Ghana’s President Calls Slave Trade ‘Greatest Crime,’ Pushes U.N. for Reparations
For Black Americans, the motion — backed by a coalition of world leaders — intensifies calls to confront slavery’s enduring costs.
In a first coordinated African-led effort at the United Nations, leaders have declared the Transatlantic Slave Trade as “the greatest crime against humanity” and called for reparations.
African leaders recently took the global stage at the U.N.’s General Assembly in New York, where Ghana’s president, John Dramani Mahama, announced plans to submit the first formal motion demanding reparative justice.
The motion will challenge the international community to endorse concrete U.N.-backed compensation for the historical and ongoing injustices faced by Africans on the continent and people of African descent globally, namely Black Americans.
If the U.N. advances a global reparations framework, it could strengthen calls for federal acknowledgment and redress for slavery’s legacy in the United States. International leaders hope it will put pressure on American policymakers to act.
For Black Americans, these developments offer hope for both recognition and material compensation for centuries of stolen labor, economic exclusion, and ongoing inequity.
“Reparatory justice is not about pity,” Mahama said. “It is about recognition, responsibility, and restitution. The descendants of Africa deserve the dignity of acknowledgement and the fairness of redress.”
The address underscored continental unity, with support from the Central African Republic and Latin American allies, such as Bolivia, which advocated for financial restitution, environmental restoration, and the return of stolen cultural heritage. This coordinated appeal represents the most forceful push yet by African leaders to secure reparations through global mechanisms.
“We demand reparations for the enslavement of our people and the colonization of our land that resulted in the theft of natural resources, as well as the looting of artifacts and other items of cultural heritage that have yet to be returned in total,” Mahama added in his speech.
The context
Calls for reparations at the United Nations reached new heights last week, thanks to decades of persistent advocacy, mounting Pan-African coordination, and a growing global conversation about historical justice. The roots of this moment trace back to the forced displacement of more than 12.5 million Africans, whose labor and suffering generated enormous wealth for Western nations while leaving lasting scars throughout the African continent.As the Transatlantic Slave Trade brought enslaved people to the U.S., colonial powers extracted an estimated 98% of the wealth from Ghana in the form of gold, cocoa, and other resources, enriching Britain and the U.S. while impoverishing the local population and leaving lasting economic disparities.
Mahama’s argument draws from a well-documented historical paradox: after abolition, Western governments compensated former slave owners for the “loss” of enslaved people. Yet no reparations were provided to the victims or their descendants. This legacy is central to present-day reparations advocacy.
Ghana’s leadership is grounded in recent initiatives, such as the “Year of Return,” which aimed to reconnect the global Black diaspora with Africa. However, the twin dynamics of attracting diaspora dollars and rising Black American migration have sparked anxieties within Ghana over gentrification and local displacement, complicating the legacy of repair and return for some communities.
What are people saying?
Online, Black folks have expressed support for the initiative and dismay that it has taken so long.“The fact that the transatlantic slave trade, which saw millions of Africans ripped from their homes, forced into slavery, and subjected to unimaginable atrocities across the Americas and the Caribbean, is still not formally recognized as a crime against humanity is ridiculous,” Lisa Stevens wrote on X, formerly Twitter. The post was liked more than 2,500 times.
Another user, who went by Mrs. Cole, wrote about her trip to Ghana. “I literally went to Ghana back in May, and when I tell you once you walk in, you can feel the death around you, it was stifling … and [people] have the nerve to say get over it. I’m still sick to my stomach.”
Other people connected it to the erasure of Black history in the U.S.
“It’s like the more [President Donald] Trump tries to remove black history, the more it motivates other countries and places to make it more known,” one user wrote on Instagram about the speech.
What did it reveal?
Ghana’s motion outlines three pillars for reparations: direct financial compensation, the restoration of plundered environments in Black communities, and the return of cultural property.“We must demand reparations for the enslavement of our people and the colonization of our land that resulted in the theft of natural resources,” Mahama emphasized. The reparations push exposes both the material legacy of violence and the ongoing structures keeping many African and diaspora communities at a disadvantage. Statistics from his speech and reparations advocates point to the continuing gap between the wealth generated for the West and enduring poverty in Black communities everywhere.
