2024 Reparations Priority Bill Package: New California Laws Taking Effect

A timely groundbreaking book in the vein of Derrick Bell's Faces at the Bottom of the Well, one of the country's foremost voices on reparations, offers a radical and vital new framework going beyond the current debate over this controversial issue. For over a century, the idea of reparations for the descendants of enslaved Black Americans has divided the United States. However, while the iconic phrase "40 acres and a mule" encapsulates the general notion of reparations, history has proven that the damages of enslavement on the African American community far exceed what a plot of land or a check could repair.   While reparations are being widely debated once again, current petitions to redress the lasting and collateral consequences of slavery have not moved past economic solutions, even though we know that monetary redress alone is not enough. Not only would many wounds be left unhealed, but relying solely on economics would continue a legacy of neglect for African Americans. In this thoughtful and sure-to-be controversial book, Marcus Anthony Hunter argues that a radical shift in our outlook is necessary; we need more comprehensive solutions such as those currently sought by today's educators, historians, activists, organizers, Afrofuturists, and socially conscious citizens.  In Radical Reparations, this conversation shifter, social justice pioneer, change agent, and inventor of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, which redefined the global conversation on racism and social justice, offers a unifying and unconventional framework for achieving holistic and comprehensive healing of African American communities. Hunter reimagines reparations through a profound new lens as he defines seven types of compensation: political, intellectual, legal, economic, spatial, social, and spiritual, using analysis of historical documents, comparative international cases, and speculative parables.  Profound and revolutionary, trenchant and timely, Radical Reparations provides a compellingly and provocatively reframing of reparations' past, present, and future, offering a unifying way forward for us all.   

The Black Lives Matter movement has exposed the state violence and social devaluation that Black populations continue to suffer. Police shootings and incarceration inequalities in the US and UK are just two examples of the legacy of slavery today. This book offers a criminological exploration of the case for slavery and anti-Black racism reparations in the context of the enduring harms and differential treatment of Black citizens. Through critical analysis of legal arguments and reviewing recent court actions, it refutes the policy perspectives that argue against reparations. Highlighting the human rights abuses inherent to and arising from slavery and ongoing racism, this book calls for governments to take responsibility for the impact of ongoing racialized injustice.

This book considers institutional racism as a problem that exists within modern societies. Its roots lie with the transatlantic slave trade and slavery and the solution involves ridding society of the problem. It is argued here that, first, there needs to be an acceptance of its existence, then developing the tools needed to deal with it and, finally, to implement those tools so that institutional racism can be permanently removed from society. The book has four themes: the first considers the nature of institutional racism, the second theme looks at instances of institutional racism through matters such as deaths in custody and skin lightening, the third considers the concept of reparations and the final area looks at the development of social movements as a way of pushing institutional racism up the political agenda. The development of a social movement is part of a social discourse which would, for example, push mentoring as a form of reparations. There is a need for more research on the manifestations of institutional racism and this book is part of that discourse. It is argued that the legacy of the slave trade and slavery is continuing and contemporary through the presence of institutional racism in society. This problem has not been addressed through legislation and policies devised to combat racial discrimination. Institutional racism needs to be understood as being located in the processes and procedures of societal institutions.

How do societies at the national and international level try to overcome historical injustices? What remedies did they develop to do justice to victims of large scale atrocities? And even more important: what have we learned from the implementation of these so-called instruments of transitional justice in practice?Lawyers, socials scientists and historians have published shelves full of books and articles on how to confront the past through international criminal tribunals, truth commissions, financial compensation schemes and other instruments of retributive/punitive and restorative justice. A serious problem continues to be that broad interdisciplinary accounts that include both categories of measures are still hardly available. With this volume a group of international experts in the field endeavors to fill this gap, and even more. By alternating historical overviews with critical assessments this volume does not only offer an extensive introduction to the world of transitional justice, but also food for thought concerning the effectiveness of the remedies it offers to face the past successfully.

An exceptional resource, this comprehensive reader brings together primary and secondary documents related to efforts to redress historical wrongs against African Americans. These varied efforts are often grouped together under the rubric "reparations movement," and they are united in their goal of "repairing" the injustices that have followed from the long history of slavery and Jim Crow. Yet, as this collection reveals, there is a broad range of opinions as to the form that repair might take. Some advocates of redress call for apologies; others for official acknowledgment of wrongdoing; and still others for more tangible reparations: monetary compensation, government investment in disenfranchised communities, the restitution of lost property and rights, and repatriation. Written by activists and scholars of law, political science, African American studies, philosophy, economics, and history, the twenty-six essays include both previously published articles and pieces written specifically for this volume. Essays theorize the historical and legal bases of claims for redress; examine the history, strengths, and limitations of the reparations movement; and explore its relation to human rights and social justice movements in the United States and abroad. Other essays evaluate the movement's primary strategies: legislation, litigation, and mobilization. While all of the contributors support the campaign for redress in one way or another, some of them engage with arguments against reparations. Among the fifty-three primary documents included in the volume are federal, state, and municipal acts and resolutions; declarations and statements from organizations including the Black Panther Party and the NAACP; legal briefs and opinions; and findings and directives related to the provision of redress, from the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 to the mandate for the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Redress for Historical Injustices in the United States is a thorough assessment of the past, present, and future of the modern reparations movement. Contributors. Richard F. America, Sam Anderson, Martha Biondi, Boris L. Bittker, James Bolner, Roy L. Brooks, Michael K. Brown, Robert S. Browne, Martin Carnoy, Chiquita Collins, J. Angelo Corlett, Elliott Currie, William A. Darity, Jr., Adrienne Davis, Michael C. Dawson, Troy Duster, Dania Frank, Robert Fullinwider, Charles P. Henry, Gerald C. Horne, Robert Johnson, Jr., Robin D. G. Kelley, Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie, Theodore Kornweibel, Jr., David Lyons, Michael T. Martin, Douglas S. Massey , Muntu Matsimela , C. J. Munford, Yusuf Nuruddin, Charles J. Ogletree Jr., Melvin L. Oliver, David B. Oppenheimer, Rovana Popoff, Thomas M. Shapiro, Marjorie M. Shultz, Alan Singer, David Wellman, David R. Williams, Eric K. Yamamoto, Marilyn Yaquinto