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There’s an image, a feeling, that I haven’t been able to get out of mind since my last visit to the Sea Islands, US, in March. That of living in a small box, compressed on all sides. From above, your basic services are being neglected or withheld; from the sides, your ability to find a job or make a living is cut away; from below, a steady assault on your self-esteem as you are criminalised, ignored, gaslit or made to feel invisible. And imagine having to raise a family, make ends meet, maintain your physical and mental health in that box. At some point the air is going to thin out.

Occasionally, a glimpse of something offers respite. A flock of birds against the sky. The sway of the Spanish moss on the oak tree that has binya (“been here”; a Gullah Geechee term used to describe Sea Islands natives) for hundreds of years, that has seen Jim Crow, Reconstruction and maybe even enslavement. You hear the flow of the water as it laps against the dock. The water that represents a passage to the motherland. And life feels worth living.

In those times you feel the spirit of the ancestors and you channel it into pushing back. Hard. Against all sides. And maybe you earn yourself a few extra feet. And in those moments, you can stand up straight, chest proud, hair did, clothes sharp.

And when the squeeze starts again, you might be able to fend it off for a while. But as you push, the ceiling starts descending and you need to decide which side to ward off. Eventually you find yourself lying down. And the box has you right where it wants you. That feeling is the worst of all.

Relating to how living with the legacies of enslavement feels, and what it means on a day-to-day basis, has been at the heart of our work to understand repair since I was appointed as the director of the Scott Trust’s Legacies of Enslavement programme three years ago. In 2023, the Guardian published research revealing its founders’ connections to transatlantic enslavement in the Americas, particularly in the south-eastern US and Jamaica. The response was a 10-year programme of restorative justice.

As a global team, we bring important personal knowledge and experiences; but the plan (pdf) we are launching today directly reflects what we have learned from nearly three years of engagement with descendant communities, reparations experts, civil society organisations, academics and cultural leaders.

We have journeyed through geographies, shared culture, laughter, tears, great food and painful truths. And we have learned that repair means economic justice, through retention of property and land, or access to education; it means preserving and uplifting our culture and history; it means responding to the links between climate and environmental devastation and enslavement; it means being in community with one another, locally and globally.

For many people, it was the first time they had been asked: “What could repair for transatlantic enslavement look like?” And yet the question was privileged with such rich responses.

In my most recent visit to Jamaica in January, at town hall meetings in Hanover parish, the destruction and trauma caused by Hurricane Melissa hung palpably in the air. People were struggling. Property destroyed, roofs blown off, in some cases loved ones had perished. The impact of the hurricane was a lens to broader problems of poverty and inequality that people had been concerned about for a long time. It gave them an opening to articulate them.

Perhaps these conversations offered a chance to acknowledge the reality of people’s lives and struggles, and not just accept structural racism and inequality as some sort of natural phenomenon. Our conversations were prefaced with a clear explanation of the programme, the Guardian’s history, and the aim to atone. The aim was to enable a consensual two-way conversation, so we came prepared to answer as many questions as needed. This helped enable the first steps in a restorative dialogue.

It shouldn’t be controversial to ask how the impacts of a crime against humanity, even if committed in the past, continue to affect people today. It’s a human question. Yet in the case of transatlantic enslavement, people of African descent are told to “move on” again and again. Our conversations over the past few years have helped illuminate why we cannot.

When discussing apology as a form of reparation at a session with the 42nd Street youth group in Manchester earlier this year, a young woman in the group said it wasn’t about attributing blame, but rather seeing each other’s common humanity. She captured beautifully what repair is about.

The fact is that we can’t just move on – as whole societies – without a reckoning with the history of enslavement, racial capitalism and the legacy of global inequality between nations; and systemic racism for those minoritised as Black within them.

What I have realised is that repair for transatlantic enslavement is largely about seeing those of us descended from enslaved Africans; how we live, what we value, how we feel. And seeing us as fellow humans.

As Prof Sir Hilary Beckles wrote: “Britain was first among the European investors to legally codify the enslaved and enchained African as non-human.” Chattel enslavement rendered enslaved Africans as property and was an unequivocal act of dehumanisation. The laws that designated enslaved Africans across the British empire as “property”, and compensated enslavers and not the enslaved, make this clear.

Yet in our conversations, reparations were not articulated as being about blame or guilt or retribution. Humanity and dignity were at the heart of it. These are some of the visions of repair we have heard:

  • Seeing the humanity in enabling people to hold on to their ancestral land and property.

  • Seeing the humanity in wanting your child to be able to access quality education and training.

  • Seeing the humanity in wanting to have your culture and traditions, which saw your ancestors through the most trying of times, preserved and cherished; your sites of memory protected and respected.

  • Seeing the humanity in wanting a level playing field from which to work hard, contribute and lay firm foundations for your children and grandchildren.

  • And seeing the humanity in recognising that certain nations are disproportionately impacted by the climate emergency.

The recent landmark resolution in the UN recognising the trafficking and racialised chattel enslavement of African people as the “gravest crime against humanity” is momentous and gets to the heart of this issue.

Activists and Caribbean and African leaders at the forefront of global calls for reparations should be shown the required respect and dignity through engagement in good faith dialogue. The UK government has an opportunity to do so later this year at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting.

There is no need to fear starting this conversation. The message from our work over the past few years could not be clearer: repair is about our common humanity. There is no need to be scared.