Reckoning with Reparations on Martin Luther King Day

As we observe Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, we must reflect and act upon an unfulfilled promise.

In 1968, Dr. King proclaimed, "[W]hen we come to Washington in this campaign, we are coming to get our check." This was no metaphorical check but a stark reminder of the debts owed, the reparations for centuries of racial injustice that remain unsettled.

For over four centuries, America has wrestled with the sin of slavery—a cancer that, despite being abolished, has metastasized into systemic racism, overtly and insidiously affecting the lives of millions of Black Americans. Slavery may have ended, on paper, with the Emancipation Proclamation.

Read more at The Daily Beast.