#ncobra

[militantinremission]

The Difference between The Black Agenda & The Reparations Movement

Reparations Commissions are popping up across the Country, but none of them come close to addressing the true spirit of Reparations. There are several reasons for this:

Neither Democrats nor Republicans in Congress have a real interest in discussing Reparations; let alone dispensing anything tangible.

Minorities involved in these Reparations Projects have either tried to include their demographic into the discussion, or they have been against it.

Infighting amongst members of the ADOS, FBA, Freemen, & Indigenous Community have weakened the overall message of Reparations. The Masses don't realize that they are All THE SAME LINEAGE GROUP. This division weakens Our collective argument, but has allowed some to eat well over the past few Yrs.

Organizations like The NAACP, The Urban League, The National Action Network, NCOBRA, NAARC, & other like minded Groups have promoted a Trans Atlantic Reparations Agenda that ignores CARICOM. In effect, it 'Centers' Black Immigrants (including Afro Latinos) in the Black American Experience. Most arrived at least 10Yrs after Jim Crow ended- how do they qualify for American Reparations?

The recent kerfuffle over San Francisco NAACP President Rev. Amos Brown's rejection of that City's Reparations Proposal spotlights the problem w/ letting Our (so called) 'Established Leaders' drive the Reparations Bus. They drove the Bus into Our current situation, why should We expect anything different from them? Many of these individuals chose Corporate Donations over Black Community Development. They arent 'Leaders', they're Corporate Lobbyists. These are the Same People that let HR- 40 rot on the 'Social Action vine' for over 30Yrs; If they REALLY wanted Reparations...

Another issue, are the individuals & Organizations narrating 'The Black Agenda' into the Reparations Argument. They are separate & distinct. The White Noise of their rhetoric has confused The Masses, which weakens the magnitude of Our Fight. For the sake of clarity, I want to point out the difference between The Black Agenda & The Reparations Movement.

The Black Agenda, is an All inclusive Program for Black & Afrikan Americans, regardless of their Country of Origin. This includes Africans, Caribbeans, Afro Latinos, & Afro Asians. All of Us share in the current experience of being Black in America. It is an experience that is unique to Us, & is also what unites Us.

The Black Agenda is about Equity. America loves to promote 'Equality', but equal measure doesn't guarantee that Everyone will somehow end up on equal ground. We have been collectively marginalized in America, so it's only fair that they level the playing field. 'Rising Tide' Programs, like those offered by The Democratic Party are on the right track, but NONE take into account the fact that Black America needs an extra scoop of whatever they propose.

The Black Agenda deals w/ the issues of Community Development: Residential & Commercial/ Business Property Ownership, Job Development, Training & Employment Opportunities, Health Care & Mental Health Solutions, School Reform, After School Programs, Youth Empowerment, Visual & Performing Arts Programs, Daycare & Pre- K Programs, along w/ the necessary Community Boards needed to present these & other Community related issues to Local & State Agencies. The goal, is to improve the overall Quality of Life in Black Communities- up to the level of Every Other Community.

The Reparations Movement, is a specific call for American Society to pay their long overdue debt to American Descendants of Chattel Slavery. This Movement is about Indemnification. While Black America collectively deserves legislation, American Descendants Of Slavery deserve much more. The problem w/ EVERY Reparations Program offered so far, is they All ignore the fact that Reparations is a debt owed. They All read like Politicians are giving Blackfolk a hand out. These Programs also fall short on what is really owed.

A lot of numbers have been thrown around over the years, but I have consistently said that Final Reparations numbers will depend on WHO is held liable. If the U.S. Government alone is held liable, Reparations will probably be in the $18 Trillion- $22 Trillion range. If Corporations & Individual families are included, that number could reach $64 Trillion. That should give a clue to the extent of Exploitation, Theft, Terrorism & Oppression that Black America endured over the last 246Yrs- 400Yrs. American History is a chronicle of Anti- Black sentiment. Reparations Naysayers point out the impossibility of dispensing Trillions of Dollars, but a Multigenerational Reparations Program is an easy solution.

The Republican Party's outright refusal of, & The Democratic Party's attempt to graft Feminist & LGBTQ... rhetoric to Critical Race Theory (CRT), are attempts by both Parties to keep Mainstream America away from Our Nation's cruel & bloody past. They obviously fear divulging this history, because it will quell the Argument 'Against', as it strengthens the National Argument 'For' Reparations. The Immigrant Argument of 'I wasnt Here' becomes embarrassing, when We consider 2 facts:

It was Black American Labor that built America up & made it attractive (i.e. The Land of Milk & Honey) to Europeans, Asians, Latinos, Caribbeans, & Afrikans looking to start a New Life.

Black America is responsible for motivating ALL of the Immigration Initatives over the last 150Yrs; especially those since 1965.

