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Article: Paying for past sins: the debate over reparations for slavery. (News Debate).(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Current Events, a Weekly Reader publication
- Article date:
- October 11, 2002
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Weekly Reader Corp. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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EVERYONE KNOWS THE FACTS: Black slaves did much to make the United States what it is today. They sweat, toiled, and died as slaves and received no money for their efforts.
The years of slavery left a deep racial wound in American society that persists to this day.
What can heal that wound? Some say the answer is to pay reparations to the slave descendants--America's 35 million African Americans.
Reparations are compensation, usually in the form of money, for past wrongs. In recent years, the U.S. government has paid reparations to some Indian tribes and to Japanese Americans put in detention camps during World War II.
Arguments for ...