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- Jesse Van Tol, “Congress can pass reparations now to fix this 150-year-old injustice,” Washington Post (February 22, 2024): LINK. Much of the conversation about reparations for descendants of enslaved African Americans revolves around economic justice. Looking back on the failure of the Freedman’s Bank — a pillar of Reconstruction that went bankrupt in 1874 — the National Community Reinvestment Coalition argues that “Congress created this calamity. Congress should fix it.”
- “Work Requirements are Trash,” The Maven Collective (February 29, 2024): LINK. A new report from two economic justice organizations — CLASP (The Center for Law and Social Policy) and The Maven Collective — argues that “making people work to secure basic needs and safety is a practice that goes beyond recent economic policy to an earlier history of labor in the United States: slavery and its aftermath.”
- Elijah Andersen, “W.E.B. Du Bois’ study ‘The Philadelphia Negro’ at 125 still explains roots of the urban Black experience,” The Conversation (February 28, 2024): LINK. “Du Bois’ ethnographic descriptions of Black people living in isolated communities after the end of slavery and migrating to … [Northern] cities presages the dire conditions in inner-city communities of today, many of which are still largely Black.”
- Janie Har, “San Francisco Formally Apologizes to Black Residents for Decades of Racist Policies,” TIME (February 27, 2024): LINK. “Supervisors in San Francisco formally apologized Tuesday to African Americans and their descendants for the city’s role in perpetuating racism and discrimination.” The apology also recommended cash reparations, though local advocates are pushing for community investments instead.
- Sharryse Piggott, “How a Black teen’s turbulent journey sparked integration efforts within North Carolina Schools,” WUNC (February 29, 2024): LINK. The family of Joseph Holt Jr. fought to integrate an all-white Raleigh school in the 1950s. Today, Holt is 92 years old and still leads virtual discussions about desegregation.
- Edda L. Fields-Black, “Black Families Can Now Recover More of Their Lost Histories,” New York Times (February 29, 2024): LINK. In the search for her unknown ancestors, a scholar enlists the help of the International African American Museum’s Center for Family History in Charleston, South Carolina. One important tool: the digitized pension files of Black Civil War veterans.
- Rushaad Hayward, “40 years of Great Blacks in Wax: History we don’t want to remember,” WMAR Baltimore (February 28, 2024): LINK. “The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum [in Baltimore] isn’t like other museums.” The exhibits trace the history and afterlives of slavery from the earliest slave ships to contemporary Black leaders.
- “The Untold History of the African American History Museum Born in the Civil Rights Movement,” Teen Vogue (February 29, 2024): LINK. In 1965, Dr. Charles H. Wright founded one of the first museums chronicling the stories of African Americans, hoping to challenge stereotypes and false narratives about Black communities. Today, the Detroit museum that’s named for him houses over 35,000 artifacts and archival materials.