It's only fitting for Immigrants living their American Dream (at another's expense) to pay tribute to the people who made that dream possible. I like the analogy of 'Inheriting an Old House'. The New Occupant didn't cause the wear & tear on the house, but that doesn't change the fact that they will have to invest the Time, Work, & Money needed to restore & maintain it. THAT, is the price of Occupancy.

Another thing to consider, is the fact that most Black Americans are descendants of Indigenous Americans or American Indians (Coppertoned Aborigines); not to be confused w/ 'Native Americans', who migrated from Siberia. Less than 10% of Transatlantic Slaves landed in North America. Our Ancestors were Prisoners Of War, that were forced into Indentured Servitude, & later Chattel Slavery on their Own Land. Census Records reveal the effort to hide Our lineage.

Starting w/ the 1790 Census, Indigenous indentured servants were reclassified as Negro & Colored. By the 1900 Census, Indigenous People were being punished for identifying as 'Indian'. They were forced to identify as Negro, Colored, or Mulatto. By the 1970 Census, We were designated 'Black'; & on the 1990 Census, We were labeled 'Afrikan American'... Out Of Afrika Theory is not only Culturally false, it now appears to be a ploy to get Us off of Our Land. We're looking to Afrika, while the Blood & Bones of Our Ancestors fertilize This Land. Our success in agriculture isn't an accident- We were Here for millennia!... I guess that adds an extra wrinkle to the Reparations Discussion.

It's Time for Us to link the moving parts of Our Lineage into Black Voltron, so We can get on w/ The Work. -Just Saying

[seoschwartz-blog]

As you might recall I have a new track called “Oxytocin” released as a cypher (still in progress) here on SEO Schwartz a week ago & was unaware till now of this tracks existence.

Voodoo economics is a strange beast.

Tue, Jun 11, 11:39 AM (7 days ago) 

"Oxytocin"

Oxytocin factory house smell like sex neighbors horny from olfactory deep in the caverns fire shots Annie oakaley a trickster in tha sack spider spunk dat Iktomi see banged against the headboard waggin' hog vote diplomacy you see I got their vote down the hatch be a load out da nose ya see vivid video pornhub has my # G cool spots get warm serial squirts dats a fountain B sequoia circumference be a gape last 4 weeks it's free loose not obtuse text dey friends massive orgy memes pornceptual legs up afterparty dreams ship bust a leak pussy voodoo lusitania I be reptilian get dem genes from transylvania foes try to hunt me final boss castlevania runnin' dey tongues up da veins 2da mushroom tip gummin' my worm nightcrawler drain dis baller sip jugs of my seed runny meade cunny beads it feeds more than one screed sung gung ho tally ho zipsa dro mighty mos be a lingawist tongue punch da box bobby soxx curl the toes drain a hose be verbose how I stunt u see

[serious2020]

SAVE Black Grassroots Media Archive!!!

SAVE Black Grassroots Media Archive!!!

www.gofundme.com/f/save-black-grassroots-media-archive/share

[diallokenyatta]

#BroDiallo Broadcast: ADOS, FBA, Cargo Cultism 🇺🇲💵🙇🏿‍♂️🙇🏿‍♀️⚖️🗽 #Reparations #ProsperityPolitics #NCOBRA #ADOS #KeepThatSlaveEnergy #PanAfricanism (at Que4 Radio) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5LLt1ogAyR/?igshid=53dzddpjdkzn

[djomowale]

#ncobra #reparations Reparations Awareness Day in #philly https://www.instagram.com/p/BuLeLlIAJpH/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=yyufu050afg4

[salimadofo]

#Reparations @nkechitaifa @omowaleclay #NCOBRA

[know4life]

RT @LouisFarrakhan: At 7pm ET, I will be speaking at the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (@NCOBRA40) 2019 National Convention. Watch the live stream: https://t.co/fwIRbgR328 #Farrakhan #NCOBRA

[aironmetaislam]



The Moral Case for Reparations

OPE: FAITH PUB EVENT

Tuesday, December 7, 2021 7:00 PM -  9:00 PM ET

Join the Mayor's Commission on Faith-based and Interfaith Affairs for a deep dive into the urgent call for reparations today. In an event inviting Black and white (and non-Black) people of faith to examine reparations as a deep faith commitment of spiritual repair and redress for intergenerational harms arising from slavery and its afterlives, we will explore the spiritual case for reparations, the history of this work in Philadelphia, hear from a local Quaker initiative, and learn from reparations leaders from Philly and beyond. Join us for moving presentations and times in affinity groups to explore how to move this work forward in your faith community rooted in accountability to the Black community inviting us deeper into this call. Presenters include:

Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart, Director for Faith-Based and Interfaith Affairs

David Ragland and Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb of the Grassroots Reparations Campaign

Rashaun Williams and Breanna Moore of the local chapter of NCOBRA (National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America)

Marille Thomas and Gabbreell James of Green Street Friends Meeting Reparations Committee

Faith leaders from the Mayor's Commission on Faith-based and Interfaith Affairs

 ?Forget this device.

