The Restore Fellowship

Within our own Big Payback Campaign, EAT uses the United Nations’ definition of reparations which includes five pillars: restitution, satisfaction, compensation, rehabilitation, and guarantee of non-repetition. The pillar of restitution tasks us with restoring survivors of particular harms to the states they were in before these harms occurred. For Black people in this country, we are left considering what we are truly restoring ourselves to. Before the War on Drugs, Black Americans were still living out the very real impacts of the transatlantic slave trade. To truly enact restitution, we must find a way to restore our people to the state they were in before slavery.

EAT created the Restore Fellowship to propose a true restitution framework. The Restore Fellowship will bring Black informal workers and system-impacted people to Benin, home to the former Kingdom of Dahomey and the largest slave port in West Africa. It is estimated that 12.5 million African people were sold into slavery over a 366-year period, and for many of them, Benin was the last image they had of home. EAT’s fellowship would provide space and structure for our communities’ most marginalized Black people to reconnect with their indigenous roots.

In partnership with Resplendence Language Arts, EAT will engage five fellows in an immersive 23-week online learning program to learn Fongbe, an indigenous language of Benin. This curriculum also delves into the history, culture, and spirituality of Fongbe speakers, with a specific focus on the Kingdom of Dahomey. Following this course, the fellows will take a 10-day trip to Benin, West Africa.

By firmly committing to reorienting our people to their indigenous language, land, and lineage, EAT will center healing as the foundation of our fight against colonization, and in doing so build an unshakable base of leaders who are equipped not only to fight against colonization, but also to build alternatives that are rooted in indigenous values, alternatives of which will change the material conditions of Black informal workers and system-impacted people.