The Case For REPARATIONS: Why? How Much? When?
Ebony Issue: August, 2000
IT was 1989 when U.S. Rep. John Conyers first proposed a bill (H.R. 40) to "establish a commission to examine the institution of slavery ... and economic discrimination against African-Americans ... to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies." Back then, hardly anyone in the country could have told you what the term "reparations" meant. Now, thanks to the relentless efforts of Conyers and others, the word cuts through the public consciousness like a buzzsaw, and the debate over how African-Americans should be compensated for centuries of slavery and discrimination is echoing loudly through town halls and lecture halls.
That wasn't the case 11 years ago. Conyers' bill languished in Congress for a decade, failing to gain enough support to warrant even a subcommittee hearing. But today, the case for reparations is like a snowball tumbling downhill--with each turn it gains momentum and size. Politicians, academics, students and activists of all stripes have signed on to the cause. The movement took a quantum leap forward on May 18 when the Chicago City Council voted 46-1 in favor of a resolution urging Congress to consider Conyers' bill. Resolutions have also been passed in Detroit, Dallas, Cleveland and Washington, D.C.
As the chorus for a national dialogue on reparations grows louder, some of the most influential Black Americans are weighing in. On the following pages, EBONY has assembled three of the reparations movement's most vocal proponents: Rep. Conyers, Chicago Alderman Dorothy Tillman, who led the drive for that city's reparations resolution, and Randall Robinson, president of TransAfrica, whose recently published book, "The Debt: What America Owes To Blacks," is a comprehensive examination of the issue. Each makes the case that the time has come for America to acknowledge that the effects of slavery linger with us today, and that the time has come to put the topic of reparations on the legislative agenda.
Why?
U.S. REP. JOHN CONYERS: (D-Mich.) Author of H.R. 40
THE concept of establishing some form of reparations for the descendants of the Africans who were held in slavery is not a new one. The subject has been locked in America's closet for hundreds of years. Since 1989, I have sponsored a bill calling for the U.S. government to hold a probing study of the issue. Only now--with the groundswell of forums and seminars on college campuses, and the increasingly vocal support of some of the nation's most respected academics and opinion leaders--has the subject gained currency in the public domain.
Part of the reason for this heightened public interest is the fact that reparations has been discussed in recent years in connection with a variety of national and international calamities. We have had talk about reparations for victims of the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, for victims of the Nazi holocaust, for Native Americans, and Japanese Americans. These discussions have fueled interest in providing reparations for victims of the American slave experience. And so the momentum began to turn in our favor.
It is important to note that my bill approaches the subject of reparations as a means of healing, rather than further dividing the country. The idea is to create a presidentially appointed commission, one that Congress would be able to weigh-in to, that would bring forward clearly qualified and impartial experts on the African-American experience to see if we could put together a very serious document to present to Congress on this subject.
We want the government to examine not only slavery, but all of the forms of discrimination which, in effect, re-enslaved the former slaves and their descendants in the post-Reconstruction era and have effects that dribble down right into the very present. I see the examination of these events as a very necessary part of healing the race problem and taking it off the agenda as the No. 1 unfinished problem in America's social and economic history.
My bill also calls for town hall meetings so that people who do not hold themselves out as experts can talk about this--as people in a democracy are given to talk about subjects that are both simple and complex--and give their views.
We recognize that we don't need a majority to move the discussion on reparations forward. Often, in fact, when we have done the right thing in our democracy, we have done it without majority support. I don't think, for instance, that the majority of people would necessarily have supported the Voting Rights Act or even the Civil Rights Act. But we want to get this issue in front of enough people so that we can say a substantial number of citizens are at least aware of it and understand the significance of having this discussion.
We also want people to understand that we are not coming forward in an accusatory tone toward any citizens or their ancestors. This is not a witch-hunt. We are not looking for people who owned or traded in slaves. And we're not trying to penalize people for things that happened in another century. What we are saying is that the brutal system of slavery and its legacy of discrimination were sanctioned by our government, and it is to the government that we look for redress, not individual citizens.
Notice that I have not suggested what form the reparations should take, although that is an enormous chapter in this legislative movement. But to rush forward with suggestions at this point would only further divide us. We don't want to start dividing ourselves up debating the infinite number of possibilities before we reach the agreement that there really should be reparations.
And the discussion of compensation is not going to be mean-spirited. We do not want to break the bank of the U.S. Treasury or send the nation plunging headlong into deficit. We must very seriously determine what is owed and what form compensation should take.
We are not asking for anything dramatic. We simply think that Congress should take a look at the lingering effects of slavery so we may get a deeper appreciation of them and reach some consensus about what the solutions may be. The issue of reparations is not something beyond our understanding. It's a pretty fundamental issue if you look at it. I'm saying it's time we did.
How Much?
ALDERMAN DOROTHY TILLMAN: Author of Chicago City Council Resolution On Reparations
IN 1619, when the Dutch ship pulled into the Jamestown, Va., settlement with its cargo of 22 captured Africans, it set the stage for one of the most brutal and inhuman periods in the history of mankind. The slave trade, or Black holocaust, grew into a hugely profitable and culturally devastating industry. Some 80 to 100 million Africans are estimated to have died of starvation, disease or at the hands of their captors on the painful Transatlantic voyage to the Americas and other nations around the world ... While enriching slave owners and their families, the slave trade disconnected the Africans from their homes, families, culture and language. They were left without a shred of dignity or identity.