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[thechanelmuse]

Chile, the utter disrespect...

Juneteenth commemorates the 19th day of June in 1865 , in which, enslaved Black Americans in Galveston, Texas, who were still laboring the land and generating the wealth of the United States for European colonists, were brought the news of freedom by Union soldiers. Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation two and a half years prior, abolishing chattel enslavement on this soil. 

Black Americans are an ethnic group whose roots are centuries deep within and tied to this land. It does not mean “a Black person who resides in America.” This day has been observed in Texas and various states since 1865. It is not a Pan-African holiday nor should it be treated as such. No one's holidays get hijacked and altered to be "more fitting" for people who are classified as racially Black in this country and push Black Americans in the background of our day of honoring our ancestors.

The antics and the amount of Juneteenth trademarks that have been filed since 2021 to as of recently to make money off of the ancestors....We don't disrespect anyone's holidays nor do we go to their countries and do shit like this, so don't do it to ours. Respect.

The colors of the Juneteenth flag are the same colors of the American flag created by Ben Haith. The star represents Texas and the arch represents a new horizon of opportunities for Black Americans.

Green/yellow/red are the colors of Ethiopia's flag, some Pan-African organizations and the Rastafari movement. That’s specific.

👆🏽 is not a Juneteenth flag. 

The one above is also a Pan-African flag, but made by Marcus Garvey, who immigrated to this country with the hopes that he could convince Black Americans to leave our country for his Back-to-Africa Movement. No. The ancestors were not going for that. Not to mention Garvey chilled with the KKK and was good friends with white supremacists/eugenicists Earnest Cox and Walter Plecker, who reclassified all American Indians and Mulattoes as Negro before kicking off the Dawes Rolls for $5 Indians. Paper genocide. Many of his letters and surname stipulations are online. When you understand the centuries of our reclassification federally in this country, the shit will make sense.

Callie Guy House was a formerly enslaved mother of 5, washerwoman, and a reparationist—one of the first on this land. In 1894, she founded The National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief Bounty and Pension Association with Black American pastor Isaiah Dickerson. Chapters grew in other states outside of Tennessee, and galvanized Black Americans in hopes of securing compensation for centuries of unpaid forced labor that built this country and its wealth, as well as food, medical, and burial expenses. She was found guilty of "mail fraud" by an all-white male jury and imprisoned for a year. How calculated.

In the meantime, Garvey decided to pick it up and attach our reparations to his organization—very Congressional Black Caucus, NCOBRA and NAARC of him—which got him deported. You would think he would relocate to an African country. Nope. He settled in London... 🙃

If you’re down with the latter flag, rep your set, love. But it’ll make more sense to do so on your own holidays and on the continent of Africa itself, as well, in whatever country you choose and they allow you to do so. Do what Garvey couldn’t do... After all it’s called Pan-Africanism not Pan-Americanism while waving a Pan-African flag. 

[seoschwartz-blog]

All these wannabe racists//haters//bigots tryin’ the “cool jazz’” angle in Skid Row can str8 get fukked.

[blogbamnbyanymeansnecessary-blog]

America Owes Us for the Ongoing Destruction of Afrikan Life! Reparations Now!

From the New Afrikan People’s Organization and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement

The New Afrikan People’s Organization is a revolutionary organization dedicated to independence and socialism for Afrikan descendants in the U.S. empire. NAPO is also committed to Pan-Afrikanism and anti-imperialist solidarity. 

The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement is the mass association and political action wing of NAPO. MXGM is committed to self-determination, reparations, human rights for New Afrikan people and opposes sexism and genocidal policies of the US empire.

As Pan-Africanists and anti-imperialists, NAPO and MXGM stands firmly in solidarity with the struggle of Afrikan and indigenous peoples for reparations internationally as well as inside the United States. The following statement outlines our understanding of both the importance of an international struggle for reparations for our people’s and other people’s centuries long struggle to end colonial domination and slavery.

What are Reparations?

Reparations are compensation for damages inflicted on groups or individuals. The responsible party attempts to bring peace and justice by compensating the afflicted party. Reparations are an established principle in international law. The international community has held violators of human rights responsible to redress the damages it was responsible for. For example, Germany was forced to pay Israel because of its genocidal practices against Jewish people in the 1930’s and 1940’s and Iraq was forced to compensate Kuwait after the Gulf War. The United States government agreed to compensate Japanese Americans for internment in concentration camps and seizing their property during the second World Imperialist War (a.k.a. World War II).

Why Should Afrikans in the United States receive reparations?

The history of Afrikans in the United States (U.S.) is an indictment against the U.S. government in terms of violations of human rights and genocide. The U.S. government is responsible for compensating Afrikans who descendants of those Afrikans are who were held captive in North America. For twenty-five years (1783 to 1808), the United States allowed Afrikans to be legally brought into its borders. They received import duties on each captive Afrikan brought to its shores during that time. In winning its war of independence from England, the U.S. decided to maintain a system of slavery with Afrikans as its primary labor force. Despite continued individual and collective resistance by Afrikans, the American system of slavery created physical, psychological and social damage on the Afrikan population.

