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Global Circle for Healing and Reparations Accra Summit I (August 1–4, 2022)
The Global Circle for Healing and Reparations Accra Summit I (held August 1–4, 2022, in Accra, Ghana) was a watershed moment that shifted the global reparations movement from purely symbolic gestures toward an actionable, Afrocentric legal and political agenda.
Co-hosted by the African Union Commission (AUC), the Government of Ghana, and civil society groups, the summit’s primary significance lies in explicitly centering psychological and cultural healing as inseparable components of economic and structural repair.
The fundamental outcomes and historic significance of the 2022 summit include:
1. The Signing of the Accra Declaration
The defining achievement of the summit was the adoption of the Accra Declaration on Reparations and Racial Healing. This document formally built upon past milestones like the 1993 Abuja Proclamation and the 2001 Durban Declaration. It established that crimes such as the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, colonialism, apartheid, and genocide were a "direct assault on the bodies, minds, and spirits of African people" requiring holistic treatment.
2. Redefining Reparations to Include Healing
Prior to 2022, international debates primarily focused on financial settlements. The Accra Summit I fundamentally changed this narrative by arguing that centuries of enslavement left intergenerational and untreated emotional trauma. It mandated that future frameworks must include communal and racial healing programs alongside financial restitution.
3. Establishing a Transcontinental Unified Front
The summit successfully created an anchor for unified diplomacy by bringing together activists, academics, and heads of state from continental Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, and the Americas. It demanded that African nations take a front-and-center role, aligning directly with Caribbean nations (CARICOM) to form a singular bloc.
4. Direct Blueprint for Ongoing Action
The 2022 Summit laid the direct structural groundwork for major follow-up diplomatic breakthroughs, including:
The 2023 Continental Study Tour to Barbados to form joint AU-CARICOM action plans.
The Accra Summit II and subsequent high-level proclamations.
Ghana's recent United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) pushes to transform international recognition into binding reparatory actions.
“We, as part of the Global Reparations Movement, acknowledge that there must be a Summit of Reparations commissions and commissions-in-formation to consolidate and expand the global African reparations movement.” - Accra Declaration on Reparations and Racial Healing
2. ACHPR RESOLUTION 543 (DECEMBER 12, 2022)
The Resolution on Africa’s Reparations Agenda and The Human Rights of Africans In the Diaspora and People of African Descent Worldwide - ACHPR/Res.543 (LXXIII) 2022 - Dec 12, 2022:
"2. Calls upon member states to: . . . take measures to eliminate barriers to acquisition of citizenship and identity documentation by Africans in the diaspora; to establish a committee to consult, seek the truth, and conceptualize reparations from Africa’s perspective, describe the harm occasioned by the tragedies of the past, establish a case for reparations (or Africa’s claim), and pursue justice for the trade and trafficking in enslaved Africans, colonialism and colonial crimes, and racial segregation and contribute to non-recurrence and reconciliation of the past;, . . . 3. 3. Invites civil society to document and report on human rights cases concerning people of African descent and Africans in the diaspora (or AU sixth region) . . . . 4. Encourages civil society and academia in Africa, to embrace and pursue the task of conceptualizing Africa’s reparations agenda with urgency and determination.”
3. The Pan African Roots-Synergy Maputo Roundtable (July 10–13, 2023)
The Pan African Roots-Synergy Maputo Roundtable (held July 10–13, 2023, in Maputo, Mozambique) was highly significant because it officially established and launched the African Union African Diaspora Sixth Region High Council. The roundtable served as a historic turning point for global African unity, transforming the African Union's long-standing conceptual recognition of the global Diaspora into a formal, structured institution for governance and economic collaboration. During the panel on VISION STATEMENTS ON THE GLOBAL CASE FOR REPARATORY JUSTICE: LEGAL STRUCTURES, MECHANISMS, INSTRUMENTS & MODALITIES, Siphiwe Baleka answered the call of the ACHPR Resolution 543 and established that:
“any Global Afrikan Reparatory Justice Strategy seeking reparations from the transAtlantic enslavement of various peoples from Africa must
proceed from a historical understanding of the origin and development of uniquely African concepts and systems of law;
recognize the conflict of laws that occurred between Africa and Europe when Pope Nicholas V issued the Dum Diversas Apostolic Edict, a declaration of “total war” that qualifies it as a crime against humanity with no statute of limitation;
proceed from a narrative that in many areas of Africa, slavery was not legal and thus the Dum Diversas Apostolic Edict did not make slavery legal throughout the earth and therefore, the MAAFA was not a transAtlantic slave trade, it was a transAtlantic trafficking of prisoners of war;
insist that, in accordance with principles of African law as well as current international law, Global Afrikan Reparatory Justice, the jurisdiction governing adjudication must be the jurisdiction where the crime occurred which, in this case, originated on the African continent.
