in the city’s streets, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., composed a letter from his prison cell in response to local religious leaders’ criticism of the campaign. The resulting piece of extraordinary protest writing, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” was widely circulated and published in numerous periodicals. After the conclusion of the campaign and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, King further developed the ideas introduced in the letter in Why We Can’t Wait, which tells the story of African American activism in the spring and summer of 1963. During this time, Birmingham, Alabama, was perhaps the most racially segregated city in the United States, but the campaign launched by King, Fred Shuttlesworth, and others demonstrated to the world the power of nonviolent direct action. Often applauded as King’s most incisive and eloquent book, Why We Can’t Wait recounts the Birmingham campaign in vivid detail, while underscoring why 1963 was such a crucial year for the civil rights movement. Disappointed by the slow pace of school desegregation and civil rights legislation, King observed that by 1963—during which the country celebrated the one-hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation—Asia and Africa were “moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence but we still creep at a horse-and-buggy pace.” King examines the history of the civil rights struggle, noting tasks that future generations must accomplish to bring about full equality, and asserts that African Americans have already waited over three centuries for civil rights and that it is time to be proactive: “For years now, I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’”