After slavery was declared illegal (except for punishment for “crimes”), the Americans institutionalized a system of colonial apartheid called segregation or “Jim Crow” which limited the life chances and the social and economic development of the Afrikan population in North America. From the 1870’s until the early 1920’s, the American government allowed terrorist violence against Afrikans to go virtually unchecked by its “law enforcement.”

While the American government has declared its brand of apartheid illegal, this system is so institutionalized it is maintained in most aspects of social life in the United States, including the economic system, health care, housing, and education. Afrikan people are disproportionately targeted for police harassment and mass incarceration. White supremacy continues to affect the political, economic, and social life of Afrikans in the U.S.

Is the Demand for Reparations a new issue?

After the American Civil War, Afrikans began to demand land as a form of compensation for years of unpaid labor. The slogan “Forty Acres and a Mule” is rooted in this aspiration. Fear of an Afrikan uprising for land existed throughout the southern American states. In Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia, American troops put down attempts by Afrikans to seize land. 

In the 1890’s there were several efforts by Afrikans to achieve reparations. The National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief Bounty and Pension Association, headed by Callie House and Isaiah Dickerson, was a southern-based reparations movement possessed over 10,000 members. Henry McNeal Turner, a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church, called for reparations to allow our people to repatriate to Afrika.

Queen Mother (Audley) Moore represents the most tireless worker for Afrikan reparations in the Afrikan descendant movement in the U.S. A former member of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association and the Communist Party of the U.S., Queen Mother began to advocate reparations in the 1950’s. She convinced Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X to include it in the program of the Nation of Islam. She also convinced other nationalists, including Imari Obadele, founder of the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika, Oserjiman Adefumi, the founder of Oyotunji Village in South Carolina and leader of the Yoruba and traditional African religious revival movement in the U.S., as well as, Muhammad Ahmad (Max Stanford) of the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), to advocate reparations. Inspired by Queen Mother Moore, Black Power organizations like the Revolutionary Action Movement, Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, and the Black Panther Party advocated reparations. Most national Black Power gatherings endorsed the concept of reparations. After the Black Economic Development Conference called for reparations in 1970, activists like Jim Forman initiated a direct-action campaign targeting predominately white Christian churches demanding reparations. This forced white denominations to direct funds to Afrikan communities.

Since 1987, the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA) has led the effort to achieve reparations for Afrikan descendants in the United States. NCOBRA is a united front of activists who advocate reparations. The Lost Found Nation of Islam, under the leadership of Silas Muhammad, has initiated efforts to gain international support for reparations. From 1989 until his tenure in the United States Congress ended in 2017, Representative John Conyers submitted H.R. 40, a bill to study reparations in the House of Representatives. The Conyers bill has never made it out of the Judicial committee to the floor of Congress. Several city governments, including Atlanta and Detroit have passed resolutions in support of reparations. The 2000 release of the book The Debt: What America Owes Blacks by human rights advocate Randall Robinson re-introduced the demand reparations in popular discourse. Journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates 2014 article “A Case for Reparations” invigorated the dialogue in the United States.

Global developments

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the movement towards the 2001 World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) in Durban, South Africa increased international momentum of African peoples towards reparations. The struggle resulted in a resolution in which the United Nations declared the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade “A Crime Against Humanity.” This was considered a significant victory for the reparations movement. Unfortunately, two events disrupted the forward motion. 

First, three days after the conclusion of the conference, the attacks on September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington D.C., overshadowed the victory at the WCAR for U.S. based reparations activists. Secondly, the follow up Conference Against Racism in Barbados was divided by a conflict over including people of white European origin in the conference. Despite these setbacks, Afro-descendant movements in South America, notably Brazil and Venezuela, have achieved momentum post-Durban. 

Additionally, a significant blow to the international reparation movement occurred after the U.S. sponsored coup in 2004 of the Lavalas government headed by Jean Bertrand Aristide in Haiti. The Aristide government had demanded twenty-one billion dollars in reparations from France, which had coerced Haiti to compensate the French government for its liberation from French colonialism. The demand for restitution remains a popular demand in Haiti despite the kidnapping of President Aristide and his seven-year banishment from Haiti.

The 2013 CARICOM countries 10 point-plan for reparations from European countries is an important development in re-asserting the demand for economic justice and for respect for the lives and humanity of our Ancestors. It also inspired reparations advocates inside the U.S. empire.

What type of redress does NAPO and the MXGM argue should be sought?

