In this episode of Future Perfect | Futur Antérieur, we welcome Dr. Amara Enyia, President of Global Black, and Makmid Kamara, Executive Director of the Africa Transitional Justice Fund (ATJLF). ATJLF convened the recent Accra Summit on Reparations and Racial Healing (August 2022), a gathering that brought together activists, policymakers, and foundations to start establishing a common agenda for reparations that centers the African continent. The Accra Summit built on the Reparations and Healing Convening, a weeklong meeting of reparations and healing experts hosted by Nicole Hannah Jones and facilitated by Dr. Enyia in Bellagio, Italy in July 2022. The Convening’s aim was to address the legacies of the Transatlantic slave trade and develop collective strategies for achieving redress and repair.
In this conversation, Makmid and Amara share the motivations for and outcomes of these two gatherings as part of a broader movement underway for achieving reparatory justice and healing for Africans around the world. Along the way, they talk to us about why reparations is not solely about the past, but rather is a future-making, world-building project, and why imagination must be a cornerstone of efforts to address historical crimes and their legacies.
Read the Accra Declaration on Reparations and Racial Healing, a key outcome of the Accra Summit here.
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Dr Amara Enyia is a US-based Strategist, Public Policy Expert and Social Impact professional on city and state policy as well as international affairs with expertise in Africa, Latin America, and Central Asia. In addition to her role as President of transnational advocacy organization Global Black, Dr. Enyia serves as Chairwoman of the International Working Group for the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, and as Manager of Policy & Research for the Movement for Black Lives. Prior to her current roles, she worked in the Mayor’s Office for the City of Chicago, served as Executive Director of community-based organizations, and, as a grassroots organizer, worked on issues of education equity, economic justice, and environmental justice. Dr. Enyia holds Bachelors degrees in Journalism and Political Science, Masters degrees in Education and in Cities from the London School of Economics, a law degree, and a PhD in Education Policy. Learn more about Dr. Enyia’s work here
Makmid Kamara is Director of the Africa Transitional Justice Legacy Fund (ATJLF), which is based in Accra, Ghana. Makmid is a human rights leader, researcher and development communications practitioner, with almost twenty years’ experience working with national and international development and human rights organisations in various countries, including Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and the United Kingdom. Notably, prior to joining ATJLF, Makmid served as Deputy Director of Global Issues and Head of the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR) Team at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International in London. Makmid holds an MSc with distinction in Development Communications from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and BA (Hons) with distinction in Mass Communications from Fourah Bay College (University of Sierra Leone). He started his career as a broadcast journalist in Sierra Leone. Learn more about Makmid Kamara’s work here.