4. Continental Study Tour on Reparations and Healing in Bridgetown, Barbados (July 24–28, 2023)
The University of the West Indies (The UWI), the African Union (AU), the Open Society Foundations, and the Government of Barbados convened The Continental Study Tour on Reparations and Healing in Bridgetown, Barbados (July 24–28, 2023). It established a unified global front between Africa and the Caribbean to campaign for reparative justice.
The core outcomes, strategic collaborations, and future roadmaps established during the tour include:
Strategic Outcomes and Roadmaps
Intercontinental Campaign Launch: It marked the launch of a joint global advocacy strategy bridging the African continent with the Caribbean Diaspora.
Policy Input for the AU: Learnings from the Caribbean experience were directly integrated to build the AU’s Common African Position and Programme of Action on Reparations.
AU-CARICOM Joint Mechanism: The tour laid foundational work for a formal African-Caribbean Joint Mechanism on Reparative Justice.
Strategic Advocacy Framework: The AU Economic, Social and Cultural Council (AU-ECOSOCC) committed to leading a long-term advocacy rollout across member states.
Key Focus Areas and Dialogues
Shift in Narrative: Leaders redefined reparations, framing them as a fundamental right to socio-economic development rather than simple cash payouts.
Accountability Frameworks: Discussions emphasized holding historical wrongdoers accountable for structural deficits regardless of whether a formal apology has been issued. [
Racial and Communal Healing: Panelists shared operational approaches to reverse modern systemic harms and communal trauma.
Elevating Marginalized Voices: Civil society groups, academics, and legal jurists successfully integrated decentralized perspectives, such as those from unrepresented Caribbean territories.
High-Level Bilateral Engagements
Barbados-Colombia Connections: Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and Colombian Vice President Francia Márquez held sideline talks expanding the reparative front to Afro-descendant populations in Latin America.
Cultural Reconnection: The tour officially bridged CARICOM states with AU organs to jointly address climate justice, global financial reforms, and colonial exploitation.
5. ACCRA REPARATIONS CONFERENCE (NOVEMBER 14-17, 2023)
The Accra Reparations Conference (held November 14–17, 2023, in Accra, Ghana) was a milestone event that shifted the global reparations movement from separate regional struggles into a unified, transcontinental political campaign.
Co-hosted by the African Union (AU) and the Government of Ghana under the theme "Building a United Front to Advance the Cause of Justice and Reparations to Africans," the conference established major structural legal and financial targets:
1. Adoption of the Accra Proclamation
The definitive outcome of the conference was the signing of the Accra Proclamation on Reparations. This historic document declared that the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism, apartheid, and neo-liberal exploitation have left deep, enduring scars on African and Diaspora societies. It formally asserted the inalienable right of African people to comprehensive restitution.
2. Creation of a Global Reparation Fund
Delegates agreed to establish a dedicated Global Reparation Fund. This financial mechanism was designed to systematically funnel compensation and restitution from nations and institutions that historically profited from slavery toward development projects across continental Africa and the Caribbean Diaspora.
3. Setting Up Actionable AU Mechanisms
To ensure accountability, the conference initiated concrete policy implementation steps, including:
Formulating an AU Committee of Experts on Reparations to legally champion and map out compensation claims.