There are various proposals for reparations. The relationship between Afrikans and the United States has been an experience of conflict. The New Afrikan People’s Organization (NAPO) and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) argue that Afrikan people and the United States will never have peace until reparations have been achieved on certain fundamental levels. The U.S. is in denial in terms of its crimes against the Afrikan population within its borders. Just as individuals engaged in therapy, America must first recognize its role in the oppression. The United States must acknowledge its violations against Afrikan people. Admitting to its role and apologies are not sufficient acts of justice. Acknowledgment of its human rights violations is a prerequisite to action to resolve the conflict between the United States and Afrikans.

Most reparation proposals offer financial compensation to Afrikans in America in terms of monetary payments, tax relief, or support for education. While all of these are valid there are other elements of redress which NAPO/MXGM and other forces in the New Afrikan Independence Movement are concerned. We do not believe compensating individuals thousands of dollars is a meaningful way to heal the damages experienced by Afrikans in America. Given the current balance of power and capitalist economic arrangements, individual stipends would primarily stimulate the American economy not empower the Afrikan community. We are concerned with reparation proposals that encourage our collective development and enable our people to ensure our future. The first things that our enslaved Ancestors lost were their identity and freedom. After the end of chattel slavery, our Ancestors were never allowed to choose their national identity or their relationship to the government, which sanctioned their captivity and enslavement. We should be allowed to determine what a free existence is for us, through a plebiscite. A plebiscite is a vote taken by a people to determine their national will. Some of us would prefer to be U.S. citizens. Some would prefer to be repatriated to Africa. Those of us in the New Afrikan Independence Movement desire an Afrikan government in North America on territory that our Ancestors were enslaved on and forced to work without compensation. As part of our compensation, the United States should honor and respect our right to self-determination, our choices of how We want to be free. The United States should not deny us the right to organize a vote to determine how We wish to be free nor should the US attempt to manipulate that vote. After We determine our respective choices the United States should be obligated to fulfill our demands of freedom. This is real justice!

Another form of redress is for the United States government to release all political prisoners, and prisoners of war and allow all Afrikan political exiles to return to North America, if they choose to do so. The war the United States waged on the Afrikan freedom struggle in this country is the reason political prisoners, prisoners of war and exiles exist. No real redress can exist while there is captivity or isolation of Afrikan freedom fighters.

How does NAPO and the MXGM think reparations will be achieved?

Frederick Douglas once said, “power concedes nothing without a demand.” The United States will not give us anything unless it is forced to. We might still be in slavery if our Ancestors did not strike for their freedom during the American Civil War. Without active struggle, Afrikans would not be able to vote or enjoy other things now considered basic rights in the U.S. empire. Reparations will only be achieved through a massive movement by Afrikans militantly challenging the empire. If We don’t seriously fight for it, We will never get reparations or anything else important to our existence.

We must as a people reach a consensus on reparations. As We reach a consensus, We must challenge the imperialist state on reparations. If We are serious about reparations We will not allow business as usual to occur within the empire until We get it. Without reparations, we won’t have justice and without justice for our Ancestors, and ourselves, We shouldn’t allow the U.S. empire to live in peace. This is the only way We will achieve reparations.

FREE THE LAND! RESIST SETTLER COLONIALISM AND US IMPERIALISM!

[sufula]

Think, study & hold everyone accountable. ___________☆☆ When you're against Kamala and then you marry someone who looks like Kamala, your preference speaks volumes. Understand that your soul has no secret that your behavior does not reveal. The choice of your significant other signals that assimilation into the majority culture is your life's choice. You have a bad case of sexism that believes a woman should stay in her place which is a value of the majority culture or the spirit of schizophrenia has taken over your mind. That means that you should not give advice to the 43 million African Americans who live differently from you. You have millions in the bank so reparations isn't first and foremost in your mind. You want to carry the Republican banner and use reparations as the distraction. Get your tax breaks & Covid-19 money, but don't hurt Black people. You know that speaking money gets attention, but just like 3 card monte the distraction is designed to get people to pick the wrong card. It's about putting money in your pocket. WHITE SOUHERN PREACHERS- EVANGELICALS CREATED PROSPERITY GOSPEL BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T SUPPORT THE SOCIAL JUSTICE GOSPEL OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. Prosperity preaching is the carrot that keeps your attention so you don't address social and economic inequalities. This new reparations movement is repackaged prosperity gospel because it sells you a program that already exists. In other words, Ice Cube asked for things that already exists to nullify your vote. NCOBRA or the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations has been operating since 1987. John Conyers has pushed a bill (HB40) to discuss reparations in the United States Congress ,since 1989. 40 is a reference to " 40 acres and a mule which was the original reparations bill in 1865. Congresswoman Sheila Lee has picked up the baton for HR40. TaNehesi Coats, Danny Glover, et. al testified before a Congressional committee to study reparations in 2019. Both the Human Rights Commission and the ACLU are pushing for reparations for African Americans. If you don't study history for yourself , then you'll believe that we just started reparations. https://www.instagram.com/p/CJB2bWGl3gq/?igshid=pclldkov1uv

[lodelss]

Reparations – Has the Time Finally Come?

