Introduction World History and the Work of Reparations

ABSTRACT

There is far more consciousness that to be Black in the present world is to face a constant vulnerability to violence, premature death, incarceration, environmental havoc, and impoverishment. To be Black in the present world is to bear the weight of the irreparable loss and lingering physical and emotional scars caused by the abduction and enslavement of more than 15 million African people and their descendants. To be Black in the present world is to contend continually with the afterlife of slavery. And significantly today, it has become much more obvious that racism constitutes a "pre-existing societal condition" that now obstructs efforts at national and global levels to contain the COVID- 19 pandemic. Here, Murphy et al talk about the social movements for reparations.