Genealogy, Family History, and the Fruit of Restorative Justice

Posted in Articles, History, Media Archive, Social Justice, United States on 2019-07-22 19:17Z by Steven

Genealogy, Family History, and the Fruit of Restorative Justice

Who Is Nicka Smith?
2019-02-12

Nicka Sewell-Smith

Restorative justice is already happening. But how can genealogists and family historians contribute and make even more of a difference?

Reparations is a dirty word. It’s heavily soiled, drug through the mud. It needs to be bleached, sanitized, and dried in the sun. It’s a term that polls badly. Most people hear the word and think of an ATM that won’t stop spitting out money for African Americans or of programs that only elevate Blacks and while everyone else suffers. Even our elected officials can’t even come together to get a bill through the House that will “examine slavery and discrimination in the colonies and the United States from 1619 to the present and recommend appropriate remedies.”

But what if I told you that reparations efforts and programs already exist all over the country? What if I told you that universities, corporations, and private citizens were already practicing restorative and transformative justice for past wrongs connected to the enslavement of the ancestors of African Americans and that these things are totally a form of reparations?…

Read the entire article here.

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