Radical Reparations: Healing the Soul of a Nation

“An urgent call to action, a manifesto for justice, and a blueprint for a more equitable America. . . .It's time we confront our history head-on, and Radical Reparations provides the necessary tools.” —Congresswoman Barbara Lee

A timely groundbreaking book in the vein of Derrick Bell's Faces at the Bottom of the Well, one of the country's foremost voices on reparations, offers a radical and vital new framework going beyond the current debate over this controversial issue.

For over a century, the idea of reparations for the descendants of enslaved Black Americans has divided the United States. However, while the iconic phrase "40 acres and a mule" encapsulates the general notion of reparations, history has proven that the damages of enslavement on the African American community far exceed what a plot of land or a check could repair.  

While reparations are being widely debated once again, current petitions to redress the lasting and collateral consequences of slavery have not moved past economic solutions, even though we know that monetary redress alone is not enough. Not only would many wounds be left unhealed, but relying solely on economics would continue a legacy of neglect for African Americans. In this thoughtful and sure-to-be controversial book, Marcus Anthony Hunter argues that a radical shift in our outlook is necessary; we need more comprehensive solutions such as those currently sought by today's educators, historians, activists, organizers, Afrofuturists, and socially conscious citizens. 

In Radical Reparations, this conversation shifter, social justice pioneer, change agent, and inventor of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, which redefined the global conversation on racism and social justice, offers a unifying and unconventional framework for achieving holistic and comprehensive healing of African American communities. Hunter reimagines reparations through a profound new lens as he defines seven types of compensation: political, intellectual, legal, economic, spatial, social, and spiritual, using analysis of historical documents, comparative international cases, and speculative parables. 

Profound and revolutionary, trenchant and timely, Radical Reparations provides a compellingly and provocatively reframing of reparations' past, present, and future, offering a unifying way forward for us all.   

Marcus Anthony Hunter was the inaugural chair of the Department of African American Studies, holds the Scott Waugh Endowed Chair in the Division of Social Sciences at UCLA, and two-term president of the Association of Black Sociologists. He is a founding member of the Du Boisian Scholar Network and a member of the American Sociological Association and the Society for the Study of Social Problems. He has been featured on CSPAN’s BookTV, MSNBC, the BBC, NPR, the Sacramento Bee, the Los Angeles Sentinel, Talking Points Memo, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. He lives in Los Angeles.