Since the 1930s, the federal government has made payments to victims of financial hardships and social injustices. But for those suffering from the harms of slavery, the US remains silent.
Zoologist Elizabeth Morrison receives the Jamaican giant galliwasp from Mike Rutherford, a curator at the University of Glasgow, on April 22, 2024.
Jane Barlow/PA Images via Getty Images
Not all reparations involve money. Returning unique scientific resources is also a way of showing respect and righting past harms.
Fragments of Russian shells piled at a farm in the Chernihiv region of northern Ukraine.
Volodymyr Tarasov /Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images
War is wreaking havoc on land, water and critical infrastructure in Ukraine and Gaza. Two experts on peace and conflict explain how to include such impacts in peace agreements.
The Obim Rock internally displaced persons’ camp in northern Uganda.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The disability royal commission recommended providers offer redress to people who experience harm while in their care. But reparations for past harms were not addressed.
DRC Prime Minister Jean-Michel Lukonde (L) at Belgium’s AfricaMuseum in 2022.
Jasper Jacobs via Getty Images
When US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, he paved the way for the incarceration of Japanese Americans on the mainland and Hawaii
A Black man holds up a sign during a Reparations Task Force meeting in Los Angeles, California on Sept. 22, 2022.
Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Former enslaved persons have never received a dime for their labor. Nor have their descendants received reparations for the legacy of slavery.
Should the descendants be paid? By whom and how much?
King Charles III And Queen Camilla on their coronation day.
Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Activists view their moral case for the return of the diamonds as unanswerable, but it runs up against many complications.
What can the Crown Jewels tell us about the history and future of the British Royals? In this photo from last May, then-Prince Charles sits with Camilla and William by the Imperial State Crown in the House of Lords Chamber in London.
Ben Stansall/AP
Vinita Srivastava, The Conversation and Ollie Nicholas, The Conversation
Although King Charles will have a low-key ceremony this coronation, the Crown Jewels will still figure prominently. An exploration of the jewels tells a tale of exploitation, rape and pillage.
Koh-i-Noor as set in Queen Mary’s crown in 1911.
Tom Hanley/Alamy
As the 20th century’s preeminent scholar-activist on race, W.E.B. Du Bois would not be surprised by modern-day attempts at whitewashing American history. He saw them in 1930s and 1940s.
Millions have lost their homes in flooding caused by unusually heavy monsoon rains in Pakistan this year that many experts have blamed on climate change.
(AP Photo/Fareed Khan)
Does the Global North have a moral responsibility to protect and compensate those in the Global South that disproportionately bear the brunt of climate change devastation?
Extreme flooding in Pakistan in 2022 affected 33 million people.
Akram Shahid/AFP via Getty Images
That’s the big question at the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference, known as COP27, and it’s controversial.
A protestor holds a sign saying ‘Reparation for Reconciliation’ as Pope Francis arrives for a public event in Iqaluit, Nunavut on July 29, 2022, during his papal visit across Canada.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
The Pope’s apology could mark a new way forward if the Catholic Church makes genuine reparations for the evils it perpetrated.
A march following the return of Patrice Lumumba’s tooth from Belgium – all that is left of the anti-colonialist icon murdered in 1961.
Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images