I will scatter them, and then
I will gather them: Deuteronomy 4:27; 28:64; 32:26; Isaiah 11:12;
Jeremiah 23:8 / Read about the African Slave Trade in Deuteronomy 28th Chapter.
REPARATIONS
NOW IN OUR LIFETIME!
N E W S L E T T E R…….#24
FEBRUARY 2002
*********
WE ARE HUMAN BEINGS, AND WE OWE IT TO OUR
CHILDREN TO ESTABLISH AND DEMAND BETTER LIVES FOR THEM AND FOR
OURSELVES!
*********
GIVE POWER AND MEANING TO
THE REPARATIONS MASS
MOVEMENT - GIVE OF YOURSELF!
*********
“Take direct action against
the U.S. government!” Dr. Robert
Brock
*********
Note
from the REPNOW Newsletter Editor:
I extend many thanks and much appreciation to all who E-mailed me with kind words regarding my work with the REPNOW Newsletter. With so much happening in the Reparations Movement, I am glad to be back collecting information and marveling at the sensational input of Black Folks – my People.
The events taking place involving the Reparations Movement are indeed encouraging. And I pray that all the preparations for the August NATIONAL REPARATIONS MARCH in Washington will cause the powers-that-be to realize that we mean business, and that we will not relent until the Debt for the TransAtlantic Slave Trade and for ruining our lives is paid and Justice is served for the hundreds of years of Slavery, Racism, a myriad of Inequities, double standards, and untold pain and suffering.
I was most encouraged by an
article, herewith, containing the words of Harvard University law professor
Charles Ogletree:
“Ogletree reminded delegates that there were ‘millions of Africans today languishing in unmarked graves at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, and for whom reparations is a final vindication.’ Ogletree also predicted: ‘This is a movement that cannot be stopped. There are no plaintiffs that will not be considered. I promise that we will see reparations in our lifetime.’”
Professor Ogletree is 100% correct! We “cannot be stopped!” We can taste Deliverance from this bondage, and it is O’ so sweet! We dream dreams greater than those of the Late Martin L. King, and, yes, we have to believe that they will be realized! And we can see Black Folks with integrity and intelligence establishing educational systems for our children and preparing them to be our “future.” And we can see an end to ghetto life and all the bad elements that accompany it. Yes, this is a movement that cannot be stopped!
There are millions of
Blacks all over the World alive but dead due to the lack of Freedom and Self
Determination that has eluded us for so many hundreds of years. Therefore, we have no choice but to
continue in this fight for Reparations – WE MUST – if we are to rise above White
dominance and control over our lives that sustains us second-class citizens, the
impoverished, and the “lesser” Peoples. My ultimate desire is for Blacks
to be a significant factor in decision making involving World affairs,
establishing stability in and causing the rebirth of Africa, and becoming a
People respected and honored, as a result of rejecting and prohibiting the
corruption, manipulation, and exploitation of any Peoples anywhere. Unfortunately, this is now the very much
accepted status quo, but we can certainly change it. Some group has to take this
initiative, so it may as well be Black Folks!
Read the Newsletters and share them with college students and everyone who can read. And by all means encourage those who lack knowledge to be informed and to get involved in the Reparations Movement for the rebirth of Black Peoples everywhere.
Tziona Yisrael, Editor
REPARATIONS NOW IN OUR LIFETIME Newsletter
www.thelawkeepers.org
(Click on “Repnow”)
*********
TO SUE THE UNITED
STATES
February 17, 2002
The Reparations Campaign, for Black people in the United States, emerged more than one hundred years ago as the U.S. Federal Government was trying to survive the ravages of warfare among it's citizens. In the wake of the bitter hostilities from the Civil War a decision was made to release from Bondage millions of then enslaved Africans.
As U.S. political, civil and business leaders grappled with the pressing question of "what to do with the Negroes?" the newly freed Afrikans cried out immediately for restitution - payback for centuries of stolen labor, cultural degradation and dehumanizations. Indeed, Africans held as slaves have been struggling for a restored sense of wholeness since being brought to this country as chattel.
Other organizations and individuals have carried the demand for reparations farther into the twentieth century. Many of them have become a part of today's Reparations Campaign, which is being spearheaded by N'COBRA.
Information Central
Your source for N'COBRA information
In this period, the Reconstruction Era, a new phrase was added to the lexicon of Black folk wisdom: " forty acres and a mule", which has symbolized – to this day - Black expectations of just recompense for long years of brutal enslavement. During this period, also reparations societies were
created and the idea/demand for reparations started to be incorporated in the organizational vision of several prominent Black groups. One such group, the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association (NEMRB and PA ), attracted hundreds of thousands dues-paying members from the late 1800's to about 1915.
Information about N'COBRA
Who are we?
N'COBRA is a coalition of organizations and individuals committed to the economic, cultural, intellectual, political, social, and spiritual empowerment of black people in the USA. We are the descendants, and thus the heirs, of Africans kidnapped, transported, and enslaved in the Americas.
N'COBRA is governed by its membership through its annual National Convention, Board of Directors, Board of Elders, Commissions, and chapters.
Regional conferences continue the work of the National Convention and work specific to the Regions.
What do we want?
We want our just inheritance: the trillions of dollars due us for the labor of our ancestors who worked for hundreds of years without pay. We demand the resources required removing all badges and indicia of slavery.
Why do we want it?
