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LONDON (Reuters) - Descendants of black American slaves said Monday they planned to sue London's oldest insurance firm, Lloyds, for compensation for allegedly underwriting the ships used in the slave trade. Their lawyer, Ed Fagan, said Lloyds played a significant part in the human trade and insisted black American slave descendants had as much right to damages as any other people subjected to genocide. "Lloyds knew that what they were doing led to the destruction of the indigenous population," Fagan, who is well-known for his role is fighting claims for victims of the Holocaust, told BBC radio. "They took people,...

CHICAGO (AP) Almost 150 years after Andrew Jackson Hurdle was torn away from his family and put on the auction block as a 9-year-old slave, his daughter is seeking justice for him. Hannah Hurdle-Toomey, 71, of Belleville, signed on as one of two people from Illinois named in a class-action lawsuit seeking reparations from 19 companies that they say benefited from the slave trade. The other is Marcelle Porter, a 74-year-old Chicago woman who said her great-grandmother was a slave in North Carolina. A Jan. 26 hearing is scheduled in U.S. District Court in Chicago. Judge Charles Norgle could dismiss...

The City Council champion of the slave reparations movement demanded Monday that Carole Brown apologize to African Americans or step down as CTA board chairwoman for "allowing herself to be used" to defend a financial services firm with past ties to slavery. Ald. Dorothy Tillman (3rd) said it's insensitive and insulting for Brown, senior vice president of Lehman Brothers, to suggest that "the Lehman Brothers in the 1850s is not the company that it is today." Brown made the statement after the company she works for became the first city contractor to admit past ties to slavery. "She should have...