Harvard Crimson writers Julian J. Giordano and Sami E. Turner cover the fourth event in the HDS series of public online conversations titled “Religion and Legacies of Slavery,” which aims to build on Harvard’s landmark Legacy of Slavery report released in April 2022. The event, “Memory, History, and the Ethics of Reparations,” featured HDS professor of African American Religious Studies Terrence L. Johnson, and was hosted by Diane L. Moore, faculty director of Religion and Public Life; and Melissa Wood Bartholomew, associate dean of diversity, inclusion, and belonging.
The lecture focused on the malleability of historical memory, creativity in envisioning reparations, and the importance of collective accountability to redress the harms of slavery.
Johnson used Henry Ossawa Tanner’s 1929 painting, “Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah,” to introduce the themes of his lecture. “Through his use of color and delicate streams of light that conceals the apparent destruction of Gomorrah, we’re left pondering questions of memory, accountability, and repair,” Johnson said.
Johnson drew a contrast between the role of historical memory in discussions on reparations for enslavement as compared to other movements to redress systemic harm throughout history.
“Reparation debates, for instance, for Holocaust survivors and those in Japanese internment camps often took a different tone,” Johnson said. “Heartbreaking accounts from survivors of Japanese internment camps were taken at face value,” he said. “Whereas debates on Black suffering and death are stalled before they are developed. We are burdened by claims that enslavement was justified based on historical norms.”
Johnson stressed the importance of putting reparations “on the table” to create “structural change” in American society.
Read the full piece on the Harvard Crimson.