We must prepare African people and communities for the demands of the new millennium. Reparations are needed to repair the wrongs, injury, and damage done to us by the US federal and State governments, their agents, and representatives. These have proved that their vision for African people in America is joblessness, more prisons (more killer kkkops), more black women and men in private prisons, AIDS and violence. The US Eurocentric educational system has failed to prepare African children for liberation, nation-building, and self-determination. This educational system produces people who are anti-black; including many blacks who are self-alienated and anti-black. We want our resources, our inheritance, to do for ourselves without US Federal and State involvement.
When do we want it?
We want it NOW! We know that preparatory steps must be taken before we can receive reparations even when the US Government agrees to pay us everything we demand. But NOW is the time to prepare for reparations. How do we prepare for reparations?
In order for reparations to make us whole, it must remove blacks from dependence on others (the government, and the descendants of slave owners and colonizers), to create our jobs, manufacture the goods we consume, feed, clothe, and shelter us, build our institutions, and oversee our money. There are many things we must do to prepare; only a few will be discussed here. We must determine what is required to enable us as a people, as a community, and as individuals to be self-determining. We need to learn the difference between wealth and money, and more about making money than spending it. And, have that we spend, we need to learn how to keep it in our communities. There are too many of our entertainers, recording artists, athletes, lottery winners, etc., who earn millions of dollars and have nothing to show for it after a few years, but a memory of good times past. We must study how reparations can be used for our liberation for seven generations to come, and not for a one time shopping spree. We must use this time to develop ways to keep the billions of dollars, which we now earn, in the black community.
How much is owed?
Once we know how much damage has been done to us, and what is required to repair the damage, we will know how much is owed. We cannot allow anyone to offer, or accept on our behalf; some arbitrary figure based on some other peoples' reparations settlement. For example, the four-year internment of Japanese in America, or the five-year holocaust of Jewish people in Europe may require a different set of remedies than the 400 years holocaust of Africans in America. The nature and extent of the damage and the number of people impacted will dictate the type, duration, and amount of reparations owed. Some estimate eight trillion dollars.
How would reparations be paid?
Payment may include all of the following:
land, equipment, factories, licenses, banks, ships, airplanes, various forms of
tax relief, education & training, to name a few. A good academic
exercise would be to develop a plan for how reparations could be used
collectively to enable the African community to become independent from racist institutions and
economically self-sufficient for at least seven generations.
Who would pay reparations?
The US Government would pay reparations in the same manner as they voted for and paid billions to Europe through the Marshall Plan after WWII, or billions to Israel every year since WWII, or to Russia, or Eastern Europe, or to prop up some puppet African Government. Just as Americans did not, as individuals, pay for aid to those countries, they will not pay for the debt owed to Africans in America. Nor are we blaming individual Americans, we are simply holding the US Government accountable for its wrongs.
Who would receive reparations?
People identified as Negro, Colored, Black, African American, New Afrikan, Black American who are the descendants of persons enslaved in the United States. Of course, those who feel that they are not due reparations, or do not need reparations will not be forced to accept it.
What about Africans enslaved in other countries?
Black reparations is an international movement. The descendants of Africans in Canada, Barbados, Haiti, Jamaica, and Brazil, West Indies, Caribbean, etc., are due preparations, but from their particular European colonizer. Colonized African countries too are due reparations. We recognize that although we were colonized and enslaved by different European colonizers and slavers, we are one people with many family members dispersed to different countries.
What can we do to help?
Make Black reparations a household word.
Learn to spell, define, and defend it. If we learn how to spell reparations,
we will easily say it. Once we learn how to defend it we will raise the issue
every time someone talks about Affirmative Action, Welfare Reform, Jobs,
Education, Housing, Health Care, Prison, Building, Police Brutality, and so on.
N'COBRA members have developed books and
other informational resources to enable each of us to become able defenders of
blat reparations. When people talk about building more prisons to deal with
the crimes of today, we need to talk about reparations to deal wit the effects
of 400 years of crimes against the African community that led to the crimes
today. We need reparations to keep or people out of prison. When people talk abort how criminals must
pay for their wrongdoing we must talk about how the US Government must pay
reparations for its wrongs.
Second:
Support HR 40.
This bill has been reintroduced in Congress
by Congressman John Conyers of Michigan. It is a first formal step toward reparations in
studying the impact of slavery and proposals for remedies. Work with organizations, churches, local
governments, and State legislatures to pass a resolution in support of HR
40. Send a copy of each resolution
to Mr. Conyers' office and to N'COBRA's National Office.
Third:
Join a reparations organization. Have that organization or any organization to which you belong, become a member of N'COBRA. Or, you may join N'COBRA directly.
Fourth:
Attend the local, regional, and national meetings on reparations to learn more about chat you can do to help. How can I join? Attend an N'COBRA meeting and submit a membership application form, or request an application from the National office. Membership is open to organizations and individuals of good moral character who believe that black people in the USA, the descendants of enslaved Africans, are due reparations from the US Government and various State governments.
N’COBRA is reaching out to peoples (individuals and organizations) all across the United States and throughout the world with a plain but urgent message: it's time for the U.S. Government to pay its long-overdue debt to Black people for slavery and for more than one hundred years of oppression and brutalization following slavery.
N'COBRA also supports the just demands of indigenous peoples (the "Indians"). In sum, the reparations demand is a simple call for human justice. And, by taking very simple steps, you can help promote this campaign - it's the right thing to do!
N'COBRA - http://www.ncobra.com/index.html
NEWS
RELEASE:
N'COBRA Prepares to Sue U.S. Government: Your support is critical!
