Donate to the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, and check out their website for a discussion of what reparations are & are not.
Also consider joining Reparations 4 Slavery, an org of white people dedicated to achieving reparations.
Reparations are first and foremost, something that governments do to recompense those who have been harmed by that government. The United States issued an official apology and reparations ($1.6 billion to 81,800 people) to Japanese Americans interned during WWII. Without playing “oppression olympics,” it is not difficult to compare historical events and see that, if internment was worthy of reparations (which of course it was), then genocide and slavery certainly, certainly are. (Indigenous Alaskans did receive a reparations package, which provides a precedent and a model for discussion; parts of it are controversial).
Throughout clients’ work with Abolition in the Bones, they will be regularly asked to do what might be called “micro-reparations,” individual attempts to redress one’s personal and ancestral benefit from genocide and slavery.
This project prioritizes organizations and movements that return land and sovereignty to Indigenous people and create liberation and self-determination for Black people, projects that are transformation-oriented. But giving to crowdsourcing for immediate needs for Black and Indigenous people that you may see on social media, is also strongly encouraged. If you hesitate to give to the individual crowdsourcing, ask yourself whether you are wanting to control how people spend the money you give; if so, giving anyway can be a practice for relinquishing control.
The first two projects highlighted on this page are the ones in the financial integrity policy.
The planned Anpetu Wi wind farm will be a 235MW wind farm, owned by the Standing Rock Sioux nation, that will prioritize people, land, and nature over profit (website).
Anpetu Wi (“morning light”) will be the single largest revenue source for Standing Rock, which they plan to reinvest into future projects and Standing Rock as a whole. Projects like housing, food sovereignty, and healthcare are on the agenda according to current and former chairmen of the nation (video here). It is a “critical step toward self-determination, now and into the future” (website). Check out the website for more info and to donate now.
“VOCAL-NY is a statewide grassroots membership organization that builds power among low-income people directly impacted by HIV/AIDS, the drug war, mass incarceration, and homelessness.
“[They] accomplish this through community organizing, leadership development, advocacy, direct services, and direct action.”
Check out their website for more info and to donate now.
New Yorkers should also donate to the Manna-hatta Fund, which supports the American Indian Community House in New York City.
Bay Area residents should donate to the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust via the Shuumi Land Tax. This helps to rematriate stolen land to Indigenous people as well as supporting healing projects.
In the Seattle area, Real Rent Duwamish is a similar project; Long Island residents can donate to the Shinnecock Land Acquisition and Stewardship Fund, and there is also the Wiyot Honor Tax in Northern California.
Black Lives Matter needs no introduction/promotion. Pay up, if you can.
Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity: BOLD is a national Leadership Training Program designed to help rebuild Black (African-American, Caribbean, African, Afro-Latino) social justice infrastructure in order to organize Black communities more effectively and re-center Black leadership in the U.S. social justice movement.
The Audre Lorde Project is one of NYC’s longest standing LGBTQ advocacy groups for people of color