#Reparations for Enslavement

[ausetkmt]

We “must confront and can no longer ignore,” the issue of reparations for slavery, said Ghana’s president Nana Addo Akufo-Addo at a November reparations conference hosted by the African nation.

As calls for reparations across the United States continue to grow, the movement is also gaining traction in both African and Caribbean countries.

At the 2023 Accra Reparation Conference in Ghana, delegates “agreed…to establish a Global Reparation Fund to push for overdue compensation for millions of Africans” whose descendants were enslaved up until the late 1800s.

Nana Addo Akufo-Addo, President of Ghana, spoke the first day of the convening, stating “No amount of money can restore the damage caused by the transatlantic slave trade…But surely, this is a matter that the world must confront and can no longer ignore.”

“It is time for Africa — whose sons and daughters had their freedoms controlled and sold into slavery — to also receive reparations,” President Akufo-Addo added. “The entire period of slavery meant that our progress, economically, culturally, and psychologically, was stifled. There are legions of stories of families who were torn apart,” stated Akufo-Addo.

“You cannot quantify the effects of such tragedies, but they need to be recognized,” said Akufo-Addo. The president also specifically called out European nations like the British who profited immensely from slavery, wherein “enslaved Africans themselves did not receive a penny.”

As applause resounded from the audience, which consisted of individuals in high-level leadership from African and Caribbean countries, Afuko-Addo declared, “We in Africa must work together with them to advance the cause.”

The delegates did not determine the exact mechanics for operations of the reparations fund, but Ambassador Amr Aljowailey did say that compensation would be based upon “moral and legal rights and dignity of the people.”

In addition, Aljowailey, who is also “strategic adviser to the deputy chairman of the African Union Commission,” indicated the Fund would “be championed by a committee of experts set up by the A.U. Commission in collaboration with African nations, ‘a special envoy will engage in campaigns as well as litigation and judicial efforts.’”

These efforts are occurring following the release of a report from a special U.N. forum, supporting “reparations as ‘a cornerstone of justice in the 21st century.’”

Findings from the report concluded that the ramifications of slavery extended far beyond the conclusion of the slave trade and that descendants of Africans “around the world continue ‘to be victims of systemic racial discrimination and radicalized attacks.’”   

[reasonsforhope]

Non-paywall version here.

"When Arley Gill, head of Grenada’s National Reparations Committee, envisioned his work seeking repair for centuries of enslavement on the Caribbean island, one thing was certain: It was going to be a long slog.

But just two years since its founding, the task force is fielding calls from individuals around the world looking to make amends for ancestors who benefited from enslavement in Grenada. 

“If you had told us this would be happening, we wouldn’t have believed you,” Mr. Gill says, crediting a burgeoning movement of descendants of enslavers getting wise to their family’s history and taking action. 

In Grenada’s case, the momentum began with a public apology made by former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan and her family in February at a ceremony on the island. They apologized for their forebears’ enslavement of people in Grenada and their enrichment from it, pledging an initial contribution of £100,000 ($130,000) toward education on the island.

“She opened the doors for people to feel comfortable” coming forward, says Mr. Gill.

In April [2023], Ms. Trevelyan and journalist Alex Renton co-founded an organization called Heirs of Slavery. Its eight British members have ancestors who benefited financially from slavery in various ways...

Heirs of Slavery says wealth and privilege trickle down through generations, and that there are possibly millions of Britons whose lives were touched by money generated from enslavement. 

The group aims to amplify the voices of those already calling for reparations, like Caribbean governments. And it supports organizations working to tackle the modern-day consequences of slavery, both in the United Kingdom and abroad, from racism to health care inequities. But it’s also setting an example for others, drafting a road map of reparative justice for enslavement – at the individual level...

“Shining a light is always a good idea,” says Mr. Renton, who published a book in 2021 about his family’s ties to slavery, donating the proceeds to a handful of nongovernmental organizations in the Caribbean and England. “You don’t have to feel guilt about it; you can’t change the past,” he says, paraphrasing Sir Geoff Palmer, a Scottish Jamaican scholar. “But we should feel ashamed that up to this point we’ve done nothing about the consequences” of slavery.