The Reparations Litigation Committee, assembled by N'COBRA is pulling together the final pieces of our class-action lawsuit for Reparations, on behalf of African (American) people 'in the United States.
Our impressive Litigation Team is led by Sister Attorney Adjoa A. Aiyetoro, Sister Attorney Nkechi Taifa and other expert legal and political minds. According to Sister Aiyetoro: "Our team is convinced that a solidly-crafted lawsuit will help us achieve our Reparations... Much like our Ancestors who fought for 250 years to end chattel slavery, we cannot refuse to demand Reparations in every forum because it appears that the government is unlikely to give it to us or that we do not have agreement as to what form it will take."
After consultation with the N'COBRA Board of Directors and membership at the recent 9th Annual Convention, the Litigation Team is recommending four major areas for the lawsuit: wealth/poverty; education; criminal punishment; and, people/nationhood. The team is now concluding its evidence gathering and final documentation.
Therefore, your financial contributions to N'COBRA's Legal Fund are, now, more critical, more urgent than ever. Our dedicated Litigation Team has worked countless hours pro-bono (for free), for the most part.
Please support their historical effort, on behalf of our Ancestors and all people of African ancestry, by sending in your monetary gift today, to:
N'COBRA Legal Fund
P.O. Box 75437
Baton Rouge, LA 70874
Even better, organize a fundraising event for our Legal Fund in your area. Encourage local artists (writers, musicians, singers, choirs, poets, painters, cooks-chefs, etc.) to put on benefit shows for our just cause.
N'COBRA - http://www.ncobra.com/index.html
We thank you, in
advance, for your generosity!
National Coalition of Blacks
For Reparations in America
Reparations Now !!!
N'COBRA - http://www.ncobra.com/index.html
Submitted by AlAman5375@aol.com
[Let the records show that there are many so-called African Americans who pray for FREEDOM from the lands of our captivity and REPARATIONS to relocate to friendly countries that demand tolerance of all Peoples regardless of the color of their skin and their religion. With REPARATIONS, we wish to start new lives by means of “SELF DETERMINATION” (all that that entails) and pursue true happiness. T.Y., Editor]
*********
January 31, 2002
Please find herewith a link to The Black World Today. On it, you will find an article I wrote calling for A NATIONAL BLACK SOLIDARITY DAY. Some of you may have read it before. Nonetheless, I am sending to you in the "printed" format. If you agree with the concept and would like to get involved may I ask you to send it to your directory for the same purpose.
http://www.tbwt.com/views/feat/feat9084.asp
Regards In Solidarity,
Carlos Russell
Submitted by TheBlackList@topica.com
*********
NATIONAL
REPARATIONS SYMPOSIUM
February 8,
2002
In September
of 2000 at Georgia State University (GSU) in Atlanta, Georgia, the Southern
Region of the Black Law Students Association was among several organizations to
co-sponsor a student conference on the Reparations Movement. Reparations activists, scholars, and
organizers participated in this three-day event. In March of 2001, in Atlanta, Georgia,
at the national convention of the Black Law Students Association (NBLSA),
delegates from law schools across the country unanimously passed an amendment
that established a Reparations Research and Advocacy Committee.
On February
28th through March 2nd NBLSA will co-sponsor a National Reparations Symposium:
Beyond Rhetoric, the Reality of Reparations, at GSU, in Atlanta. This event is designed to increase the
body of scholarly articles that discuss Black Reparations. As one of the primary co-sponsors, the
GSU Department of African American Studies has arranged for selected papers from
the symposium to be published in a special reparations edition of the
International Journal of Africana Studies.
An
additional component of the symposium will be series of workshops for community
activists and students that will provide a foundational understanding of some of
the Reparations Movements different aspects and approaches. Proposed workshops will include
Understanding the legislative process and Black Reparations, Understanding
International Law and Black Reparations, Understanding the U.N., International
politics, and Black Reparations, Understanding domestic litigation and Black
reparations and Conducting Genealogical Research and Black Reparations. Students from various disciplines will
also be given an opportunity to present reparations papers, projects, and other
works in progress and receive feedback and critiques.
The event
will be free to the public. Other co-sponsors of this event include
the GSU College of Law, Office of African American Student Services and Programs
at GSU, BLSA at GSU, GSU Student Government, Atlanta NCOBRA chapter, and the
Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (Atlanta Chapter).
Attached is
a preliminary flyer for the symposium.
Please print the flyer and distribute. For more information contact-
reparationsgsu@yahoo.com
Peace,
Mawuli
Davis
NBLSA
Reparations Chair
Submitted by [BRC-REP]
*********
SEARCH
FOR TRUTH AND KNOWLEDGE
(Received on
12/13/01)
Part Twelve:
The
African Americans Forced Migration of Africans
Africans
came to the Americas in chains. This
shameful historical truth dominates all other questions relating to African
Peoples and European-American Peoples.
Until the significance of this fact is understood and appreciated, there is
little hope that a meaningful presentation of the history of African Peoples in
the Americas can be made. From the very beginning of the European
relationship to the New World, slavery permeated every aspect of life in the
colonies and eventually the new nations, particularly the United States, Brazil
and the islands of the Caribbean. Ironically, the European enslavement of
Africans began at about the same time as the initial dissolution of serfdom in
parts of northern and southern Europe. The end of feudal serf status
provided a foundation of later European overseas
migration.