Laying the groundwork for the Office of the AU Special Envoy on Reparations.
Mandating legal strategies, strategic litigation, and judicial efforts in international courts.
4. Demand for Formal Apologies and Structural Reform
The framework moved past purely financial requests to demand systematic, institutional changes:
Unconditional Apologies: It demanded that former colonial powers issue full, formal apologies as a baseline for reconciliation.
Global Governance Overhaul: It formally tied reparations to modern systemic reform, calling for changes in UN Security Council seats, international financial architecture, and sovereign credit rating biases.
Restitution of Artifacts: The proclamation prioritized the unconditional return of looted African cultural properties and human remains.
5. Launch of the Unified AU-CARICOM Front
The summit successfully bridged the geopolitical efforts of the African Union and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). By synthesizing the African Union's Agenda 2063 goals with the CARICOM 10-point plan, it created a single, formidable diplomatic bloc to challenge European and Western nations collectively.
With the African Union reparations architecture established, the next step was the formalization of engagement with the diaspora. H.E. John Dramani Mahama’s recent mandate at the 39th Ordinary Session of the AU Assembly (February 15, 2026) urges member states to establish national reparations commissions, echoing the 1993 Abuja Proclamation that ““Calls upon Heads of States and Governments in Africa and the Diaspora itself to set up National Committees for the purpose of studying the damaged Black experience. . . .” This has now been codified under the 2025 AU Theme of the Year roadmap, requiring all 55 member states to build internal legislative infrastructure. It was further reinforced by the 7th AUC-NANHRI Policy Dialogue, which explicitly mandated National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) to establish national reparations committees for localized evidence documentation and legal tracking.
Immediately, Siphiwe Baleka starting asking the question What Role for the Afro Descendants in the African Union's Commission for International Law (AUCIL) and the Proposed Legal Reference Group? The Case of the Republic of New Afrika
6. Ghanaian-led UN Resolution (A/RES/80/250) (March 25, 2026) & The Balanta Mandate
On March 25, 2026 The Ghanaian-led UN Resolution (A/RES/80/250) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Spearheaded by Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama on behalf of the 54-member African Group, the landmark vote passed with 123 votes in favor, 3 against (the United States, Israel, and Argentina), and 52 abstentions (including the United Kingdom and most EU member states). A subsequent analysis concluded that President Mahama should adopt the legal strategy of the Balanta Mandate submitted by Siphiwe Baleka since it fulfilled the ACHPR Resolution 543 and the legal recommendations given in Maputo in 2023 and, most importantly, offered a strategy that shifts the argument from "Who committed the crime?" to "Who currently holds the legal liability?" and then answers the question by identified the chain of legal liability (custody):
The Chain of Custody: Dum Diversas (The Mandate) → Asiento (The Contract) → Slave Trade (The Execution).
Furthermore, the Balanta Mandate overcomes the five primary legal barriers facing state-centric litigation
1. Sovereign Immunity (Jurisdiction and Execution Shields)
2. The Intertemporal Law Doctrine (Non-Retroactivity)
3. Statutes of Limitations (Time Bars for Civil Torts)
4. Lack of Individualized Legal Standing (The Identification Trap)
5. The Political Question Doctrine
The Baleka Mandate bypasse standard legal obstacles by shifting the claim from historic civil torts to active, ongoing international humanitarian law violations:
Neutralizing Intertemporal Law via "Ethnocide": Instead of litigating past "labor exploitation," the mandate frames the crime as ongoing ethnocide and the forced deprivation of nationality. Because the destruction of identity is continuous, the intertemporal restriction is voided.
Bypassing Standings via Genetic Citizenship: By leveraging autosomal DNA to establish unbroken lineage to the Balanta people of Guinea-Bissau, the mandate invokes the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). It transforms the plaintiff from a diffuse "racial minority" into an indigenous national with ancestral standing.
Piercing Time Bars via Prisoner of War (POW) Status: Baleka’s advocacy before the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent seeks an ICJ advisory opinion defining Afro-descendants as un-repatriated Prisoners of War under the Geneva Conventions. In humanitarian law, the statute of limitations for a captive remains Tolled (frozen) until formal release or repatriation occurs.