Start anywhere

Most Africans trafficked to the Americas and Caribbean during the trans-Atlantic slave trade ended up in the West Indies. The wealth generated there through unpaid, brutal, forced labor funded much of Europe’s Industrial Revolution and bolstered churches, banks, and educational institutions. When slavery was abolished in British territories in 1833, the government took out a loan to compensate enslavers for their lost “property.” The government only finished paying off that debt in 2015. 

The family of David Lascelles, the 8th Earl of Harewood, for example, received more than £26,000 from the British government after abolition in compensation for nearly 1,300 lives, while “the enslaved people were given nothing,” Mr. Lascelles says. He joined Heirs of Slavery upon its founding, eager to collaborate with peers doing work he’s been focused on for decades.

“People like us have, historically, kept quiet about what our ancestors did. We believe the time has come to face up to what happened, to acknowledge the ongoing repercussions of this human tragedy, and support the existing movements to discuss repair and reconciliation,” reads the group’s webpage.

For Ms. Trevelyan, that meant a very public apology – and resigning from journalism to dedicate herself to activism...

For Mr. Lascelles, a second cousin of King Charles, making repairs included in 2014 handing over digitized copies of slavery-related documents discovered in the basement of the Downton Abbey-esque Harewood House to the National Archives in Barbados, where much of his family’s wealth originated during enslavement. 

“What can we do that is actually useful and wanted – not to solve our own conscience?” he says he asks himself...

“Listen and learn”

...The group is planning a conference this fall that will bring together families that benefited from the trans-Atlantic slave trade along with representatives from Caribbean governments and Black Europeans advocating for reparations. In the meantime, members are meeting with local advocacy groups to better understand what they want – and how Heirs of Slavery might assist.

At a recent meeting, “there was one man who said he wanted to hear what we had to say, but said he saw us as a distraction. And I understand that,” says Mr. Renton. “Maximum humility is necessary on our part. We are here to listen and learn, not try to take the lead and be the boss.”

Mr. Renton’s family has made donations to youth development and educational organizations, but he doesn’t see it as compensation. “I see this as work of repair. If I sold everything I own, I couldn’t begin to compensate for the lives my ancestors destroyed,” he says."

-via The Christian Science Monitor, August 1, 2023

Note: I know the source name probably inspires skepticism for a lot of people (fairly), but they're actually considered a very reliable and credible publication in both accuracy and lack of bias.

[alwaysbewoke]

x

[reasoningdaily]

[forthosebefore]

Women pioneers of reparations

I’ve previously posted about Henrietta Wood. Here are some other early women pioneers for reparations.

Belinda Sutton

Belinda (Royal) Sutton was born in 1712 in Ghana. She was abandoned by her enslaver, who had offered emancipation upon his death or her transfer to his daughter. If she chose freedom he provided 30 pounds for three years so she wouldn’t be a public charge. In 1783, at 63 years old, Sutton filed a petition to the Massachusetts General Court requesting a pension from the estate of her former enslaver. In her petition she recalled her life in Africa as a joyful one full of love prior to her captivity and enslavement. Sutton’s testimony describing the happy times with family in Africa contradicted the narrative that the enslaved were happy in their captivity. She won her claim and was awarded 15 pounds and 12 shillings annually. She had to fight continuously for that award to be honored and paid.

Belinda Sutton’s […] petition of 1783 is among the earliest narratives by an African American woman. […] It has been seen by some commentators as the first call for reparations for American slavery [and] opens a rare window onto the life on an enslaved woman in colonial North America.

To read the full text of Belinda Sutton’s first petition, click here. All of her petitions are available through the Antislavery Petitions Massachusetts Dataverse, maintained by Harvard University.

Callie House

Callie House was born enslaved in Rutherford County, Tennessee, in 1861. In 1897, at 36 years old, she founded the National Ex-Slave Mutual Bounty and Pension Association (MB&PA) to seek financial support for former slaves left without resources. With Isiah Dickerson she traveled to former slave states to encourage others to join the organization. The organization was eager to petition Congress for a bill that would grant payments (reparations) and mutual aid for burial expenses. Their grass-roots advocacy grew in membership to hundreds of thousands of formerly enslaved residents all over the country. The government used three agencies to try to stop this movement: the Federal Bureau of Pensions, the Department of Justice and the Post Office Department. On September 1899, the Post Office issued a fraud order, without evidence, against MB&PA, which made it illegal for them to send mail, cash or money orders. House resisted by invoking the 1st, 14th and 15th amendments and hiring an attorney.

