reparations

In 1825, France extracted a huge indemnity from Haiti, in exchange for recognition of its independence. This week marked the 200th anniversary of that indemnity agreement. Haiti’s former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide has argued that France should pay his country $US21 billion.

The online buzz over high profile Britons' ties to the trans-Atlantic slave trade put attention on the ongoing reparations push in Barbados, and other Caribbean nations.

As the people of New Zealand confront their nation's troubled past with colonization, a return to the Maori name of Aotearoa is being presented to a parliamentary committee.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and tribal leaders are advocating for a congressional commission to examine the impacts of the federal Native American forced-assimilation policy.

The report recommends ways to address the "lingering negative effects" of slavery — from policing reforms to housing grants to increased voting access to free tuition.

A committee formed by Harvard President Lawrence Bacow found that Harvard faculty and staff enslaved 70 people from the school's founding in 1636 to the banning of slavery in Massachusetts in 1783.

Haiti is one of the poorest nations in the world, and rich countries have their fingerprints all over the nation's stunted development.

The legislation would create a commission that would study the effects of slavery and racial discrimination, hold hearings and recommend "appropriate remedies" to Congress.

The new program, which aims to address harms suffered by Black residents due to the city's past discriminatory housing policies, is part of a larger reparations fund established in 2019.

COMMENTARYReparations are a big – and valid – debate today. Should the U.S. compensate African Americans for centuries of slavery? Should France pony up…