Please join us for Black + Japanese American Reparations, a special virtual events series and book club. Many Black reparations advocates have pointed directly to the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 granting reparations to Japanese Americans interned during World War II as a precedent that can inform the case for restorative justice for African Americans. Indeed, as Ta-Nehisi Coates has argued, reparations is more than a recompense of past injustices, but a national reckoning “that would lead to spiritual renewal.” The USC Ito Center series and book club is thus predicated on a serious examination of the deeper meaning of “reparations." The  reparations-themed book club which meets every third Tuesday from January to July at 4pm PST kicks off with an Introduction to Black + Japanese American Reparations Book Club on January 19. We look forward to connecting with anyone concerned with racial justice and repairing America’s racial karma. Please see dates below and RSVP for each meeting for the Zoom link. Zoom meeting information will be sent closer to the event. 

Note: This book club is part of the Ito Center "Black + Japanese American Reparations." Other events in the series include "From Japanese American Redress to Black Reparations: A Conversation with John Tateishi and William Darity/A. Kirsten Mullen" and "Reparations Past and Present: A Conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates."  See the full series flyer here. #BJAReparations

Partnering Organizations: Densho, Japanese American National Museum, and Tsuru for Solidarity 

JANUARY 19 – RSVP 
Introduction to the Black + Japanese American Reparations Book Club

FEBRUARY 16 – RSVP
Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent (Random House, 2020).   

MARCH 16 – RSVP
Eric Yamamoto, “Racial Reparations: Japanese American Redress and African American Reparation” (BC Third World Law Journal, 1998)  

Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Case for Reparations” (The Atlantic, 2014)

David Frum, “The Impossibility of Reparations” (The Atlantic, 2014)

Patrisse Cullors – “Abolition and Reparations: Histories of Resistance, Transformative Justice, and Accountability” (Harvard Law Review, April 2019)

APRIL 20 – RSVP
Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands (Central Recovery Press, 2017)

MAY 18 – RSVP
William Darity and A. Kirsten Mullen, From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century (University of North Carolina Press, 2020)

JUNE 15 – RSVP
Katherine Franke, Repair: Redeeming the Promise of Abolition  (Haymarket Books, 2017)

JULY 20 - RSVP
John Tateishi, Redress: The Inside Story of the Successful Campaign for Japanese American Reparations (Heyday, 2020)