Slavery Reparations
The State of Virginia has just taken a huge step toward apologizing for a grievous wrong. The enslavement of Blacks in Virginia lasted for centuries before the Civil War forced an end to the institution, but the attitudes and prejudices that allowed slavery to flourish survived. In a thousand different ways, from the laws of Jim Crow to the practices of underhanded realtors and financiers, prejudice against Blacks has persisted down through the years in America. While progress has gradually been made in mitigating the effects, legal and otherwise, of prejudice, apologies for slavery--along with the possibility of some kind of reparations--have been slow in coming.
Since 1865, various efforts have been made to move the United States toward finding a way to repay Black Americans for what their ancestors suffered. VCU Libraries has a number of books about the subject.
Mary Francis Barry's My Face is Black is True (call number Cabell Library E185.97.H825 B47 2005) covers the life of Callie House, an ex-slave who campaigned early for reparations, and the hard steps that ultimately led to her imprisonment and the end of the first national grassroots African-American movement.Roy L. Brooks' Atonement and Forgiveness (call number Cabell Library E185.89.R45 B76 2004) makes a case for reparations as a means to racial conciliation, setting the issue in the context of reparations made by states for other injustices, from apartheid to the Holocaust.
Raymond A. Winbush's Should America Pay? (call number Cabell Library E185.89.R45 S56 2003) is a collection of essays from various perspectives about the question of reparations.
More books on the subject can be found here. If you'd like to learn more online, National Public Radio has a page on the subject with links to further articles and interviews.
--John Glover, Reference Librarian for Humanities - Cabell Library