During a lull one afternoon when I was a high school student selling Black Panther Party newspapers on the streets of downtown Washington, D.C., in 1971, I sat down on the curb and opened the tabloid to the 10-point program, “What We Want; What We Believe.” The graphic assertion of “Point Number 3” particularly grabbed me:

“We believe that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules … promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The Germans are now aiding the Jews in Israel for the genocide of the Jewish people. The Germans murdered six million Jews. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over fifty million Black people. Therefore, we feel this is a modest demand that we make.”

The absence of justice continually flustered me because, even at that young age, I knew that Black people had been kidnapped and brought to this country to labor for free as slaves; stripped of our language, religion, and culture; raped and tortured; and then subjected to a Jim Crow-era of lynchings, police brutality, inferior education, substandard housing, and mediocre health care. I did not know then about the massacres in Rosewood, Florida, or Tulsa, Oklahoma; the merciless experimentations on defenseless Black women devoid of anesthesia that led to modern gynecology; or about the enormous profits from slavery made by corporations, insurance companies, the banking and investment industries, and academic institutions. But on a psychic level, I could feel in my bones the enslavement era’s inhumane cruelty to Black children — its destruction of kindred ties and its economic exploitation and cultural deprivation. There was an incessant gnawing in my soul for amends and redress. I was passionate about injustice, felt the idea of reparations to be reasonable and fair, and vowed to talk about the concept whenever and wherever I could.  My analysis, however, had not crystallized beyond a check. But just to mouth the word “reparations” was a starting point to its validity. Thus talk about it I did, despite my views being often rejected, ridiculed, or otherwise summarily dismissed. Standing on the street corner that afternoon nearly five decades ago, little did I realize that I would one day be in the company of leading academics, economists, historians, attorneys, psychiatrists, politicians, and more — domestically and internationally — promoting the right to, and the need for, reparations.

Several members of the Black Panther party carry copies of the Black Panther newspaper

Credit: Associated Press

The Fight for Reparations Has a Long History

But that day would be far into the future.  Despite my advocacy and that of many others during my high school, college, and law school years and beyond, the issue of reparations for descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States was not fashionable, but fringe, and definitely not part of the mainstream popular discourse. Indeed, one would be branded as a militant or a revolutionary (both of which I was), or just plain crazy (which I was not), or in today’s dubious governmental surveillance parlance, a “Black Identity Extremist.” Indeed, it is almost surreal being amidst all the buzz surrounding reparations today, from universities to talk show pundits and, interestingly, to 2020 Democratic candidates vying for the presidency. Despite or perhaps because of today’s surge in attention to this longstanding issue, I feel it critical that the populace understands that the demand for reparations in the U.S. for unpaid labor during the enslavement era and post-slavery discrimination is not novel or new. The claim did not drop from the sky with Ta’Nehisi Coates’ brilliant treatise, “The Case for Reparations,” in The Atlantic, or from Randall Robinson’s impassioned book, “The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks,” both of which galvanized the issue in different decades and thrust it into national conversation.

Although there have been hills and valleys in national attention to the issue, there has been no substantial period of time when the call for redress was not passionately voiced. The first formal record of a petition for reparations in the United States was pursued and won by a formerly enslaved woman, Belinda Royall. Professor Ray Winbush’s book, “Belinda’s Petition,” describes a petition she presented to the Massachusetts General Assembly in 1783, requesting a pension from the proceeds of her enslaver’s estate — an estate partly the product of her own uncompensated labor. Belinda’s petition yielded a pension of 15 pounds and 12 shillings. Former U.S. Civil Rights Commissioner Mary Frances Berry illuminated the case of Callie House in her book, “My Face Is Black Is True.” Callie, along with Rev. Isaiah Dickerson, headed the first mass reparations movement in the United States, founded in 1898. The National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief Bounty and Pension Association had 600,000 dues-paying members who sought to obtain compensation for slavery from federal agencies. During the 1920s, Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association galvanized hundreds of thousands of Black people seeking repatriation with reparation, proclaiming, “Hand back to us our own civilisation. Hand back to us that which you have robbed and exploited of us … for the last 500 years.” During the 1950s and 1960s, New York’s Queen Mother Audley Moore was perhaps the best-known advocate for reparations. As president of the Universal Association of Ethiopian Women, she presented a petition against genocide and for self-determination, land, and reparations to the United Nations in both 1957 and 1959. She was active in every major reparations movement until her death in 1996.

Queen Mother Audley Moore

Credit: Associated Press

In his 1963 book, “Why We Can’t Wait,” Dr. Martin Luther King proposed a “Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged,” which emphasized redress for both the historical victimization and exploitation of Blacks as well as their present-day degradation. “The ancient common law has always provided a remedy for the appropriation of labor on one human being by another,” he wrote. “This law should be made to apply for the American Negroes.”         After the Black Panther Party’s stance in 1966, the Republic of New Afrika proclaimed in its 1968 “Declaration of Independence:

“We claim no rights from the United States of America other than those rights belonging to people anywhere in the world, and these include the right to damages, reparations, due us from the grievous injuries sustained by ourselves and our ancestors by reason of United States’ lawlessness.” 

