Hundreds of U.S. communities are making reparations for slavery and colonization

Ever since the United States government’s unfulfilled promise of giving every newly freed Black American “40 acres and a mule” after the Civil War, descendants of the enslaved have repeatedly proposed the idea of redistributing land to redress the nation’s legacies of slavery.

Land-based reparations are also a form of redress for the territorial theft of colonialism.

Around the world, politicians tend to dismiss calls for such initiatives as wishful thinking at best and discrimination at worst.