Congress rejected the pensions petition, as if it was not to be taken seriously, and postponed it indefinitely.

In 1909, when Dickerson died, House became the leader of the MB&PA. In 1915, under House’s leadership, the class action lawsuit Johnson v McAdoo was filed in U.S. Federal Court requesting reparations for slavery in the amount of $68 million. This amount was cotton tax money collected from 1862 to 1868 and held by the U.S. Treasury Department. A former slave, H. N. Johnson, led the charge as the plaintiff against U.S. Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo. The U.S. Supreme Court denied the claim. This was the first documented litigation for reparations for American chattel slavery in a U.S. federal court.

The following year, House was arrested on charges of fraud from the Post Office, convicted by an all-white, all-male jury and sentenced to a year in jail, deliberately hampering the reparations movement.

Callie House died from cancer in Nashville, Tennessee on June 6, 1928, at the age of 67. Source: Greenbelt News Review, BlackPast.org, RoyallHouse.org

Visit www.attawellsummer.com/forthosebefore to learn more about Black history and read new blog posts first.

Need a freelance graphic designer or illustrator? Send me an email.

[andnowanowl]

A short history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade (mainly around the British side because this woman is a British historian) and addressing some of the white supremacist myths around it.

It doesn't get into some of the more gritty details of the slave trade (like slave women being forced to have child after child with the incentive of being freed, slaves jumping overboard to escape their fate, or slaves being eaten by their enslavers).

I always find it funny when my dad says "My people didn't own slaves! You don't see any Black people with our last name!" and he never takes into account that the dozens upon dozens of women who married into the family may have been daughters or granddaughters of enslavers. You can tell he feels white guilt about it instead of doing the healthy thing of at least acknowledging that some of his ancestors may have owned slaves, that people descended from slaves may resent him for what was done to their ancestors because he's white, and move past it.

[heritageposts]

Namibian Presidency (official account), 13 Jan 2024

this comes after germany announced that they, in defense of israel, intend to intervene as a third party in the ICJ trial

in the official government statement, they argue that the accusations of genocide against israel "has no basis whatsoever," and declares themselves to be experts on recognizing genocide by virtue of the fact that they're the ones that committed the holocaust (yes, seriously)

small problem for our self-declared genocide experts though — it wasn't until 2021, over a hundred years after germany killed and enslaved tens of thousands of herero and nama people (in what is now present-day namibia), that the german state was willing to officially recognize that they had committed a genocide; a genocide where, about 80% of the indigenous population of the herero and nama people were wiped out, thousands were enslaved in concentrations camps (with death rates between 45 and 75 percent), and many hundreds medically experimented on.

here's a good article from al jazeera which lays out the history of the genocide, and why germany's offer of "reparations" were met with disgust and anger in namibia

this part, in particular, is worth highlighting:

Today, German Namibians make up 2 percent of Namibia’s 2.5 million population but own about 70 percent of the country’s land, most of it used for agriculture. Multiple state-led efforts to legally restore ancestral land to Indigenous peoples by buying land from private farmers have only partially succeeded because it has proven too expensive for the state. Although the Namibian government sought to transfer 43 percent (15 million hectares) of its total arable land to landless communities by 2020, it has only succeeded in acquiring about three million hectares.

[shrimp-chips]

Last day of Black history month and still no reparations… 😔 maybe next year…? 🥺

[ubuntu-village]

Why Descendants of Enslaved Africans Deserve Reparations

The enslavement of African people and their descendants around the world is a dark and painful chapter in history. The long-term effects of enslavement are still felt today.

The enslavement of Africans and their descendants has been an atrocity that has lasted for centuries and has had a lasting effect on generations of African descendants around the world. The vast majority of those enslaved were never compensated for their labor, even after slavery ended. Today, many people are calling for reparations to be paid to the descendants of those enslaved. In this blog…

[liberalsarecool]

Do you think most white people know white enslavers were paid reparations?