During the
1400s and the 1500s the politics and economics of racism against Africa peoples
and the politics and economics of feudalism against the European serfs and
masses were woven together into a grotesque fabric of European exploration,
colonization and imperialism. The net
result of these historical events was the genocide of Native Americans and the
perpetuation of the triangular slave trade system which grew out of the
trans-Atlantic slave trading that dominated European-American politics and
economics for centuries. This slave trading system linked Europe, Africa and the
Americas in the single most sustained and shameful injustice of man against man
since the dawn of history.
There is no
justification for the European and American initiated, controlled and dominated
trans-Atlantic slave trade. Every type of excuse has been given to justify the
enslavement of African Peoples. Some
have even said slavery was good for Africans. Others have proclaimed that it was part of
the European "civilizing mission" of savage, inferior peoples. Still others
have claimed that Africans were "cursed" by God and were divinely ordained to
serve whites. Many blame the Africans for their own condition. In spite of all
of these rationalizations to justify African enslavement, the fundamental reason for it was greed and
racism among the leaders of European
and American nations.
Over the
years scholars, political leaders and religious authorities have tried to
justify slavery. They claimed that it was part of the Human Experience. One school of thought from America's
prestigious universities concluded that Africans were "child-like" and needed to
be under white domination and supervision. Even the Best American minds,
such as Thomas Jefferson in his Notes To Virginia, attempted to find
intellectual and moral justification for slavery. Like most of the Founding
Fathers of the United States, George Washington and Jefferson obtained a great
deal of profit and prestige from the slave system and they were not prepared to
give up this shameful source of wealth for higher ideals of human freedom. As a
result, the founding of the American nation was compromised from birth on the
altar of slavery.
The
consequences of the decisions to choose profit-making from slavery over the
lofty ideals of freedom, justice and equality can be viewed as a serious birth
defect for the United States of America. This defect has caused permanent damage
to American society and has been constant and continual source of difficulty for
the American People.
It is
important to understand the true nature of the slave system in the Americas,
particularly in the United States. The African
was not just a captive who was later enslaved; he or she was property to be treated like a thing or chattel. This
concept of the enslaved individual being separated from their human spiritual
essence is particularly European-American and has its roots in the feudal system
in Europe where the individual was legally and socially tied to the manor and
the lord like the cattle. Arab
trans-Saharan and East African slavery of Africans, which existed centuries
before its European counterpart, did not relegate African people to chattel
property status. Similarly,
traditional captivity of servitude in Africa itself, maintained by Africans, did
not separate the individual from his or her human spiritual essence and reduce
them to property in the form of chattel like the horses, the barn and the
cotton. This peculiar form of European-American racism and hypocrisy was still
being justified by the Supreme Court of the United States as late as 1857 in
the Dred Scott Decision, affirming chattel slavery. This tragic relationship
between African Peoples and Europeans existed for more than four hundred and
fifty years. Individuals and trading
companies from practically every European nation were involved in the slave
trade system. Even the major
religious authorities, Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish were involved in
sanctioning this traffic in human flesh.
Just
recently on a visit to Africa, the Roman Catholic Pope, John Paul II, apologized
for the Church's official involvement in the slave trade. Slavery affected
everything.
By Dr.
Leonard Jeffries, Jr.
Dr.Jeffries
website link is below:
The African
Americans: Search for Truth and Knowledge
The Leonard
Jeffries Virtual Museum | The Masters Museums Directory
Submitted by JELPO@AOL.COM
*********
February 7, 2002
Sistas & Brothas,
The Reparations Mobilization Coalition is looking forward
to your participation in our next series of planning meetings. We have a lot to
do after a very successful Mobilization Conference!
The upcoming work cannot be done by six or
eight people coming together twice a month. We need ALL of us who were at the
conference and those of us who could not make it to be active in this next most
crucial stage of mobilization.
We will finalize our proposed
organizational structure so that we can move forward in the process of
INSTITUTIONALIZING the Reparations Mobilization Movement. You know... a pid staff, office, supplies,
fones, computers, travel expenses.... We must move from a strictly volunteer
organization to one that has a serious paid staff AND volunteers.
We'll hear a report back from Brotha Muntu Matsimela who
will have just returned from the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre,
Brazil.
We also will have a discussion about our role
in the Reparations discussions that will take place at the statewide Congressional Black + Puerto
Rican Caucus in Albany on February 16, ... as well as a report back from roundtable
meeting held earlier in January at CUNY with Assemblyman Roger Green.
We will also have, in hand, a draft of our
first Reparations Now! newsletter and figure out distribution plans.
We will start
planning for our first Town Hall Reparations meeting scheduled for May 25, 2002
(International African Liberation Day).
Please be on time (6pm sharp!!). And please come with ideas
and the will to win!
Sincerely,
The Interim Coordinating Committee
Submitted by
brc-reparations@yahoogroups.com
*********
RAISE
“REPARATIONS” IN AN ALABAMA PRISON AND
GET
LOCKED DOWN!
February 11,
2002
Folks,
I don't know how many of you have seen this
critical case of prison political repression, but we should be spreading the
word and find ways to help Brotha Mafundi Lake and (other prisoners in his
predicament). The struggle for Reparations will be attacked 24/7 on all
levels by the ruling class. This is just one example of things to come as we
build the Reparations Movement. That's why the Reparations Movement must be
a central component in the rebuilding of the Black Liberation Movement... and
not be relegated just to the politicians, big time lawyers and academic
stars.
The Reparations
Movement must be rooted in the hearts and minds of and led by "everyday"
Blackfolks... including the multitude of us behind
bars.
