Reparations are generally payments (monetary and otherwise) given to a group that has suffered harm. Holocaust survivors and Japanese-Americans who were interned in the United States during World War II have received reparations.

Arguments for reparations date to 1865 when General William T. Sherman authorized 400,000 acres of land from South Carolina into Florida to be divided into forty-acre plots and given to freed slaves. Because he later gave orders to lend mules, the phrase "forty acres and a mule" became popular. However, when Andrew Johnson became President after Abraham Lincoln's assassination, he rescinded the order and reverted the land back to the white landowners. Other efforts and arguments have been made since though the issue remains divisive.

Source: Jameelah Nasheed, "What are Reparations, How Could They Happen, and Why Do They Matter?," teenvogue.com, Aug. 8, 2019