Targeting Unbroken Institutional Defendancy: The mandate identifies the Vatican—via the 1452 Papal Bull Dum Diversas—as the initial architect of the enterprise. Because the Holy See possesses unbroken institutional continuity since the 15th century, the defense of "dissolved historical entities" fails.
Note: “autosomal DNA” should read “non-recombinant DNA”
Siphiwe Baleka realized, however, that his Balanta Mandate did not satisfy point 1 of his recommendations at Maputo in 2023 that require that “any Global Afrikan Reparatory Justice Strategy seeking reparations from the transAtlantic enslavement of various peoples from Africa must 1. proceed from a historical understanding of the origin and development of uniquely African concepts and systems of law. . . .”. Therefore, on behalf of his paternal ancestry, Siphiwe Baleka completed the following:
Siphiwe Baleka and the Balanta people now had their own sovereign claim based on their own sovereign jursiprudence. The question now was: how to get justice? Siphiwe Baleka already tried to bring a case using his legal strategies on behalf of his family at the Inter American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR) and had tried to get an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) through the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD) with no success.
READ THE PETITION CHARGING THE UNITED STATES WITH ETHNOCIDE THAT WAS DISMISSED BY THE INTER AMERICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS - https://www.balanta.org/news/read-the-petition-charging-the-united-states-with-ethnocide-that-was-dismissed-by-the-inter-american-commission-on-human-rights
7. RESOLUTION ON THE AFRICAN COMMISSION’S CONTRIBUTION TO IMPLEMENTING THE AFRICAN UNION THEME OF THE YEAR 2025: “JUSTICE FOR AFRICANS AND PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT THROUGH REPARATIONS” - ACHPR/Res 653.(EXT.OS/XXXIX) 2025 (December 18, 2025)
In October of 2024, Siphiwe Baleka also went to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights seeking justice which resulted in the following:
October 21, 2024 BALANTA SOCIETY PRESIDENT ADVOCATES FOR AFRICAN DIASPORA RIGHT OF RETURN AT 81ST SESSION OF THE AFRICAN COMMISSION FOR HUMAN AND PEOPLES’ RIGHTS
Oct 22, 2024 CONSULTATIVE MEETING HELD WITH CHAIR OF WORKING GROUP ON INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS AND MINORITIES IN AFRICA
The historical significance of this timeline is that it represents the first time a formal African human rights body has officially adopted and codified specific, radical mechanisms for the legal "Right of Return" and structural reparations for the African Diaspora. By moving these concepts from activist rhetoric into formal international resolutions, this sequence of events changes the legal landscape for Afro-descendants globally.Previously, the "Right of Return" was largely a symbolic or political concept championed by individual nations (like Ghana's Year of Return). By securing an official resolution from the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), Siphiwe Baleka successfully elevated the issue into the framework of international human rights law. This gives Afro-descendant organizations a formal legal precedent to cite when lobbying other governments.
8. The New Afrikan Pan-Afrikan Sovereignty Doctrinal System (NAPASDS) and the Black African Judicial Sovereignty Doctrine (BAJSD)
Then, on May 7, 2026 Bro. Jami Luqman, Chairman of the Republic of New Afrikan Grassroots Mobilization provied the CRITIQUE II OF SIPHIWE BALEKA’S “SPIRITUAL TORT” FRAMEWORK, introducing the The New Afrikan Pan-Afrikan Sovereignty Doctrinal System (NAPASDS) and the Black African Judicial Sovereignty Doctrine (BAJSD).
Critique II became necessary because Siphiwe Baleka’s Framing The Spiritual Tort Committed by the Vatican Against The Balanta ( Spiritual Tort) framework simultaneously represents one of the most important breakthroughs in modern Black and African juridical thought — and one of the clearest exposures of how deeply unresolved the question of real Black sovereignty, real Black power, and African juridical completion still remains beneath the modern world order.
