As Executive Director of JustFaith Ministries, a faith-based organization committed to justice in the United States and around the world, I want to offer a brief reflection on the recent United Nations resolution addressing justice for people of African descent.
The resolution is both momentous and deeply revealing.
It is significant because it represents decades of work by scholars, activists, and leaders of African descent who have labored to bring global attention to the enduring legacy of slavery, colonialism, and racial injustice. This work has unfolded across generations and institutions, including the 2001 Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, a landmark United Nations framework that named slavery and the transatlantic slave trade as crimes against humanity and called for global efforts toward justice and repair.
It has continued through sustained international engagement, including the United Nations’ First and Second International Decades for People of African Descent, which have focused on recognition, justice, and development for people of African descent worldwide. This resolution stands within that broader movement. It names the transatlantic slave trade as one of the gravest crimes against humanity and affirms that its consequences continue to shape the world we live in today. This is not simply a historical recognition. It is a call to truth, accountability, and the possibility of repair.
But it is also revealing.
First, it is revealing how little attention this moment has received in the United States, even among many in the progressive establishment. Too often, the realities facing people of African descent globally are minimized, ignored, or treated as secondary concerns. This reflects a troubling indifference not only to present suffering, but to the long history of struggle that has brought us to this point. This is not a small matter.
Second, the widespread opposition and abstention from nations such as the United States, Israel, Argentina, and parts of Europe reveal something deeper than political disagreement. They expose a persistent reluctance to fully confront historical truth and to take meaningful responsibility for past and ongoing harm. This is not simply about acknowledging what happened. It is about whether nations are willing to align their power with justice in the present.
Third, this resistance signals more than a refusal to admit past wrongs. It reflects an ongoing commitment to structures and systems that continue to disadvantage people of African descent and the continent of Africa. When nations refuse to name harm and pursue repair, they participate in its continuation.
All of this reminds us that the work before us is far from complete. It is precisely why I am honored to serve as a member of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, an advisory body to the United Nations General Assembly. Through its work, the Forum has helped advance a global framework for reparatory justice that addresses systemic and structural racism, calls for meaningful repair, and promotes coordinated action across governments, institutions, and civil society to improve the conditions of life for people of African descent worldwide. This work is necessary. It is urgent. And it calls for sustained moral clarity, global cooperation, and the courage to tell the truth.
As people of faith, we are called not only to hope for justice, but to pursue it. Not only to name what is broken, but to participate in its repair. One way we can do this is by becoming more aware of the global work already underway. I invite you to learn more about the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, to attend a future session if you are able, to read its reports, and to allow its work to inform and shape your own commitments to justice.
The work of the Forum and the work of JustFaith Ministries belong to the same larger movement for justice and repair, linking global advocacy with local formation and faithful action. We must continue to strengthen the connections between our local and regional efforts and the global movements working toward justice. This is not separate work. It is shared work.
As Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us, we are “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Our struggles are connected. Our futures are intertwined. And the work of justice calls us into a deeper solidarity with one another across communities, nations, and generations.