Olivier Bancoult, center, the leader of the Chagos Refugee Group, stands on Capitol Hill with Roger Alexis, a Chagossian, left, and Philip Ah-Chuen, a Mauritian advisor to the group. They met last week with lawmakers to demand reparations and an apology for the forced removal of thousands of native inhabitants from the Chagos Islands in the 1960s and 1970s to make room for a U.S. military base.

They Were Deported to Build a U.S. Naval Base. Now They Want Reparations.

50 years after native inhabitants of the Chagos Islands were forced out to make room for a military base, a Chagossian leader came to D.C. seeking reparations.
Collage of newspaper clippings with three images of Japanese Americans.

What Reparations Actually Bought

The U.S. government’s redress program for Japanese Americans showed that the money matters. But it’s not the only thing that matters.
Lynette Mackey on the streets of San Francisco.

Can Reparations Bring Black Residents Back to San Francisco?

San Francisco has proposed the nation’s most ambitious reparations plan, including $5 million cash payments and housing aid that aims to bring people back.
Image from cover of "Reconsidering Reparations"

Reconsidering Reparations

Reparations must be rooted in a political context that will safeguard rather than erode the gains they make towards justice.
Kris Manjapra standing outside by a wall. He examines the history of when slavery ended, emancipation laws kept the enslaved in bondage—and rewarded the enslavers.

How Slavery Ended Slowly, and Emancipation Laws Often Kept the Enslaved in Bondage

Tufts Professor Kris Manjapra examines the history of the injustice of abolition in the U.S. and abroad and the need for reparations in his new book.
Graphic of money breaking the chains holding black hands.

There’s No Freedom Without Reparations

A movement to secure payments for descendants of enslaved people rages on.
Supporters with their hands stretched upward hold up a portrait of Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Demanding Reparations, and Ending Up in Exile

A firebrand Haitian president tried to hold France to account for its years of exploitation. He soon found himself ousted from power.
INTERIM ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES A map of slavery laws in the United States, from 1775 to 1865.

A Reckoning With How Slavery Ended

A new book examines the ways white slaveholders were compensated, while formerly enslaved people were not.
A group of freedpeople with tools

What Is Owed

William Darity and A. Kirsten Mullen’s case for reparations.
Lessie Benningfield Randle, a 106-year-old survivor of the Tulsa massacre.

100 Years After the Tulsa Massacre, What Does Justice Look Like?

In 1921, a white mob attacked Greenwood, killing hundreds of Black people and destroying the neighborhood. Justice was never served. Can it still be today?

Evanston, Ill., Leads the Country With First Reparations Program for Black Residents

The $10 million initiative will provide housing and mortgage assistance to address discrimination.
Joseph Stewart, president of the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation, holding a cross with cotton that he picked as a child in Louisiana.

Catholic Order Pledges $100 Million to Atone for Slave Labor and Sales

The move by Jesuit priests is the largest such effort by the Roman Catholic Church and comes amid growing calls for reparations across the United States.
a pro-Trump protestor climbing scaffolding above a crowd

The Persistence of Hate In American Politics

After Charlottesville, the historian Joan Wallach Scott wanted to find out how societies face up to their past—and why some fail.
An illustration of Black men pulling a platform covered in trash and American symbols.

What Price Wholeness?

A new proposal for reparations for slavery raises three critical questions: How much does America owe? Where will the money come from? And who gets paid?

After Reparations

How a scholarship helped — and didn't help — descendants of victims of the 1923 Rosewood racial massacre.
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The Case for Reparations Is Nothing New

In fact, Black activists and civil rights leaders have been advocating for compensation for the trauma and cost of slavery for centuries.

Our Ancestors Were Sold to Save Georgetown. ‘$400,000 Is Not Going to Do It.’

The school has decided how much money we’re owed in reparations.
Paintings of a line of people in darkness in chains behind a Black woman in the light receiving a diploma.

Slavery Reparations Seem Impossible. In Many places, They’re Already Happening.

At the local level, reparations for slavery are already being paid all over the country.

A Personal Act of Reparation

The long aftermath of a North Carolina man’s decision to deed a plot of land to his former slaves.

The Tortured Logic of #ADOS

The American Descendants of Slavery movement combines a left-wing critique of America’s founding with a distinctly right-wing strain of xenophobia.