For in recovering Kassase, ancestral continuity, lineage continuity, sacred territoriality, African juridical memory, and the existence of an African civilizational order preceding conquest and enslavement, Baleka breaks open one of the central lies upon which the modern anti-African world was constructed: the lie that African peoples possessed no sovereign juridical order, no governing civilization, no lawful continuity, and no enduring authority capable of surviving conquest, captivity, dispersal, racial domination, and colonial rupture. In this sense, the work stands as a monumental act of recovery. But precisely because the work reaches so deeply, it simultaneously exposes the unresolved crisis still haunting major sectors of Black, Pan-African, reparations, and sovereignty discourse across the modern era.
For even where African injury is correctly identified, where colonial illegality is exposed, where reparative claims are asserted, where African continuity is partially recovered, and where sovereignty language emerges, the underlying question of real authority repeatedly remains unresolved.
The question of:
who judges?
who defines?
who validates?
who enforces?
who possesses final authority?
and where real sovereign power actually resides?
9. The High-Level Consultative Conference On The Next Steps To The Landmark United Nations Resolution on the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans (June 17-19, 2026)
Adopting the NAPASDS and BAJSD frameworks, Siphiwe Baleka then traveled to Accra, Ghana for the High-Level Consultative Conference On The Next Steps To The Landmark United Nations Resolution on the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans June 17-19, 2026 to introduce the frameworks and new strategy.
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The New Afrikan Pan-Afrikan Sovereignty Doctrinal System (NAPASDS)
NAPASDS represents a revolutionary legal paradigm that completely rejects the legitimacy of the colonizing state’s domestic courts:
Jurisdictional Abnegation: NAPASDS recognizes that filing a claim within the courts of the wrongdoer is a structural paradox. It bypasses the sovereign immunity and standing traps by refusing to litigate inside Western municipal systems.
The principle features of the NAPASDS and BAJSD frameworks are Suo Moto actions and exercising the principle of universal jurisdiction.
Suo Moto (often written as suo motu) is a Latin legal term that means "on its own motion" or "of its own accord." It describes a situation where a court, judge, or government agency takes up a legal case or action without any formal complaint, petition, or request from an outside party.
Universal Jurisdiction (UJ) is a legal principle allowing national courts to prosecute individuals for serious international crimes regardless of where the crime was committed, the nationality of the perpetrator, or the nationality of the victim. While regular criminal law requires a geographical or national link to a country, UJ operates on the premise that certain crimes are so heinous (e.g., genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, piracy) they constitute an attack on all of humanity. Therefore, any state has the right—and often the duty—to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Significance of the AU Model Law on Universal Jurisdiction
The African Union (AU) Model National Law on Universal Jurisdiction Over International Crimes (adopted in 2012) is a blueprint designed to help AU member states draft or strengthen their own domestic laws to prosecute international crimes.
Asserting African Ownership: The law was heavily prompted by African frustration with European courts using UJ to indict African state officials. The Model Law allows African nations to prosecute these crimes locally rather than relying on Western domestic courts.
Expanding Covered Crimes: Beyond the "core" crimes of genocide and war crimes, the Model Law expands domestic jurisdiction to modern transboundary threats, including piracy, drug trafficking, and terrorism.
Enforcing State Immunities: Crucially, Article 16 of the Model Law preserves customary international immunities for sitting foreign state officials and Heads of State. This limits the "abuse" of universal jurisdiction that the AU argued was being used politically by foreign powers.
No Trials In Absentia: It mandates that a suspect must be physically present on the state's territory for a trial to commence, ensuring fair trial standards and avoiding purely political judgments from afar.
Significance of the Malabo Protocol
The Malabo Protocol (adopted in 2014) is an amendment intended to merge the African Court of Justice with the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights to create a single African Court of Justice and Human Rights (ACJHR).
First Regional Court with Criminal Jurisdiction: If fully operationalized, it would be the first regional human rights court in the world capable of prosecuting individual people and corporations for criminal offenses.
