Presented by Alan Singer, Director, Secondary Education Social Studies and Teaching Learning Technology, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY
Debate over reparations for formerly enslaved Africans and their descendants is not new. In 1989, Rep. John Conyers introduced bills to create an education fund to support Black college and trade school students as restitution for enslavement and racism and to establish a Congressional Commission to study the impact of slavery on African Americans. Barbados, Jamacia, Martinique, and Ghana are demanding that former colonial powers pay reparations for slavery and colonization. The African World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission estimates that Europe owes Africa $777 trillion. What will be the political implications if reparations become a major issue in the 2024 Presidential election?
Alan Singer is a social studies educator and historian in the Department of Teaching, Learning and Technology at Hofstra University, Long Island, New York. He is a former New York City high school teacher and regularly blogs on Daily Kos and other sites on educational and political issues. Dr. Singer is a graduate of the City College of New York and has a Ph.D. in American history from Rutgers University. He is the author of Education Flashpoints (Routledge, 2014), Teaching to Learn, Learning to Teach: A Handbook for Secondary School Teachers, 2nd edition (Routledge, 2013), Social Studies For Secondary Schools, 4th Edition (Routledge, 2014), Teaching Global History (Routledge, 2011), New York and Slavery, Time to Teach the Truth (SUNY, 2008), and New York’s Grand Emancipation Jubilee (SUNY, 2018).
