User:Claireregan1206/sandbox

Finding Sources (Due 2/16)

Below I will list some of the sources I plan to use. This is far from comprehensive, for there are an abundance of sources on the topic of Slavery Reparations.

• Books
  • "Living History: Encountering the Memoir of the Heirs of Slavery"
  • "Britain’s Black Debt: Reparations for Caribbean Slavery and Native Genocide"
• Databases
  • "Slavery and Anti-Slavery = US and European slavery archives"
  • "Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice 1490-2007 = slavery and abolition studies"
• Articles
  • Estimating Slavery Reparations: Present Value Comparisons of Historical Multigenerational Reparation Policies
  • Saving the Republic: State Nostalgia and Slavery Reparations in Media and Political Discources
  • Slavery Reparations
  • US Reparations to Descendants of Enslaved Blacks in the US
• Several annual reports of anti-slavery sociteties

Notes for Improving Article (Due 2/16)

• The first "lead" section of this article is very underdeveloped, and does not provide a good summary for what will be in the rest of the article. I would start by briefly editing this.
• I will then jump to the bibliography, and figure out if the sources listed are reliable sources of information.
• I will then move onto the "Demands for slavery" section. I will look through what information is there already, and try to verify whether it is true. I will then likely add sub-sections for each country or region, and add more detail on the history of slave reparations in each country.
• In addition, depending on what information I come up with, I will add other sections. For example, I may create a section on the debates over slavery reparations, who important leaders or movements may have been, etc.

Working Edits for "Reparations for Slavery" Article (Due 3/6)

Reparations

United States

Slavery ended in the United States in the year 1865, following the Union defeat of the Confederates in the American Civil War (http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GVRL&u=umuser&id=GALE%7CCX3402800373&v=2.1&it=r&sid=summon&authCount=1). Shortly after, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Consitutition was ratified, which declared that, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction" (https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/United_States_of_America_1992). At the time in which the Thirteenth Amendment was passed, an estimated four million slaves were set free (http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GVRL&u=umuser&id=GALE%7CCX3402800373&v=2.1&it=r&sid=summon&authCount=1). Recent research estimates that the monetary value of slave labor in current U.S. dollars is somewhere between $5.9 and $14.2 trillion. (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ssqu.12151/full). Attempts to find ways to make reparations for slavery have been slowed by political debates and difficulties determining the how and to whom reparations would be paid.

Countless demands have been made for reparations in several different forms. For example, social activist Honshu Amariel recommended that the United States Government compensate Blacks by providing them with "free education, free medical, free legal, and free financial aid for 50 years, with no taxes levied," or give $1 million to Blacks who chose to leave the United States (https://books.google.com/books?id=TZ6NAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT308&lpg=PT308&dq=howshua+amariel+reparations&source=bl&ots=tm6OXGgXdm&sig=lxyKn1YRh37XJNJSKzlrZTlv3uI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj-oNqwl8PSAhUq_4MKHaMoDhMQ6AEISzAJ#v=onepage&q=howshua%20amariel%20reparations&f=false). In addition, Representative John Conyers Jr. has proposed a bill titled "H.R. 40 - Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act" to the United States Congress every year since 1989, though it has yet to be passed. This bill, as its name suggests, suggests the creation of a commission to study slavery and its continuing impact it has on African Americans today, as well as proposed reparations (https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/40/all-info).

Great Britain

Slavery was abolished in Great Britain with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. Although many apologies have been made by leaders of both Britain and London, no reparations have been made. The most powerful demands for reparations from Britain have come from Jamaica. In 2004, a coalition of Jamaican Rastafarian groups pointed to Britain as the largest culprit, demanding "...7.6 billion British pounds to resettle 500,000 Jamaican Rastafarians in Africa" (http://bigstory.ap.org/article/jamaica-revives-slavery-reparations-commission). Not surprisingly, Great Britain rejected this claim.

During an apology made by Mayor of London Ken Livingstone in 2007, he admitted that many London institutions "...still have the benefit of the wealth they created from slavery" (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-477337/Livingstone-breaks-tears-slave-trade-memorial.html).