14 International and Transnational Crimes: The Protocol vastly expands criminal definitions beyond the scope of the International Criminal Court (ICC). It gives the court authority over corruption, money laundering, trafficking, terrorism, unconstitutional changes of government, and the illicit exploitation of natural resources.
Corporate Criminal Liability: Uniquely, the Protocol introduces mechanisms to hold corporations criminally liable for human rights and environmental abuses on the continent.
The Immunity Controversy: Similar to the Model Law, Article 46A bis of the Protocol grants immunity to serving AU Heads of State and senior officials during their tenure, drawing criticism from global civil society but reinforcing the AU’s push for absolute sovereign legal protection. [
⚠️ Current Progress and Status
As of mid-2026, the Malabo Protocol has still not entered into force. It requires 15 ratifications from member states to become active, but progress remains highly sluggish due to states fearing a loss of national sovereignty. Civil society groups across Africa continue to heavily lobby governments (such as recent pushes in Nigeria) to ratify the treaty to combat rising transnational instability.
As it is now, the Accra Next Steps Commitments on Reparatory Justice are wedded to the old strategy and not the NAPASDS and BAJSD and is caught in the Westphalian (Western) legal frameworks that are nothing more than shields against legal liability and traps for reparations claims. The Accra Next Steps Commitments risk trapping the movement in endless management instead of building an immediate enforcement architecture.
Neverthelss, the African Union Architecture for Reparations and Restorative Justice were established and includes National Reparations Commissions as the engagement mechanism for African people, those at home and those abroad.
During the High-Level Reparations Event in Accra and the June 22 Report Back session hosted by Nkechi Taifa, the U.S. reparations movement realized it faced a critical structural challenge. Unlike their Caribbean counterparts who leverage state-to-state diplomacy via CARICOM, the "stateless" status of African descendants in the U.S. (and many other places, too) leaves them without direct representation in the African Union’s (AU) Reparatory Justice initiative.
To bridge this institutional gap, stateless Afrodescendants in the U.S. must immediately consolidate their domestic efforts into a single, unified diplomatic entity capable of executing a state-level engagement strategy with the AU and the Ghana Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
This has been formally presented to the key stakeholders in the United States, including the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Global Reparations Hearing Session on July 16, as well as to the African Union Citizens and Diaspora Organizations Directorate (CIDO) that serves as the secretariat for the African Union Committee of Experts on Reparations (AUCER) and the African Union Legal Refrence Group on Reparations (AULER).
HERE’S HOW THE AFRICAN UNION ARCHITECTURE IS SUPPOSED TO WORK FOR AFRODESCENDANTS IN THE UNITED STATES
Again, at the 7th African Union Commission-NANHRI Policy Dialogue The AU explicitly directed the enhancement of National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) by mandating the "establishment of national reparations committees" to execute localized evidence documentation and legal tracking. Four (4) states in the United States have officially established a statewide reparations committee, task force, or commission to investigate the legacy of slavery and racial discrimination in alignment with the AU policy directive:
1. California
Committee Name: Task Force to Study and Develop Reparations Proposals for African Americans.
Status: Concluded/Inactive. Established in 2020 via Assembly Bill 3121, this historic 9-member panel was the first of its kind in the nation. The group formally concluded its multi-year task on June 29, 2023, after delivering a comprehensive 1,100+ page final report to the state legislature detailing policy recommendations.
2. New York
Committee Name: New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies.
Status: Active. Enacted by Governor Kathy Hochul through bill S.1163-A in December 2023, this 9-member commission is actively holding public hearings. It is tasked with examining the state's historical ties to slavery and systemic racism, with a final report and policy recommendation deadline extended through January 2027.
3. Illinois
Committee Name: African Descent-Citizens Reparations Commission.
Status: Active. Authorized by the state legislature under the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus’s economic reform package, this 13-member body is actively meeting and conducting statewide hearings. In early 2026, the commission officially published its foundational historical report, “Taking Account: A History of Racial Harm & Injustice Against Black Illinoisans,” to pave the way for formal policy recommendations.
