Reparations are payments and other forms of repair for a historic injustice, made by the government or institution responsible. In the US, the term usually refers to repair for slavery and the century of legal discrimination that followed. Repair can include cash payments, land, housing aid, education funding and formal apology.
The idea is old. In January 1865, General William T. Sherman's Field Order No. 15 set aside coastal land for freed families in plots of up to 40 acres, but President Andrew Johnson reversed it that year. The US has paid reparations before: the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 issued a formal apology and $20,000 to each surviving Japanese American incarcerated during World War II. Representative John Conyers first introduced H.R. 40, a bill to study reparations for slavery, in 1989.
Recent action has been local and state-level. In 2021, Evanston, Illinois, began a reparations program funded by cannabis tax revenue, offering $25,000 housing grants to eligible Black residents. California's Reparations Task Force released its final report in 2023 with more than 100 recommendations. In 2024, the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit brought by the last survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.