For over 200 years the captured Africans were forced to provide free labor to clear, plant and harvest the fertile land of the new world. They were considered less than human. In fact, they were considered only three-fifths human, according to the Constitution of the United States. Their lives revolved around doing whatever was necessary to provide comfort and to enrich the lives of their owners, regardless of how degrading, inhuman or back-breaking it was. They were pitted against one another--dark-skinned slave against those with light skin, old against young. And they were forced to endure a system in which Blacks were always regarded as inferior and Whites always regarded as superior. Work hard and protect your master, they were told, and your reward will come in heaven.
Whether you accept it or not, we African-Americans still suffer from the ill-effects of that brutal system. That cruel institution of slavery not only dehumanized Black people, but it left permanent scars that have been identified as "Post-Traumatic Slavery Syndrome." While it is by no means the only factor that contributes to the plight of African-Americans today, it must be placed in the mix, along with racism and the economic disadvantages faced by the descendants of slaves versus those who benefited from the institution of slavery.
America has consistently refused to confront the issue of racism and the enormous debt owed to African-Americans for helping make this the riches, most powerful nation in the entire world. It could not have happened without the free skilled and unskilled work of Black slaves who built this country. America owes a debt to African-Americans, and it is past time to put the issue on the table and let's decide how to heal this gaping wound that is continuing to divide us.
It should be noted that the United States has a strong record of supporting initiatives to compensate people who have been wronged or who were the victims of broken promises or forced to enrich others without pay. This issue is well-grounded in international law, too. Billions of dollars have been awarded in these settlements, here in the United States and around the world. But for African-Americans--who were exploited, deprived of life, freedom and property--our government continues to deny us the opportunity to even discuss the issue in a public forum.
The call for reparations started long before the end of slavery; this time the fire will not be extinguished. In the resolution I sponsored in the Chicago City Council, we joined other prominent groups and individuals who support Congressman John Conyers' bill, H.R. 40, to form a commission to study reparation proposals for African-Americans. My resolution in the City Council received overwhelming biracial support.
The question of how much compensation and how it will be distributed has yet to be determined. What I and others involved in this movement are fighting for is a national reparation convention to develop an action plan for developing the methods and amounts of compensation. But first we need an extensive educational process for both Black and White America to finally put this issue on the table. Only then can we begin the long overdue healing process.
When?
RANDALL ROBINSON: President, TransAfrica, and Author of the book, The Debt: What America Owes To Blacks
NO nation can enslave a group of people for hundreds of years, set them free--bedraggled and penniless--pit them, without assistance, in a hostile environment against privileged victimizers, and then reasonably expect the gap between the heirs of the two groups to narrow. Lines begun parallel and left alone can never touch.
That is why I believe we must advance the dialogue on reparations. The process must be separated into two stages: First, before any talk of redress or compensation can begin, one has to establish what happened. Of course it is clear that something happened. We have an enormous gap between the races whose genesis can be traced to slavery. What we must do, however, is cause the United States to stop the denial and acknowledge that the long impenetrable shadow of slavery covers our society still.
The enslavement and exploitation of tens of millions of human beings in the United States was a massive crime against humanity, an American holocaust. For wasn't the practice of slavery at least as serious a system of human-rights wrongs as the Nazi holocaust? Did it not savagely eviscerate the emotional core of a whole race of people on three continents?
The United States was complicit in this massive injustice. And the injustice did not end with the lives of the slaves and the slaveholders. The great-great-great-great-grand-children of slaves are owed not just for their forebears' labor, or for the humiliation of performing it, but for every devastating failure since, engendered by their government on the basis of race.
We see the consequences of this generations-old government-approved environment of racial discrimination on a daily basis: High infant mortality. Low income. High unemployment. Substandard education. Capital incapacity. Insurmountable credit barriers. High morbidity. Below-average life span. Overrepresentation in prison--and on death row. Each a cause and/or consequence of a disabling poverty--of means and spirit--that has shackled all too many entire family trees since the Emancipation Proclamation.
So as an important first step in our cathartic journey toward healing, we must have a discussion--and ultimately an acknowledgment--from White America that the effects of slavery are visited upon us today. We must disinter our buried history, connect it to another more recent and mistold, and give it as a healing to the whole of our people, to the whole of America.
Only after we have accomplished this, should we begin the discussion that I hope Congressman John Conyers' successful legislation will engender, and that is the structure of compensation. We can't have a debate about the latter until we have accomplished the former.
With respect to the question of compensation, my thought is that we need to convene a meeting of all the experts in education and economic development and all the various areas in which this calculable damage has been done. Let us draw out of our best minds recommendations as to how this compensation package should be put together.
A study out of the University of California at Berkeley showed that the value of the income lost as a consequence of racial discrimination between 1929 and 1969 alone comes to about $1.6 trillion. Mortgage and housing discrimination account for another $80 to $90 million in lost income.
So there are ways to calculate the loss, and there are experts in a variety of disciplines who can help determine the best course of action for repairing the damage. But the first thing we must do is win an acknowledgment that we have endured the unimaginable. This awful thing that was done to us must be drawn out and exorcised. We must stop the denial so that people who are behind, not just here, but in the world, know that they aren't behind because something is wrong with them; they are behind because something happened, to them and to their ancestors.
Imagine all the liberating insights rising to the surface in the tear-washed foam of this long-suppressed national discussion on slavery, its unjust economic penalty and its searing social price. This is a struggle that we cannot lose, for in the very making of it, we will discover, if nothing else, ourselves.
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