Donia Human Rights Center Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Lecture | Legacies of Slavery: Calculating Transgenerational Costs and Demanding Reparations in Haiti and Brazil

This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required if you intend to participate virtually. Once you’ve registered, the joining information will be sent to your email. Register at: https://myumi.ch/m7D6k

The Donia Human Rights Center’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr. event this year features a panel of scholars who will discuss demands for reparations in Brazil and Haiti. The two nations might be seen as bookends in the torturous process of abolition of slavery in the Americas: Haiti, which emerged from the world’s only successful slave revolt, was the first nation in the Western Hemisphere to permanently abolish slavery, in 1804. Brazil was the last, in 1888. In both nations, longstanding demands for reparations have focused on different ways the legacies of slavery restricted freedom and access to social and economic resources for Black citizens up to the present. Panelists will consider how demands for reparations have evolved in each nation, gaining momentum alongside movements for reparation elsewhere in the Americas.

Martha Abreu is a professor at the History Institute of the Universidade Federal Fluminense. She is currently a visiting researcher at the Faculty of Teacher Training at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ / FFP) and CNPQ. She is a consultant at the Casa do Pontal (Brazilian Popular Art Museum) and one of the managers of the public history project, “Past Presents: Memory of Slavery in Brazil. She was one of the coordinators, alongside Monica Lima, of the curatorial project, “Museum of the Territory of Little Africa, Rio de Janeiro,” at the Museum of Afro-Brazilian History and Culture (MUHCAB).

Fernanda Thomaz is the director of the ‘Coordination of Memory and Truth of Slavery and Transatlantic Trafficking of Enslaved People’ created by the Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship in Brazil. She is also a professor of African History at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.

Marlene Daut is a Professor of French and African American Studies at Yale University. She is also a Series Editor for New World Studies at the University of Virginia Press and a Section Co-Editor for Global Black History at Public Books.

Commentator: Joshua Cole, Professor of History, University of Michigan

If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us at umichhumanrights@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.