Long Overdue : : The Politics of Racial Reparations / / Charles P. Henry.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter New York University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Henry, Charles P.,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : New York University Press, , [2007]; ©2007
• Year of Publication: 2007
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

An investigation of America’s failure to atone for the wrongs of slaveryEver since the unfulfilled promise of “forty acres and a mule” after the Civil War, America has consistently failed to compensate Black Americans for the wrongs of slavery. Exploring why America has struggled to confront the issue of racial injustice, Long Overdue provides a history of the racial reparations movement and shows why it is more relevant now than ever.Through an examination of Americans’ unwillingness to address economic injustice, Charles P. Henry crafts a skillful moral, political, economic, and historical argument for African American reparations, focusing on successful political cases. In the wake of successes in South Africa and New Zealand, new models for reparations have found traction in a number of American cities and states, from Dallas to Baltimore and Virginia to California. By looking at other dispossessed groups—Native Americans, Holocaust survivors, and Japanese internment victims in the 1940s—Henry shows how some groups have won the fight for reparations, and explores new ways forward for Black Americans. From Hurricane Katrina to Hurricane Harvey, the events of the 21st century continue to show that the legacy of racial segregation and economic disadvantage is never far below the surface in America. As the issue of reparations is brought to the national stage by figures such as Ta-Nehisi Coates and Kamala Harris, Long Overdue provides a must-read survey of the political and legislative efforts made toward reparations over the course of American history, and offers a new path toward establishing equality for all Black Americans.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction: Insufficient Funds -- 1 A Political and Legal History of Reparations and Race Relations -- 2 From Forty Acres to “We Must Have Our Money”: Reparations from Antebellum to Civil Rights America -- 3 A Winning Case: Comparing the Rosewood and Greenwood Reparations Claims -- 4 The Contemporary Debate: The Legacy of Slavery and the Antireparations Movement -- 5 Reparations Go Global: Pan Africanism and the World Conference against Racism -- 6 A True Revolution of Values: Changing the Culture and Politics of Reparations -- Epilogue: We Are American: The Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Author