4. Maryland
Committee Name: Maryland Reparations Commission.
Status: Active. Established in December 2025, Maryland became the fourth state to create such a body after the General Assembly successfully voted to override a previous gubernatorial veto on Senate Bill 587. The newly active 23-member voluntary commission is tasked with presenting its preliminary findings by January 2027 and a final report by November 2027.
Over 15 major U.S. cities and municipalities have officially codified and established local, municipal-level reparations entities, commissions, or task forces. These bodies are designated by local city councils to investigate the hyper-local legacy of housing discrimination, urban renewal, segregation, and Jim Crow laws. The officially recognized municipal-level reparations entities in the United States include:
1. Midwest Entities
Evanston, IL (Reparations Committee): The most famous active program, which has distributed millions in housing grants to Black residents impacted by discriminatory zoning ordinances.
Detroit, MI (Detroit Reparations Task Force): Active body focused on local housing and economic development equity, partnered with the University of Michigan to track historic municipal harms.
St. Paul, MN (St. Paul Recovery Act Community Reparations Commission): Formed to explore direct investments into the local Black community, specifically targeting wealth gap closures and housing.
St. Louis, MO (St. Louis Reparations Commission): Appointed by the mayor to recommend municipal remedies for slavery, Jim Crow laws, and predatory housing policies.
Kansas City, MO (Mayor’s Commission on Reparations): Formed to study city policies that historically disenfranchised Black neighborhoods, specifically focusing on healthcare, housing, and education.
2. Southern Entities
Asheville, NC (Community Reparations Commission): Established to repair the localized harms of urban renewal, which gutted the city's historic Black neighborhoods and business districts.
Durham, NC (Racial Equity Commission): Tasked with addressing infrastructural imbalances, routing municipal funds specifically to green and equitable infrastructure in Black neighborhoods.
High Point, NC (One High Point Commission): Officially authorized by the city council to address systemic racial disparities across housing and local business lending practices.
3. Northeastern Entities
Boston, MA (Task Force on Reparations): Commissioned with leading academic researchers to document the city's historical role in transatlantic slavery and structural discrimination.
Providence, RI (Providence Municipal Reparations Commission): Advised the city on allocating municipal budget resources toward community investment following the "A Matter of Truth" report detailing the city's historical complicity in the slave trade.
Philadelphia, PA (Philadelphia Reparations Task Force): Created by a unanimous City Council vote to study and design a blueprint for atoning for systemic institutional racism against Black Philadelphians.
Amherst, MA (African Heritage Reparations Committee): Formed to establish a structural fund that addresses systemic inequalities stemming from local racial discrimination.
Cambridge, MA (Commission of Racial Justice and Equity): Formed to review municipal history and suggest policy revisions regarding systemic economic exclusion.
Greenbelt, MD (Reparations Commission): Enacted following a rare, historic voter referendum allowing the city council to establish a body that explicitly addresses structural racism within municipal boundaries.
4. Western Entities
Los Angeles, CA (Reparations Advisory Commission): A blue-ribbon task force explicitly tracking the city's historical jurisdiction to recommend hyper-local financial and logistical redress options for Black Angelenos.
San Francisco, CA (San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee): This entity developed an expansive local proposal highlighting policy overhauls for health, education, and financial redress.
Berkeley, CA (Reparations Resolution Process): Passed a multi-phase local framework explicitly built around municipal reckoning, acknowledgment, and redress for historical redlining.
According to the proposal that was drafted by Siphiwe Baleka, a Committee for Engagement with the African Union and National Reparations Commissions (CEAUNRC) would be established and invite every known state and municipal reparations committee, as well as all Reparations organizations and individuals to join the NAARC - United Front for AU Engagement which will be the official voice of Reparations in the United States. NAARC is the acronym for the National African American Reparations Commission that was launched in April, 2015 at the historic National/International Reparations Summit held at York College (CUNY) in Queens, New York. Delegates from across the USA and from 22 countries in the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, and Latin America attended the Summit. The conference featured a path-breaking dialogue between the NAARC Commissioners and members of the CARICOM Reparations Commission, led by Prof. Sir Hilary Beckles. The Summit adopted the following Resolutions, Pronouncements and Action Items:
Agreed to consolidate and expand the growing African global reparations movement by calling on civil society organizations and governments in countries where there is a legacy of enslavement to establish national reparations commissions or committees. Such commissions and committees should place a particular priority on educating, mobilizing and organizing young people. In that regard, the Summit agreed to connect with and engage the #BlackLivesMatter Movement in the United States and globally.