In
Struggle,
Sam
Anderson
ebontek@earthlink.net
***
February 3, 2002
Richard
"Mafundi" Lake, a relentless political activist and organizer inside and outside
of the Alabama prison system for 30 years, is in the midst of a valiant and
vigorous battle within the Alabama penal system.
Since arriving at St. Clair County
Correctional Facility in 1998, Mafundi has been constantly fighting against the
rampant, wanton racism and guar-brutality that is so prevalent
there.
Consequently, Mafundi has been removed from
the general prison population several times on fabricated charges. At the
present writing, Mafundi is in isolation in the segregation unit on a bogus
charge of "writing anti-American propaganda" on the black board during a
discussion he was leading regarding reparations.
He has been in the segregation unit since September 19, 2001 on this
charge, 8 days after the events of 9/11. With his limited communication ability,
Mafundi has since learned that other political activists across the country were
also removed from their respective prison populations. Most of those prisoners
have been released back into general population; but not Mafundi.
In response to
this blatant attempt to silence him and remove his leadership from the prison
population, Mafundi has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Birmingham
(Lake v Henry, CV-01-PWG-2870-S) for conspiracy and retaliation against him by
the prison custodians in violation of his rights.
Simultaneously Mafundi is initiating a
vigorous political campaign in regards to the circumstances and conditions of
being held in the segregation unit. St.
The Reparation Movement must respond to
this. A brother in the hole for speaking on reparation inside the jail.
Clair Prison has been aptly dubbed "The
House of Horrors."
What You Can Do
To Help Mafundi In His Fight Against The Horrific Conditions At St. Clair Prison
And The Injustice Of His Confinement In The Segregation Unit:
1. Organize support for Mafundi in his
legal and political fight
2. Publicize Mafundi's plight
3. Make financial contributions to
Mafundi's Defense Committee, P.O. Box 12152, Birmingham, AL 35202-2152
4. Write letters of solidarity to Mafundi
and send him United States Postal Stamps:
Richard "Mafundi " Lake
#079972
St. Clair County Correctional Facility
1000 St. Clair Road / #H2G-13
Springville, AL 35146-5582
5. Write a letter protesting Mafundi's
treatment to the following:
Governor Don Siegelman
State Capitol
600 Dexter Avenue
Montgomery, AL 36130
Alabama State Judiciary Committee
Alabama Senate
Montgomery, AL 36130
Alabama House Judiciary Committee
Alabama House of Representatives
Montgomery, AL 36130
Warden Ralph Hooks
St. Clair County Correctional Facility
1000 St. Clair Road
Springville, AL 35216
Commissioner Make Haley
Alabama Department of Corrections
1400 Lloyd Street
Montgomery, AL 36107
6. Have your local newspaper and/or
magazine print the contents of this urgent appeal.
Mafundi GREATLY
appreciates every effort in his behalf and gives thanks in advance for all of
your help.
For further information, you may contact:
Mafundi's Defense Committee
P.O. Box 12152
Birmingham, AL 35202-2152
From:
"WaterandThunder" <mamiwata1965@ yahoo.com
Submitted by
BRC-REPARATIONS: Black Radical Congress - Reparations
Caucus
*********
January 31,
2002
Reparations is a legal wealth in the holds of these United States, entitled to U.S. Black slave descendants. On the part of Black People, there has been a great deal of passivity, silence and indifference about this wealth - mostly due to many Blacks being unfamiliar with the legal terms and practice of Reparations, and some due to the learned Blacks being frightened that White folks will get mad at them if they ask for their money. Nevertheless, this silence enables non-Blacks to have a field day spending this money - this Black folks' money!
Billions of Black People's Reparations dollars are being donated annually to support a welfare state in the Middle East. Black folks have not consented to their wealth being spent like this - particularly in lieu of the fact that this donation does not benefit U.S. Blacks at all (But perhaps the embezzlers feel that Black folk's silence gives consent).
Billions of Black People's Reparations dollars are being spent to finance wars that are not Black folk's fights. Billions of Black People's Reparations dollars are being spent to expand companies and Corporations that Black folks don't own, and is producing big-time profits that Black folks aren't receiving or benefiting from.
It is preposterous for Black folks to remain in hardship, crisis and SILENCE, while non-Black embezzlers lavish themselves with Black folk's money. Poor Black People are SILENCING away the wealth that would make them not be poor any more. Middle class Black folks are SILENCING away an income that can get them off America's Black upper echelon welfare programs (i.e., minority business loans, grants-with strings attached, etc.) and away from the constant control, will, and manipulation of tricky funding resources. Rich Black folks are SILENCING away a process that would free them and their wealth from the jurisdiction, will and command of others.
It is ridiculous in this day and time for Black People to let their own wealth bypass themselves, and be used as donations for alien causes. Somebody has been embezzling the Black Reparations Fund, which is why it has taken Black People so long to receive their money. The wealth of America is YOUR legal property!
By Attorney Dr. Robert L. Brock
President, The Self-Determination Committee
Attorney Dr. Robert L. Brock
Website:
http://www.directblackaction.com
Submitted by
Wewinnin@juno.com
*********
January 17,
2002
THIS MORNING
as I was walking down Shuhada Street in Hebron, I saw graffiti marking the newly
painted storefronts and awnings.
Although
three months past schedule and 100 per cent over budget, the renovation of
Shuhada Street was finally completed last week.