In April 1969, the “Black Manifesto” was adopted at a National Black Economic Development Conference. The manifesto, presented by civil rights activist James Forman, included a demand that white churches and synagogues pay $500 million in reparations to Blacks in the U.S. The amount was based on a calculation of $15 for each of the estimated 20 to 30 million African Americans residing in the U.S. He touted it as only the beginning of the amount owed. The following month, Forman interrupted Sunday service at Riverside Church in New York to announce the reparations demand from the “Black Manifesto.” Notably, several religious institutions did respond with financial donations. In 1972, the National Black Political Assembly Convention meeting in Gary, Indiana, adopted “The Anti-Depression Program,” an act authorizing the payment of a sum of money in reparations for slavery as well as the creation of a negotiating commission to determine kind, dates, and other details of paying reparations. Consistently, the Nation of Islam’s publications — such as Muhammad Speaks and, later, The Final Call — have demanded that the United States exempt Black people “from all taxation as long as we are deprived of equal justice.”

The Modern-Day Reparations Movement

But it was the end of the 20th century that brought broad national attention to the call for reparations for people of African descent in the United States with the founding of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA). I was proud to be a founding member of NCOBRA at the historic gathering on Sept. 26, 1987, which brought together diverse groups under one umbrella, from the Republic of New Afrika to the National Conference of Black Lawyers. For its first decade in existence, I served as chair of NCOBRA’s legislative commission. Since the creation of NCOBRA, the demand for reparations in the United States substantially leaped forward, generating what I’ve dubbed “The Modern-Day Reparations Movement.” Inspired by and organized on the heels of the passage of the 1988 Civil Liberties Act, which granted reparations to Japanese-Americans for their unjust incarceration during World War II, NCOBRA reinvigorated the demand for reparations for African Americans and broadened the concept through public education, accompanied by legislative and litigation-based initiatives. Also encouraged by the 1988 Civil Liberties Act, Rep.  John Conyers introduced a bill in 1989 to “establish a commission to examine the institution of slavery and subsequent racial and economic discrimination against African Americans and the impact of these forces on Black people today.��� This commission would be charged with making recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies. The bill’s number “H.R. 40” was in remembrance of the unfulfilled 19th-century campaign promise to give freed Blacks 40 acres and a mule. Conyers’ “Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act” provided the cover and vehicle to have a public policy discussion on the issue of reparations in Congress.

Rep. John Conyers

Credit: Associated Press

The 1988 Civil Liberties Act authorized the payment of $20,000 to each Japanese-American detention-camp survivor, a trust fund to be used to educate Americans about the suffering of the Japanese-Americans, a formal apology from the U.S. government, and a pardon for all those convicted of resisting detention camp incarceration. It is a sad commentary that the U.S. government has not taken formal responsibility for its role in the enslavement or post-slavery apartheid segregation of millions of Blacks. It has never attempted reparations to African Americans for the extortion of labor for many generations, deprivation of their freedom and human rights, and terrorism against them throughout the centuries. The U.S. Senate and House did pass symbolic resolutions apologizing for slavery and segregation. However, the 2009 bill passed by the Senate contained a disclaimer that those seeking reparations or cash compensation could not use the apology to support a legal claim against the U.S. Since the introduction of H.R. 40, several state legislatures and scores of city councils across the country have passed reparations-type legislation or resolutions endorsing H.R. 40. In 1990, the Louisiana House of Representatives passed a resolution in support of reparations. In 1991, legislation was introduced in the Massachusetts Senate providing for the payment of reparations for slavery, the slave trade, and individual discrimination against the people of African descent born or residing in the commonwealth of Massachusetts. In 1994, the Florida Legislature paid $150,000 to each of the 11 survivors of the 1923 Rosewood Race Massacre and created a scholarship fund for students of color. In 2001, the California State Assembly passed a resolution in support of reparations. After a four-year investigation, the Tulsa Race Riot Reconciliation Act was enacted in 2001. Oklahoma legislators settled on a scholarship fund and memorial to commemorate the June 1921 massacre that left as many as 300 Black people dead and 40 square blocks of exclusively Black businesses, homes, and schools obliterated. That same year, a bill was introduced in the New York State Assembly to create a “Commission to Quantify the Debt Owed to African Americans.” Bills are also pending within several other state legislatures, but the reparations movement isn’t just targeting state houses. City councils in the states of Arkansas, California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and the District of Columbia have all passed resolutions in support of H.R. 40. Reparations advocates have also challenged corporations who benefited from the profits made from trafficking in human beings during the enslavement era. Countless companies and industries benefited and were enriched from the profits made as a result of chattel slavery. There are companies that sold life insurance policies on the lives of enslaved persons, such as Aetna, New York Life, and AIG. Financial gains were accrued by the predecessor banks of financial giants like J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America. Others with documented ties to slavery included railroads like Norfolk Southern, CSX, Union Pacific, and Canadian National. Newspaper publishers that assisted in the capture of runaway persons include Knight Rider, Tribune, E.W. Scripps, and Gannett. The financial backers of many of the country’s top universities were wealthy slave owners, and it has been disclosed that the reason Georgetown University stands today is because the Jesuits who ran the college used profits from the sale of Black people to continue its operation. Survivors of torture by Chicago police received an unprecedented compensatory package based on a reparations ordinance passed by the Chicago City Council in 2015. Numerous civil and human rights organizations, religious groups, professional organizations, civic groups, sororities, fraternities, and labor unions have also officially endorsed the call for reparations. In 2016, the Movement for Black Lives Policy Table released its platform, which prominently featured the issue of reparations. The role that governments, corporations, industries, religious institutions, educational institutions, private estates, and other entities played in supporting the institution of slavery and its vestiges are roles that can no longer be ignored, dismissed outright, or swept under the rug. The time is now ripe that their involvement be recognized, examined, discussed, and redressed.

