Repair: Redeeming the Promise of Abolition

By: Katherine Franke

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Synopsis: Renewed attention today to a demand for reparations for Black people in this country invites us to turn our attention to the historical context from which that demand originates. Repair takes up that invitation, offering a detailed account of the circumstances that surrounded the emancipation of enslaved African Americans in two unique contexts, the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Davis Bend, Jefferson Davis&’ former plantation outside Vicksburg, Mississippi. Repair makes the case for racial reparations in the United States by returning to a time at the end of slavery when many formerly enslaved people were provided land explicitly as a form of reparation, yet after President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated that land was stolen back from freed people and given to former slave owners. Thus begins a complicated and volatile fight for justice for Black Americans who have had to demand retribution for the crime of slavery in the US.