The project
manager said the reason for the delay and cost overruns was the sabotage of the
project by the Israeli settlers of the Beit Hadassah settlement complex in
Hebron. They broke the street lights, stoned
project workers, shot out the windows of bulldozers and other heavy equipment
with pellet guns, broke paving stones before they were laid and now have defaced
again the homes and shops of Palestinians with graffiti.
The settlers
did not want Shuhada St. opened to Palestinian traffic as was agreed to under
Oslo II.
This
renovation project is paid for by USAID funds and it makes me angry that my tax
dollars have paid for improvements that have been destroyed by the
settlers.
Most
Americans are not aware how much of their tax revenue our government sends to
Israel.
For the
fiscal year ending in Sept. 30, 1997, the US gave Israel $6.72 billion: $6,194 billion falls under Israel’s
foreign aid allotment and $526 million comes from agencies such as the
Department of Commerce, the US Information Agency and the
Pentagon.
The $6.72
billion figure does not include loan guarantees and annual compound interest
totaling $3,122 billion the US pays on money borrowed to give to
Israel. It does not include the cost to US
taxpayers of IRS tax exemptions that donors can claim when they donate money to
Israeli charities, (Donors claim
approximately $1 billion in federal tax deductions annually. This ultimately costs other US taxpayers
$280 million to $390 million.)
When grant,
loans, interest and tax deductions are added together for the fiscal year ending
in Sept. 30, 1997, our special relationship with Israel cost US taxpayers over
$10 billion.
Since 1949,
the US has given Israel a total of $83,205 billion.
The interest
costs borne by US taxpayers on behalf of Israel are $49,937 billion, thus making
the total amount of aid given to Israel since 1949, $133,132
billion.
This
may mean that the US government has given more federal aid to the average
Israeli citizen in a given year than it has given to the average American
citizen.
I am angry
when I see Israeli settlers from Hebron destroy improvements made to Shuhada
Street with my tax money.
Also, it
angers me that my government is giving over $10 billion to a country that is
more prosperous than most of the other countries in the world and uses much of
its money for strengthening its military and the oppression of the Palestinian
people.
By Tom
Malthaner
The Frontier
Post
[You think
that’s somethin’?! This is
information that’s made available to the public. I shudder to think about that which is
not disclosed. Israel, roughly the
size of the “state” of New Jersey, gets billions from the United States on an
annual basis even after bombing the USS Liberty – a US submarine. And the continent of Africa is
“promised” $180 million. Go
figure! Heaven only knows what the
US ghetto is promised and then receives.
The next time racist White oppressors start talking about Blacks on
Welfare, educate them on the biggest Welfare cheat going – Israelis! Money thrown at money and at the expense
of US taxpayers! What a scam! And the US government refuses to discuss
RACISM and Reparations for Descendants of Slaves whose forebears built this
country and made it the wealthy nation that it is with their blood, sweat, and
free labor. T.Y.,
Editor]
*********
January 30, 2002
The United States
enslavement of Black People some 12 decades ago and prior has powerful residual
lingering effects some 12 decades later.
It has produced a whole damaged people. Many would be surprised to know
the overwhelming patterns of behavior and activities in TODAY'S Blacks that stem
directly from slavery.
The U.S. Black collective lost their ability to function and maneuver independently. Slavery took it. Today, the masses of Black People still work for White People via White-owned companies and corporations. This was the exact "Black-White relationship" during chattel slavery: Black folks working for White folks. This is not normal. And what is common must never be mistaken for what is normal.
Black People must arise from
this fallen state, and this money called Reparations is the key. Reparations
is a legal wealth paid to Black men, women and children because of the damages
done to them by slavery. Reparations is the fundamental solution to many of
the problems that afflict the Black community. Reparations will counter
"lack".
Reparations will afford Black People the capital to implement their own ideas and start their own businesses. Reparations will allow Black People the means to produce jobs for their own children. Reparations will enable Black People to develop the type of educational curriculum, schools and universities that they deem necessary for their own children. Reparations will afford Black People the opportunity to institute the type of religious standard and training that they want for themselves and their children. Reparations will free U.S. Blacks from the monthly worries of paying for this and paying for that just to exist on Planet Earth.
Reparations is not something
that Black People should run from, but rather should run
toward.
By Attorney Dr. Robert L. Brock
President, The
Self-Determination Committee
Attorney Dr. Robert L. Brock
Website: http://www.directblackaction.com
Reply-to: Wewinnin@juno.com
Submitted by [TheBlackList]
http://www.theblacklist.net/tbl-faqs.htm
*********
DR. CONRAD W. WORRILL:
December 13, 2001
It is without question that millions of African people in America support the Reparations Movement's demand for reparations from the United States Government and a variety of private institutions and corporations who all benefited from the more than four hundred years of free slave labor from African people in this country.
The growing support of the Reparations Movement by millions of African people in America manifested itself through the hundreds of African people from this country, who joined forces with African people around the world, in demanding that the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery be declared a Crime Against Humanity and that reparations were owed African people at the recently held United Nations World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) in Durban, South Africa.
The Reparations Movement forces
were victorious at the WCAR by impacting on parts of its outcome in the Durban
Declaration. The WCAR government
delegates passed that "We acknowledge that slavery and the slave trade,
including the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, were appalling tragedies in the
history of humanity not only because of their abhorrent barbarism but also in
terms of their magnitude, organized nature and especially their negation of the
essence of the victims and further acknowledge that slavery and the slave trade
are a crime against humanity."