Especially the racist ones.

[ausetkmt]

I knew that the Catholic Church via the Pope had authorized slavery in the 1400s, but I didn’t know that they had authorized the eradication, subjugation, etc, of African people. Somehow I never connected the two.

“We grant you [Kings of Spain and Portugal] by these present documents, with our Apostolic Authority, full and free permission to invade, search out, capture, and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of Christ wherever they may be, as well as their kingdoms, duchies, counties, principalities, and other property […] and to reduce their persons into perpetual servitude.”

These clearly refers to the lands along the coast of West Africa. By these decree,  Pope Nicholas V conceded to the King of Portugal Afonso V and Prince Henry and all their successors, all their conquests of Africa, and reduction to perpetual servitude of all people deemed non-believers and enemies of Christ, and all their properties.

A significant subsequent concession given by Nicholas V in a brief issued to King Alfonso in 1454 extended the rights granted to existing territories to all those that might be taken in the future. Together with a second reference to some who have already been enslaved, this has been used to suggest that Nicholas sanctioned the purchase of black slaves from “the infidel”: “… many Guineamen and other negroes, taken by force, and some by barter of unprohibited articles, or by other lawful contract of purchase, have been … converted to the Catholic faith, and it is hoped, by the help of divine mercy, that if such progress be continued with them, either those peoples will be converted to the faith or at least the souls of many of them will be gained for Christ.”

This bull is currently conserved at the Institute of the National Archives of Torre do Tomba in Lisboa, Portugal, under the reference PT/TT/BUL/0007/29 and is fully translated to French in the book “le Péché du pape contre l’Afrique” (The Sin of the Pope against Africa) (éd. Al qalam, Paris, 2002) de Assani Fassassi, P. 10 – 21.

[discworldwitches]

[id: screenshot of a tiktok of a woman with the text: while you’re struggling to pay your rent this month I just want you to remember that israel gets subsidized housing, subsidized groceries, free healthcare, updated infrastructure because the USA and Germany has given them multi billion dollars in citizen tax money.]

this is a dangerous narrative. the “im struggling to pay my rent because of my taxes and my taxes go to subsidize cushy lives in israel” is dangerous and a short logical leap from “jews are stealing our hard earned money. the working class and poor are oppressed by jews.”

and that’s not how the money works, much of it goes towards the military and “aid packages” represent value not liquid cash (so weapons sent are represented in $$$ form.) and the state operates the way above bc ben gurion & co were socialists. plus, as far as i know, things are relatively similar to the uk with high costs of living but subsidized housing, public healthcare etc.

money from germany often does not go whatsoever into the pockets of israeli holocaust survivours (which is what it’s desiginated for as holocaust reparations (and bc companies that significantly contribute to the german GDP collaborated with nazis/used the labour of enslaved jews) ) (NOTE: it's military aid; money to compensate holocaust victims and survivors ended in 2018, which as i mentioned, did not go into individuals pockets) let alone israelis who are not survivours. many holocaust survivours living there live in poverty. there are literally videos of some picking through refuse produce.

it’s deeply heinous that palestinian american & palestinian german taxes go in part towards the weapons used to genocide palestinians including their own families. OP's post is not about that. she is not acknowledging that or really any connection between the USA and the occupation forces. instead OP is making it sound like israelis live comfortable lives with little expenditures off of the backs of american workers which is a few steps away from protocols shit at best. the idea that jews are enslaving or profitting off on those who are not jewish, especially the working class & poor, is textbook antisemitic conspiracy.

[theconcealedweapon]

"But black people are not the only ones who were enslaved. Should descendants of all other groups who were enslaved receive reparations too?"

Yes. Everyone should receive reparations from the rich people who exploited them and continue to exploit them. All rich people should have to share their profits with the workers who made them rich.

But whenever anyone tries to do that, you fight tooth and nail against it.

[readyforevolution]

Juneteenth (19 June), or Emancipation Day, commemorates the day US troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to announce the government had abolished slavery, more than two-and-a-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on 1 January 1863.