The Demand Deserves Serious Consideration

I am part of the inaugural cohort of commissioners on the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC), convened by the Institute of the Black World 21st Century in 2016. The commission’s preamble asserts:

“No amount of material resources or monetary compensation can ever be sufficient restitution for the spiritual, mental, cultural and physical damages inflicted on Africans by centuries of the MAAFA, the holocaust of enslavement and the institution of chattel slavery.”

Recognizing these as “crimes against humanity,” as acknowledged by the 2001 Durban Declaration and Program of Action of the World Conference Against Racism in South Africa, the preamble goes on to assert that “the devastating damages of enslavement and systems of apartheid and de facto segregation spanned generations to negatively affect the collective well-being of Africans in America to this very moment.” NAARC has advanced a comprehensive, yet preliminary, reparations program to guide reparatory justice demands by people of African descent in the United States.      Finally, although my primary focus has been on obtaining reparations for African descendants in the United States, it is critical to recognize that our quest is part of the international movement for reparations as well. As such, I have worked closely with supporters of reparations throughout the world, recognizing that the success of the movement for reparations for diasporic Africans anywhere advances the movement for reparations by Africans and African descendants everywhere.    I am thrilled that my quest to have reparations seen as a legitimate concept for African Americans, begun nearly 50 years ago, is becoming a reality. The issue has become more precise, less rhetorical, and has entered the mainstream. And while cash payments remain an important and necessary component of any claim for damages, it is crystal clear today that a reparations settlement can be fashioned in as many ways as necessary to equitably address the countless manifestations of injury sustained from chattel slavery and its continuing vestiges. Some forms of redress may include land, economic development, or scholarships. Other amends may embrace community development, repatriation resources, or truthful textbooks. Still, other areas of reparatory justice may encompass the erection of monuments and museums, pardons for impacted prisoners from the COINTELPRO-era, and repairing the harms from the War on Drugs. Fifty years after I first entered the reparations movement, I’m optimistic. It’s hard not to be when H.R. 40 has been updated to include not just a mere study of proposals but also their development. It’s also hard not to be optimistic when a Senate companion bill to H.R. 40 has been introduced and even more astonishing when some Democratic candidates for the 2020 presidential race are saying they will sign the legislation if elected president. Despite a resurfacing of white supremacy in the U.S., I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am buoyed by the reemergence of the spirits of Belinda, Callie House, and Queen Mother Moore as well as the resilience of “Reparations Ray” Jenkins, who kept the fire alive in Rep. Conyers to introduce H.R. 40 year after year. And I am inspired by the words of the great anti-slavery orator Frederick Douglass, who poignantly instructed that “power concedes nothing without a demand.” The demand has been made and the time to seriously consider reparations has finally come.

READ THE FULL REPARATIONS SERIES

Nkechi Taifa is founder and president of The Taifa Group, LLC. An accomplished human rights attorney, she is a justice system reform strategist, advocate, and scholar.  

Published May 27, 2020 at 12:05AM via ACLU https://ift.tt/3grc5uE

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Reparations Labor Union, N'Cobra Bringing National Reparations Debate to Detroit

Reparations Labor Union, N’Cobra Bringing National Reparations Debate to Detroit

Two national organizations pushing for federal legislation on reparations for descendants of African American slaves are bringing their agendas and messages to Detroit. The Detroit-based Reparations Labor Union has scheduled a summit in June, which later the same week will be followed by the national conference for the Washington-based National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, also…

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The Honorable Minister Louis #Farrakhan will be receiving an award and speaking at this week’s N’COBRA National Convention in Detroit, Michigan. See flyer for details. #NCOBRA #Reparations #HR40 Gen. 15 https://t.co/spgOo8Q8GB