Overview

Katherine Franke makes a powerful case for reparations for Black Americans by amplifying the stories of formerly enslaved people and calling for repair of the damage caused by the legacy of American slavery. Repair invites readers to explore the historical context for reparations, offering a detailed account of the circumstances that surrounded the emancipation of enslaved Black people in two unique contexts, the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Davis Bend, Mississippi, Jefferson Davis' former plantation. This is an updated second edition of the original book with new material from the author.

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9781608466245

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Reviews

Katherine Franke argues for a type of Black freedom that is material and felt--freedom that is more than a poetic nod to claims of American moral comeuppance. Repair: Redeeming The Promise of Abolition is a critical text for our times that demands an honest reckoning with the consequences, and afterlife, of the sin that was chattel enslavement. It is bold call for reparations and costly atonement. -Darnell L. Moore, No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black & Free in America Katherine Franke is consistently one of the sharpest, most conscientious thinkers in progressive politics. In a time defined by crisis and conflict, Katherine is among that small number of thinkers whom I find indispensable. -Jelani Cobb, New Yorker columnist andauthor, The Substance of Hope

"""For more than one hundred and fifty years African Americans have made demands that the federal government redress and repair the catastrophic social, emotional, political and economic consequences of slavery in this nation. In this new essential book, Repair: Redeeming the Promise of Abolition, legal scholar Katherine Franke engages the original debates concerning the conditions upon which newly freed Black people would rebuild their lives after slavery. Franke powerfully illustrates the repercussions of the unfilled promise of land redistribution and other broken promises that consigned African Americans to another one hundred years of second-class citizenship. Franke passionately argues that the continuation of those vast disparities between Black and white people in U.S. society—a product of slavery itself—means that the struggle for reparations remains a relevant demand in the current movements for racial justice."" –Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation   ""Repair revisits the revolutionary era of Reconstruction, that “brief moment in the sun” in the words of W.E. B. Du Bois, when the redistribution of land and wealth as recompense for unrequited toil could have secured genuine freedom for Black people rather than a future of racial inequality, exploitation, marginalization, and precarity.  To being the road to repair, Katherine Franke makes a persuasive case for reparations as at least a first step toward creating the conditions for genuine freedom and justice, not only for African Americans but for all of us."" –Robin D. G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination     ""Katherine Franke argues for a type of Black freedom that is material and felt—freedom that is more than a poetic nod to claims of American moral comeuppance. Repair: Redeeming The Promise of Abolition is a critical text for our times that demands an honest reckoning with the consequences, and afterlife, of the sin that was chattel enslavement. It is bold call for reparations and costly atonement.”    –Darnell L. Moore, No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black & Free in America      ""Katherine Franke is consistently one of the sharpest, most conscientious thinkers in progressive politics. In a time defined by crisis and conflict, Katherine is among that small number of thinkers whom I find indispensable.”   –Jelani Cobb, New Yorker columnist and author, The Substance of Hope"

Praise for Wedlocked: The Perils of Marriage Equality: A persuasive and provocative addition to scholarship on the history and the influence of marriage. -Women's Review of Books [R]igorous, historical. -Los Angeles Review of Books [E]ven if same-sex marriage recognition does not exactly replicate the experiences of post-Civil War African American couples, the history of state-sanctioned African American marriage, by turns exhilarating and crushing, remains an important challenge to the dominant narrative that recognition is a pure good, as well as a reminder that there are always (at least) three parties in every marriage. And yet the romantic conception of marriage continues to peddle the idea that intimate relationships are the most private and personal of decisions made between two people. -Times Literary Supplement

Repair revisits the revolutionary era of Reconstruction, that brief moment in the sun in the words of W.E. B. Du Bois, when the redistribution of land and wealth as recompense for unrequited toil could have secured genuine freedom for Black people rather than a future of racial inequality, exploitation, marginalization, and precarity. To being the road to repair, Katherine Franke makes a persuasive case for reparations as at least a first step toward creating the conditions for genuine freedom and justice, not only for African Americans but for all of us. -Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination Katherine Franke argues for a type of Black freedom that is material and felt--freedom that is more than a poetic nod to claims of American moral comeuppance. Repair: Redeeming The Promise of Abolition is a critical text for our times that demands an honest reckoning with the consequences, and afterlife, of the sin that was chattel enslavement. It is bold call for reparations and costly atonement. -Darnell L. Moore, No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black & Free in America Katherine Franke is consistently one of the sharpest, most conscientious thinkers in progressive politics. In a time defined by crisis and conflict, Katherine is among that small number of thinkers whom I find indispensable. -Jelani Cobb, New Yorker columnist andauthor, The Substance of Hope

""For more than one hundred and fifty years African Americans have made demands that the federal government redress and repair the catastrophic social, emotional, political and economic consequences of slavery in this nation. In this new essential book, Repair: Redeeming the Promise of Abolition, legal scholar Katherine Franke engages the original debates concerning the conditions upon which newly freed Black people would rebuild their lives after slavery. Franke powerfully illustrates the repercussions of the unfilled promise of land redistribution and other broken promises that consigned African Americans to another one hundred years of second-class citizenship. Franke passionately argues that the continuation of those vast disparities between Black and white people in U.S. society—a product of slavery itself—means that the struggle for reparations remains a relevant demand in the current movements for racial justice."" –Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation   ""Repair revisits the revolutionary era of Reconstruction, that “brief moment in the sun” in the words of W.E. B. Du Bois, when the redistribution of land and wealth as recompense for unrequited toil could have secured genuine freedom for Black people rather than a future of racial inequality, exploitation, marginalization, and precarity.  To being the road to repair, Katherine Franke makes a persuasive case for reparations as at least a first step toward creating the conditions for genuine freedom and justice, not only for African Americans but for all of us."" –Robin D. G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination     ""Katherine Franke argues for a type of Black freedom that is material and felt—freedom that is more than a poetic nod to claims of American moral comeuppance. Repair: Redeeming The Promise of Abolition is a critical text for our times that demands an honest reckoning with the consequences, and afterlife, of the sin that was chattel enslavement. It is bold call for reparations and costly atonement.”    –Darnell L. Moore, No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black & Free in America      ""Katherine Franke is consistently one of the sharpest, most conscientious thinkers in progressive politics. In a time defined by crisis and conflict, Katherine is among that small number of thinkers whom I find indispensable.”   –Jelani Cobb, New Yorker columnist and author, The Substance of Hope

Author Information

Katherine Franke is one of the nation's leading scholars writing on law, racial justice, and African American history. Her first book was Wedlocked: The Perils of Marriage Equality. She is the James L. Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia University, where she also directs the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law.

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