UIC School of Law UIC Law Open Access Repository UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship 1-1-2001 Forgive U.S. Our Debts? Righting the Wrongs of Slavery, 89 Geo. L.J. 2531 (2001) Kevin Hopkins John Marshall Law School Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.uic.edu/facpubs Part of the Law and Race Commons, and the Legal History Commons Recommended Citation Kevin Hopkins, Forgive U.S. Our Debts? Righting the Wrongs of Slavery, 89 Geo. L.J. 2531 (2001). https://repository.law.uic.edu/facpubs/153 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by UIC Law Open Access Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of UIC Law Open Access Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. REVIEW ESSAY Forgive U.S. Our Debts? Righting the Wrongs of Slavery KEvIN HOPKINS* "We must make sure that their deaths have posthumous meaning. We must make sure that from now until the end of days all humankind stares this evil in the face.., and only then can we be sure it will never arise again." President Ronald Reagan' INTRODUCTION: Tm BIG PAYBACK In recent months, claims for reparations for slavery have gained new popular- ity amongst black intellectuals and trial lawyers and have been given additional momentum by the publication of Randall Robinson's controversial and thought- provoking book, The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks.2 In The Debt, Robinson makes a serious and persuasive case for the payment of reparations by the United States government to African-Americans for both the injustices done to their ancestors during slavery and the effect of those wrongs on the current * Associate Professor of Law, The John Marshall Law School.