Root the Future

Finally, I came upon this issue of the Journal of African-American History, totally devoted to reparations. The issue is indispensable for understanding the history of the reparations movement. I am specifically indebted to anthropologist James M. Davidson for his article, “Encountering the Ex-Slave Reparations Movement From the Grave.” Taken together I understood that the claim for reparations was—at the very least—as old as the United States of America itself. The claim for reparations did not begin a century after the crime, but was made at the time of the crime and immediately after. Now I began to see the entire device—a method by which you exploit a people and then clean yourself of all responsibility.