The Big Payback

The Case for Reparations for Slavery and How They Would Work

Lenny Henry, Marcus Ryder

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Year: 2025
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9780571380077
• Subtopic: Discrimination & Race Relations
• Index: Social Sciences

'Both timely and vital . . . There has never been greater need for a thoughtful discussion on race. This study of the case for reparations, which binds the past and present together so cleverly, is an important contribution.' Diane Abbott, Guardian

At the abolition of the slave trade two centuries ago, the British government paid huge amounts of compensation to slave-owners. Only in 2015 did British taxpayers stop paying off this debt.

How is it that slave-owners were paid compensation from our taxes, yet the enslaved and their families were not? Why should the descendants of former slaveowners still benefit from inherited wealth while the successors of the victims of slavery receive nothing, and may have even paid towards the debt of compensation through their taxes?

Beginning with these simple but startling questions, Lenny Henry and Marcus Ryder explore the burning issue of how best can we resolve the inequality resulting from 400 years of the enslavement of African people and the ongoing racism still suffered by millions across the world.

Talking to reparation experts, economists, politicians, and anti-racism campaigners, including Bell Rebeiro-Addy, Robert Beckford, Kenneth Mohammed and Kehinde Andrews, they investigate how reparations can work, and how we can help to make them happen.

Table of contents

• Landing Page
• Title Page
• Dedications
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1: Flags, Chains and Truth
• 2: British Slavery Ended 1 February 2015
• 3: Humpty Dumpty’s Problem with Definitions
• 4: The End of Racism
• 5: What Did Slavery Ever Do for Us?
• 6: Doing the Maths
• 6.5: Sins of Our Fathers (and Mothers)
• 7: Reparations Versus Charity
• 8: Making Wakanda a Reality
• 9: Don’t Mention the War
• 10: The Trillion-dollar Question (Plus Another 20-ish Trillion)
• 10.5: Not Every Dumpling Makes the Soup
• 11: The Name’s Lenny, Spelt with a Silent ‘K’
• 12: What Next?
• What Can We Do?
• The Big Payback: The Play
• A Note from Lenny
• The Script
• Acknowledgements
• Further Reading
• About the Authors
• By the Same Editors
• Copyright