The Emancipation Proclamation freed at least 3.5 million enslaved people in Confederate states (states supporting slavery) during the US Civil War (1861-65). Although Lincoln initially freed enslaved Africans so they could join the US military, the goalpost moved when he decided saving the Union (non-slaveholding states) meant abolishing slavery.

Many enslavers took refuge in Texas with their enslaved people, seeing it as a haven for slavery. As Union states gained the upper hand, many Black people gained freedom, but not those in Texas.

While local Juneteenth celebrations saw a resurgence in the late 20th century, US President Joe Biden made it a federal holiday in 2021.

Unfortunately, freedom did not come with reparations and equality. To this day, descendants of enslaved Africans suffer physical and mental ailments—such as high blood pressure and kidney disease, to name a few—are nine times poorer than their white counterparts, and Black men are four times more likely to be imprisoned than white men.

Could the payment of reparations for US slavery complete the memory of Juneteenth? Let us know in the comments.

[forthosebefore]

Black Woman Won Largest Reparations Award at Time From U.S. Courts in 1878

In 1878, Henrietta Wood, a formerly “illegally” enslaved Black woman, was awarded $2,500 in reparations by an all-white jury — the most significant sum of its kind that a U.S. court had granted.

Wood initially sought $20,000 for being kidnapped and illegally enslaved in an 1870 lawsuit, Business Insider reported. But was awarded a smaller amount. While it may not seem like a lot, the $2,500 total would equate to more than $75,000 today, the outlet noted.

Wood used her settlement to move with her son, aiding his education. The outlet noted that he became one of the first Black law graduates from what is now Northwestern University’s School of Law.

Born into slavery between 1818 and 1820 in Kentucky, Wood was sold multiple times before finally gaining freedom in 1848 from her owner’s wife, Jane Cirode, who wanted to avoid debt collectors. According to Business Insider, the wife of William Cirode — a French immigrant who had abandoned his family due to legal reasons — had rented Wood out as a domestic servant.

Wood was illegally recaptured just five years later by a deputy sheriff in Kentucky named Zebulon Ward, whom Cirode’s daughter and son-in-law hired. Following the Civil War, Wood sued Ward for damages and won the most significant reparations case the U.S. courts had awarded.

The battle Wood began sadly continues with reparations still being denied to most African Americans. Now, more than a century later, federal reparations remain a question despite unprecedented Congressional apologies for slavery. In 2008-2009. Rep. Steve Cohen wrote in a resolution that the nation must seek “reconciliation, justice, and harmony.”

While state efforts have emerged, national progress stalls. Rep. Cori Bush said in May 2023: “Black people … cannot wait any longer for our government to … address the harm it has caused,” Business Insider reported.

Source: Black Enterprise, Wikipedia, Library of Congress

Visit www.attawellsummer.com/forthosebefore to learn more about Black history.

Need a freelance graphic designer or illustrator? Send me an email.

[cleolinda]

At a fundraiser in Massachusetts earlier this week, Walz went after Tommy Tuberville, the Republican senator from Alabama, saying, “I feel like one of my roles in this now is to be the anti-Tommy Tuberville, to show that football coaches are not the dumbest people.”

Once again, as an Alabamian I would like to apologize for Tommy Tuberville, the former Auburn coach and current U.S. senator who is dumber than a sack of wet mice—

In an Alabama Daily News interview after the election, Tuberville said that the European theater of World War II was fought "to free Europe of socialism" and erroneously that the three branches of the U.S. federal government were "the House, the Senate, and the executive." He also said that he was looking forward to raising money from his Senate office, a violation of federal law.

—but also a fucking bigot. Please review the lengthy “Tenure” section of his Wikipedia page as to why I hate him, for reasons including but not limited to: voting against the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act; claiming that Democrats are “pro-crime” and want reparations for descendants of enslaved people “because they think the people that do the crime are owed that,” what the fuck; being an election denier and voting against a January 6th commission; being a climate change denier; being transphobic as fuck (a whole section); famously holding military promotions hostage over the issue of abortion availability for service members (yeah, he’s THAT guy); denying that white nationalists are “inherently racist” (“I call them Americans”); and calling Zelenskyy a dictator and supporting Putin TWO MONTHS AGO. Tim Walz, I bid you read this fuckstick for filth. Thank you for letting me vent. Roll tide.