As Ambassador Amina Muhammad from Kenya pointed out in paragraph 119 of the Durban Declaration Plan of Action, "calls on these states to take appropriate and effective measures to halt and reverse the lasting consequences of those practices" was in fact, a call for reparations.
The spirit, energy and momentum
galvanized by the participation of the Durban 400, through the leadership of the
December 12th Movement International
Secretariat and the National Black United Front (NBUF), has inspired a call
by the Durban 400 for a Millions For Reparations Mass Demonstration, March, and Protest Rally demanding
reparations from the United States Government in its Capital City, Washington,
D.C. on August 17, 2002.
It is only fitting that this march and demonstration be held on the 115th anniversary of the birth of the Honorable Marcus Garvey, who through his organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and African Communities League, led one of the greatest mass movements for African redemption and liberation in this country during the 1920's.
We must build upon the momentum of our
organizing work that led to our successful participation in the WCAR. Therefore, the Durban 400 is calling on
African people in America to get prepared over the coming months to participate
in the Millions For Reparations March, Protest, and Demonstration on August 17,
2002. Now more than ever African people must stand United in our demands for
reparations in America.
In the Durban 400 Call for this Millions For Reparations March, Protest, and Demonstration we say, “The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and Jim Crow set the stage for the 21st Century.” The policy of entrenched racism has emanated from all branches of the United States government; from the days of the auction block and the recent United States walk out of the United Nations World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa. The United States government has relentlessly held on to its white supremacist ideology.
The exploitation of African people in this country has taken many forms through the years. The centuries of chattel slavery laid the foundation of our relationship to America. From the sharecropping fields to the factories, African labor built the 'super power' that is the United States. In return, we have endured the terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan, systematic lynchings, chain gangs, plantation prisons, police torture and murder, poverty, miseducation, inadequate housing, unemployment, welfare WEP programs, ACS child kidnappings, voter discrimination, crack, heroin, Rockefeller drug laws, Political Prisoners, and the assassination of our leaders. However, we're still
here!
The demand for reparations for African people is just and simple. It is simply an attempt to 'repair,' to 'make whole' the descendants of the victims of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, which was a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY! Crimes against humanity have no statute of limitations. And our people still suffer from the vestiges of their enslavement and colonization.
We are going to the Capitol of the nation, built on slave labor, the rightful and only place to declare our human and legal right to Reparations...
THEY OWE US!!!"
It is time to invoke the spirit of our ancestors, many of who sacrificed so much for the liberation of African people. We must work harder to build the Reparations Movement in America. We must not let the events of September 11th take our agenda off the table.
We must begin to spread the
word through every venue available that the Millions For Reparations March,
Protest, and Demonstration is ON!
http://www.ayaed.com/hype/alamin.html
By Dr. Conrad W. Worrill
Dr. Worrill is the National Chairman of the National Black United Front / NBUF located at:
12817 S. Ashland Ave.
Fl. 1, Calumet Park, Ill. 60827
Telephone #708-389-9929
Fax 708-389-9819
E-Mail: nbufchi @allways.net, Web site: nbufront.org
Submitted
by [thelawkeepers] Fw:
[Reparations_For_Africans] Digest Number 112
[How can we
dismiss this appeal that is for a CAUSE that will aid us and our progeny? T.Y., Editor]
*********
A
REPARATIONS – YES
ANNOUNCEMENT!
December 1,
2001
NOW IS THE
TIME TO UNIFY
OUR
MINDS..OUR HEARTS
&
OUR
SOULS
COMMUNITY by
COMMUNITY
CHURCH by
CHURCH
BUSINESS by
BUSINESS
ORGANIZATION
by ORGANIZATION
CITY by
CITY, STATE by STATE
AND
YES
COMPUTER by
COMPUTER!
TO PROMOTE
GENDER UNIFICATION and TO PRODUCE AN UNWAVERING
MOBILIZED
LINK OF HUMAN
CONCERN,
ACTION, POWER and RECOURSE
To Disable
the MANY Social, Economic, Moral and Political,
confrontational
adversities effecting our entire earthly existence.
Therefore:
MARK YOUR
CALENDAR TODAY!
As of
January 1, 2002 you will be able to log onto the web site:
>>>>>>4thepeople.com<<<<<<
To register
to receive your
“I'm For
Reparations” Membership Card
This card is
only the beginning in our efforts to create a sense of
"Real
Unity"
in our
struggle for reparations because it shall also represent our collective
involvement to work to combat any and all other
issues,
that we face
as a race of people!
Please
Note:
After
January 1, 2002, be sure to check the web site on a regular
basis
because it
will also provide you with updates on all the special
offerings
that you
will be entitled too, once you have activated your membership
card.
Message
Sponsored by:
UIMSC
Unity
International Multi-Service Corporation
Home of
the
REPARATIONS-YES
MOVEMENT!
Host of the
2003 Million Dollar March for Reparations
The
International Petition for Reparations
&
>>>>>>4thepeople.
Com<<<<<<
The Web site
is dedicated to serving and being of service to the
people!
Submitted by
MzWayMaker@AOL.COM
*********
AFRICAN
AND AFRICAN DESCENDANT FOLLOW-UP TO
THE
U.N. WORLD CONFERENCE AGAINST RACISM
A
CALL TO THE BARBADOS CONFERENCE 9th – 13th AUGUST
2002
CONGRESS
AGAINST RACISM (BARBADOS) INC.
