In what is being hailed by anti-racism activists around the world as a historic decision, the US Senate has finally approved the wording of a resolution that will apologise to African-American descendants of slaves for past injustices.

Approval from the House of Representatives is tipped to come as early as next week. The bill apologises for ‘fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery’ as well as the Jim Crow laws. Until only a few decades ago these laws, upheld in many states, insisted that African-American use separate bathrooms in public, ride on different sections of buses and eat in their own restaurants.