“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” – U. S. President John Adams

Ida B. Wells Center on American Exceptionalism and Restorative Justice is committed to engaging, researching, and addressing the historical misapprehensions of the legality of colonial slavery. We seek to debunk the myths and falsehoods surrounding colonial slavery by pulling on the thread that weaves current racial-biased structures with slave-based systems of the colonial past through Scholarship, Engagement, and Action. We endeavor to change the social perceptions and racial prescriptive narratives of Blackness in America perpetrated and perpetuated by White predatory colonists in the criminal enterprise of slavery in colonial America. We advocate for due process rights and legal recourse for the men and women unjustly enslaved by giving them a voice to be heard.