The Braxton Institute gives thanks for the sacred work accomplished in the historic March 25, 2026 U.N. Resolution Declaring the Trafficking and Racialized Enslavement of Africans as the Gravest Crime Against Humanity. This resolution connects with the reparations movement in Maryland, particularly with regard to historic Black communities within a broader moral and global framework. The recent United Nations resolution affirms what our communities have always known: that repair is not only necessary, but also overdue.
The transatlantic slave trade was not a closed chapter of history; it was the foundation of systems that created inequities in land, wealth, education, and almost every facet of life. In Lakeland, Maryland, part of the City of College Park, we see this truth clearly. Once a thriving Black community, Lakeland endured displacement, disinvestment, and erasure. Lakeland is particular, but it is not unique; it represents many other communities and forced displacements. Today, through the leadership of descendants and community advocates, it functions as a powerful site of memory, resilience, and reclamation. The U.N. resolution, led by Ghana's President John Dramani Mahama, supports our ongoing quest for truth-telling and our claims for reparative justice.
Yours in Community,
Rev. Joanne M. Braxton, PhD
Founder & CEO, Braxton Institute for Sustainability, Resiliency, and Joy!
Campaign Lead, Reparations for Lakeland Now!
“Africans and people of African descent have continuously resisted, contested and litigated the crimes of slavery and the slave trade from their inception, including through the more than six-century Africana abolitionist tradition, early acts of resistance and testimony, State diplomacy, armed struggles and the strategic use of courts and petitions to assert human rights, dignity, autonomy over their bodies and territorial sovereignty...”
