One hundred and forty years after the end of legalized slavery and 40 years after the passage of civil rights legislation, the legacy of slavery persists. In employment, education, healthcare, and criminal justice, African-Americans suffer from institutionalized racism. The movement to secure reparations for slavery has gained new traction with recent successes of Holocaust litigants. But it remains an elusive goal, due, in large part, to common misconceptions about what reparations would really mean.

Last month, Congressman John Conyers and scholars from around the country participated in an historic gathering to address the myriad issues arising from the debate over reparations. Held at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, the two-day conference focused on slavery and reparations as well as other instances of mass injustice in relation to the themes of justice, causation, group responsibility, moral culpability, racism and forgiveness.

Thomas Jefferson School of Law professor Kaimipono Wenger described reparations as an acknowledgement of the displacement of the rule of law under slavery. He noted that Blacks were denied civil and political rights even after slavery ended. Not only are reparations consistent with the rule of law, he said. They are in fact a product of the rule of law.

Conyers told the conference, After slavery ended, a new form of subjugation kicked in. There is a continuing, traceable, uninterrupted connection of racial subjugation that explains why there are ghettos today.
jurist.law.pitt.edu

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