Agreed that the CARICOM Reparations Commission (CRC), which is demanding compensation/restitution from the former European colonialists for Native Genocide and African enslavement, will support the National African-American Reparations Commission (NAARC) by encouraging and facilitating Caribbean political leaders, artists, civil society activists and scholars to participate in various NAARC educational and mobilizing/organizing initiatives in the months and years ahead.
NAARC recognized the extraordinary value of the vision/mission of CARICOM in establishing the Reparations Commission and pledged to support the commission in its milestone programmatic and mobilizing/organizing work in whatever ways are feasible.
Agreed to welcome the establishment of reparations commissions in Europe, Britain and Canada that share the mission and values of the CRC and NAARC, and to seek meetings with such commissions in the near future.
Rather than creating a new organization from scratch and diluting decades of established credibility, this strategy operationalizes existing infrastructure since rejecting our own established national body would send a fractured signal to the international community and serve to illustrate that we don’t speak with one voice. CEAUNRC will directly capture, track, and leverage the rapidly expanding legislative infrastructure across the U.S. to present a comprehensive data matrix to the AU via an African - NAARC Joint Mechanism on Reparative Justice modeled on the AU Assembly Decisions 847 and 884 of February 2023 and 2024 respectively, which called for the establishment of an African Caribbean Joint Mechanism on Reparative Justice. This will mandate a trilateral coordination structure (via a Memorandum of Understanding) featuring quarterly meetings with:
NAARC-CEAUNRC
AU Committee of Experts on Reparations (AUCER)
AU Reference Group of Legal Experts on Reparations (AULER)
Through this mechanism:
Individuals - like Siphiwe Baleka who have restored their ancestral lineage and documented their genealogical link to their ancestor that was captured in their homeland and trafficked as a prisoner of war across the Atlantic and enslaved in the Americas or Nadir Abdul-Salaam, author of The Yale Experiment: From Human Trafficking to the Surveillance State and How a Community Resisted which establishes Yale University’s chain of legal liability from slavery up until continuing violations of the rights of Afrodescendants according to African sovereign law and universal human rights law;
Communities - like Tulsa/Black Wall Street or the Gullah Geechee community, etc;
Organizations - like the Balanta B’urassa History and Genealogy Society in America (BBHAGSIA) or the Bissa History and Genealogy Society in America, etc.
ALL can prepare and submit their reparations claims and evidence to CEAUNRC who would compile them and submit them to AULER for review and analysis. The AU Architecture for Reparations would be responsible for bringing these claims to the African Court on Human and Peoples Rights (ACtHPR) which would exercise Universal Jurisdiction and issue Suo Moto decisions. At that point, it becomes a matter of ENFORCEMENT and this is the fundamental issue concerning reparations:
WHO HAS OR WHERE DOES THE POWER TO ENFORCE REPARATIONS COME FROM?
The answer to that is the African people themselves, through a federal United African States continental government able to leverage santions, visa restrictions, embargos (on such things as gold, lithium, cobalt, etc), asset seizures, etc. These would then be enforced by the 123 nations that voted for UN Resolution A/RES/80/250 declaring the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans and racialized chattel enslavement as "the gravest crime against humanity". In other words, when there is sufficient compelling force, when the consequences of NOT paying reparations (in all its forms) is worse and more costly than payint them, only then will true reparations become a reality.
The African people themselves therefore have the power to enforce reparations and need not even petition the enslaving nations and entities anymore. This is a complete shift in thinking and strategy.
I will leave the discussion of the payment and disbursement mechanism for another day…..