Last Wednesday, the United States joined Israel and Argentina as the only three votes against a United Nations General Assembly resolution that declared the transatlantic slave trade and the racialized chattel enslavement of Africans “the gravest crime against humanity” and urged reparatory justice for its enduring legacies.
The nonbinding measure passed by a vote of 123-3. While the U.S.-led trio were the only members who voted against the resolution, there were 52 notable abstentions which included the United Kingdom and all 27 European Union members.
Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama, speaking for the African Group, hailed the vote as “a safeguard against forgetting. It also challenges the enduring scars of slavery.” He told delegates the resolution affirms truth for the millions who suffered “the indignity of the slave trade and those who continue to suffer racial discrimination.”
The text calls on member states to consider formal apologies and voluntary contributions to education, reparations funds and other remedies. It also encourages collaboration among the African Union, Caribbean Community and other bodies to address slavery’s aftermath, including barriers to education, health care and economic opportunity for people of African descent.
U.S. Ambassador Dan Negrea, the nation’s representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, delivered a detailed explanation of vote before the balloting, condemning the historic wrongs of the trans-Atlantic, trans-Saharan and all other slave trades while rejecting the resolution’s core demands.
“The United States does not recognize a legal right to reparations for historical wrongs that were not illegal under international law at the time they occurred,” Negrea said. He argued the measure improperly seeks to create a “hierarchy” of crimes against humanity, imposes new costly U.N. mandates and uses historical grievances as “leverage” to reallocate modern resources to people “distantly related to the historical victims.”
Negrea added that the U.N. was founded to maintain international peace and security, “not to advance narrow, specific interests and agendas” or establish “niche international days.” He noted the resolution’s focus on the 15th-to-19th-century period ignored earlier and later instances of African enslavement for what he called political reasons.
Advocates, including Barbados’ First Poet Laureate Esther Philips, framed the vote as long-overdue global acknowledgment. “There are spirits of the victims of slavery present in this room at this moment, and they are listening for one word only: justice,” she said.
The rebuke of the U.N. resolution is just the latest in a series of conflicts which pit the current U.S. administration against organizations or programs dedicated to Black history or culture.
An Underground Railroad museum in upstate New York is suing the Trump administration, alleging that the cancellation of a $250,000 federal grant was driven by racial discrimination as part of a broader crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
The Underground Railroad Education Center in Albany filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York against the National Endowment for the Humanities and several officials. The suit claims the grant, awarded for educational programming on the history of the Underground Railroad, was terminated in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments.
The case highlights mounting legal pushback against the administration’s anti-DEI policies.
In a parallel development, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has challenged the Rooney Rule for the state’s three NFL franchises, calling the policy requiring interviews of minority candidates for head coaching and executive positions unlawful race-based discrimination under state law. The NFL maintains its policies comply with federal and state requirements.
Critics say such challenges, along with scrutiny of Black studies programs at institutions including Florida A&M University, represent attacks on Black education and history. These moves have sparked debates over institutional resilience, with some HBCUs navigating leadership changes amid funding and political pressures.
Advocates frame the lawsuits and initiatives as necessary defenses against efforts to erase or marginalize Black narratives. The Underground Railroad museum suit seeks reinstatement of the funds and could influence other challenges to grant terminations tied to DEI policies.
