Show Notes
Scholars are still uncovering information about Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade and its era of slavery, piecing together how the wealth generated from these atrocities shaped the nation’s history. For some descendants, this means just now learning about their families’ roles in and benefits from these horrors. In Britain, a few horrified heirs and private institutions are stepping forward to make amends, but there are few models for what meaningful reparations or restorative justice could look like. Where do we go from here, and what would truly make a difference? In this conversation from the 2024 Aspen Ideas Festival, the three panelists bring personal and academic experience to this weighty conversation. Harvard historian Vincent Brown, British TV presenter and historian David Olusoga and former BBC journalist and reparations advocate Laura Trevelyan discuss the meaning and practical application of reparations and restorative justice. New York Times editor Dean Baquet moderates the talk and takes questions from the audience.
Explore
Related episodes
As a budding journalist in Sydney, Australia, Geraldine Brooks was assigned to the horse racing beat in the sports department, with no experience or knowledge of the subject. She went to every single horse race in the city and reported on the results in great detail. It wasn’t until her 50s that she actually became personally interested in horses, and returned to the subje...
History is taught with textbooks and lectures, but it’s also passed down in more informal ways, within families from generation to generation. Different groups of people can become attached to varying stories of the same past, and some narratives are erased or distorted. Writer and scholar Clint Smith takes a close look at the mechanisms and consequences of those distortio...
Bryan Stevenson, founder and director of the Equal Justice Initiative, speaks with Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust about his organization’s efforts to build a museum examining the legacy of slavery, racial terrorism, segregation, and police violence.
Hear from Margot Lee Shetterly and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, two award-winning authors.
