Press Release
The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, a Crime for Which Reparations Are Due
PRESS STATEMENT — 25 Years Since the World [UN] Declared the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade a Crime for Which Reparations Are Due
In 2001, African people achieved one of our greatest victories of the 21st century at the UN World Conference Against Racism, held in Durban, South Africa. In its “Durban Declaration and Program of Action” [DDPA] the international community for the first time declared that the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery were Crimes against humanity and that Reparations are due the descendants of the victims of these crimes. Crimes against humanity have no statute of limitations and thus the DDPA destroyed any international legal barrier to African people suing the colonizing and settler-state countries which built their wealth on and owe their current power to stolen labor and resources.
The DDPA came out of a hard fought battle between African people and the descendants of our former enslavers. The December 12th Movement, along with the National Black United Front (NBUF) organized 400 people (“The Durban 400”) to go to Durban to lobby for our reparations demand. The U.S. vehemently opposed any discussion of reparations and, led by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, walked out of the Conference once it was clear that reparations would remain on the agenda. The DDPA, a consensus document, was won through the leadership of a Pan-African collaboration betweem African and Caribbean countries and African people from throughout the Diaspora. The Durban World Conference and the DDPA set the foundation for the Reparations Movement in the U.S. and around the world.
The DDPA is almost unknown in the U.S. because since 2001 the U.S. government has done everything in its power to “disappear” it. This reflects the same, white supremacist, imperial mindset which is now actively and openly removing all positive references to Black people in books, schools, museums, monuments and parks across the country.
Our renowned historian, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, said that “History is a clock… It tells you where you have been, what you have been, where you are, and what you are… It is a compass for understanding one’s place in the map of human geography.”
In the DDPA’s 25th year we are determined to put it back on the clock. We enter 2026 with the same conviction, vigor and optimism that we took to Durban and with the same slogan that guided our work.