REPARATIONS
BATTLE GOES MAINSTREAM
BY
JULIANNE MALVEAUX
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Republican Congressman Thaddeus Stevens
proposed HR 29 in 1867, legislation that would compensate freed male
slaves 40 acres of land and $100 to make freedmen
"independent". The legislation didn't pass, but more than a
century later, in 1999, Congressman John Conyers (D-MI). proposed HR
40, legislation to study both the impact of slavery on modern life and
the possibility of reparations. Neither Stevens nor Conyers got much
support; indeed, many in the Congressional Black Caucus failed to
support Conyers' legislation.
Still, between 1867 and the present there have been dozens of grassroots efforts and movements to secure reparations for slaves and their descendents. In 1955, "Queen Mother" Audley Moore founded a reparations organization and filed claims against several states as well as against the United States with the United Nations. In 1987, N'COBRA, or the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, was founded to seek reparations from the federal government. TransAfrica founder and leader Randall Robinson raised consciousness about reparations with his provocative book, "The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks. Still, for many, the issue of reparations has been considered something of a "fringe" issue, a claim that while justified is unlikely to be collected on. This month, though, one of the nation's leading magazines made reparations its cover story. The Harper's Magazine discussion between some of the nation's best class-action lawyers took up more than a dozen pages in the magazine, and raised as many questions as it answered. But it was clear that these lawyers took reparations as other cases where they've won multi-million dollar settlements. Willie Gary won $240 million against the Walt Disney company. Alexander Pires, Jr. got a $1 billion dollar settlement for black farmers from the US Department of Agriculture. Richard Scruggs won $368.5 billion from tobacco companies, and Dennis C. Sweet won $400 million in the "fen-phen" case against the American Home Products company. In Harper's they put their heads together and sketched out the many ways African Americans could be compensated for the continuing effects slavery has had on their lives. As Dennis Sweet notes in the discussion, it isn't simply slavery, but the continuing effects that slavery had on public policy even into the present. For example, the federal government supported restrictive covenants preventing African Americans from buying homes in certain neighborhoods until the 1950s. This prevented African Americans from participating in the appreciation of home values, which is the cornerstone of wealth for most families. The legacy continues. Today while 70 percent of whites own their homes, just 46 percent of African Americans do. The four men who participated in the Harpers' discussion are part of the Reparations Assessment Group, a group that also includes Johnnie Cochran, Harvard University professor Charles Ogletree, TransAfrica's Randall Robinson, and others. The group plans to file lawsuits against the federal government, state governments, and private entities such as corporations and institutions that benefited from slave labor. Examples include insurance companies that insured the lives of slaves and perhaps paid slave owners at emancipation or colleges like Brown University that were founded from the profits from slave labor. Some of the lawyers say the point of filing slave reparations lawsuits isn't the money but the opportunity to educate America. Too many, they say, lack knowledge about the true horrors of slavery and so are quick to flippantly dismiss any claim that African Americans make about reparations. But many hear reparations and immediately think about the money. Who will pay for compensation to the descendents of slaves? If it comes from public monies, what will be its impact on the economy? Hasn't the debt already been paid with civil rights laws and affirmative action? (No.) Is this fair to whites? Reparations claims have their detractors whose voices will gain volume as the Reparations Assessment Group does its work. The conservative David Horowitz calls such claims "divisive" (as if slavery and its legacy brought us all together). Ashland University's David Tucker says that African Americans are "better off economically, legally, politically and morally than any black living in Africa". Few who rebut have grappled with the enormity of slavery and the currency of its economic consequences. For example, the black unemployment rate remains twice that of whites, even in economic expansion. There remains a gap between the median income for black households, at $27,900, and the median income for all households, at $40,000. The wealth gap is even wider -- African Americans own less than 2 percent of our nation's wealth. Public policy has done poorly in addressing issues of racial
economic justice. Now a group of successful mainstream class action
lawyers say the courts can do better than the Congress can. They may
be right -- for the next two years, our divided Congress won't be
making much policy. Moreover, the two contenders for Presidents,
hanging in limbo, both are weaker than they might be on civil rights
issues. The Reparations Assessment Group may use the law to tell a
story, and if they are successful, they may also have an impact on the
future of our economy. |