January 8,
2002
After
two intense years of mobilizing, meeting, brainstorming, discussing, lobbying,
agitating and negotiating we now have a Durban Declaration and Programme Of
Action, which has been officially agreed to and accepted by 168 nation
states.
This
represents a significant achievement for all "Non-Governmental Organizations" that
were members of the "African And African
Descendants Caucus"!
Even though
we were unable to secure acceptance of all of our demands by this eclectic
gathering of 168 governments, we can
feel extremely satisfied that we were able to play a very significant role
in ensuring that many declarations of principle and concrete demands and project
proposals that are of fundamental importance to the nations and peoples of
Africa and the African Diaspora found a place in the "Durban Declaration And Programme Of
Action".
The
critical question for all of us now is – "where do we go from
here?"
Clearly, we
cannot behave as though our task has been completed and adopt the posture of
sitting back and waiting for the various governments and international
organizations to implement the Durban Declaration And Programme Of
Action.
To begin
with, many of the measures called for in the Programme of Action require
concrete work and involvement by the N.G.O’s of Africa and the African
Diaspora. Furthermore, it was always our
understanding that any meaningful follow-up to the "World Conference Against
Racism" would require the establishment of a very active and determined "African and African Descendant" N.G.O.
lobby to keep the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action before the eyes and
conscience of the world, and to push the governments and international community
to implement the various demands, measures and projects that they agreed to in
Durban.
There were
some 41 Caucuses representing the 168 nation states.
The
Caribbean caucus, which includes Barbados accepted the proposal for an immediate
follow-up to Durban. It is with this understanding of our duty therefore that
the Congress Against Racism (Barbados) Inc., (formerly the Barbados N.G.O
Committee For The U.N. World Conference Against Racism) on behalf of the
Caribbean Caucus hereby sends out a call
to all member organizations of the "African And African descendants Caucus" and
to all other African and African Descendant N.G.O’s that share our commitment to
the Durban Declaration And Programme Of Action, to attend an "African And
African Descendant N.G.O. Follow-up Conference" in the Island of Barbados
between Friday 9th and Wednesday 13th August 2002.
The
purpose of this 5-day conference will be as follows:
(1) To
scrutinize the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action and to identify and
prioritize those demands, measures and proposed projects that are of critical
importance to the nations, communities and people of Africa and the African
Diaspora;
(2) To work out
and agree upon detailed strategies that are designed to achieve the
implementation of such demands, measures and proposed projects;
and
(3) To
establish and launch a permanent global Pan-African N.G.O. organization, the
mandate of which will be to pursue and operationalise the agreed upon
implementation strategies.
The
conference will be held at the "Sherbourne Conference Centre", located at Two
Mile Hill, St. Michael, Barbados.
With the
support and financial assistance of the Barbados Government’s "Commission For
Pan African Affairs", we have been able to secure the rental of this
international quality conference facility, and to guarantee the provision of translation
services in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese.
Conference
participants would be expected to finance their airline passages to Barbados,
and their accommodation in Barbados.
However, our Conference Organizing Committee will be arranging special
discounted airline and hotel rates.
There will also be a modest conference registration
fee.
A Conference
Secretariat has been established in Bridgetown, the capital city of Barbados,
and is currently working on finalizing these and other details relating to the
conference. The relevant contact
information for the conference secretariat is as follows:
Congress
Against Racism (Barbados) Inc.
Pan-African
Conference Secretariat
2nd Floor
Thomas Daniel Building
Hincks
Street
Bridgetown,
Barbados
Tel:
(246)
228-8757/8/9
Fax: (246)
228-8817
Although our
Congress Against Racism (Barbados) Inc. has taken the initiative to initiate
this follow-up conference, we do recognize that the central coordinating
mechanism of the conference must provide for input from the various geographical
regions of the "Pan African World".
To this end,
we are currently working on putting together a "Central Organizing Committee" of the
conference that will consist of five
highly respected Pan Africanists, who are generally representative of the
various regions of the Pan African World.
Of course,
the only role of the "Central Organizing Committee" will be to handle the
arrangements for and the logistics of the Conference. The Conference participants will
themselves determine the nature of the new organization and its
leadership.
In addition
to the "Central Organizing Committee", we are in the process of identifying
"Regional Coordinators" to assist us in spreading the word about the conference
and mobilizing N.G.O’s in every region of the Pan African World to participate
in the conference. Such "Regional
Coordinators" will represent the following geographical
regions:
(a) West Africa
(b) East
Africa
(c)
Southern Africa
(d) North
Africa
(e)
Europe
(f)
Canada
(g)
U.S.A.
(h)
Central America
(i)
South America
(j)
Caribbean
We will be
asking each "Regional Coordinator" to stage "regional encounters" that will
bring together the African and African Descendant N.G.O’s of their region to
engage in preliminary and preparatory discussions on the matters which will be
dealt with at our August 2002 Conference. These "regional encounters" may take
several different forms, including meetings, conferences, video or Internet
conferences etc. It may also be
possible in some cases, for two regional encounters to be amalgamated and held
jointly.
We are
proposing that the August 2002 Conference and the "Regional Encounters" be
structured around the following seven (7) themes:
(1)
Reparations For The Nations, Communities And People Of Africa And The
African Diaspora
(2) A Response
To Globalization And Its Negative Impact On Africa And The African
Diaspora
(3)
National And International Affirmative Action And
Special
Developmental
Programmes For The Nations, Communities And People of Africa And The African
Diaspora
(4) A Response To The
Public Health Crisis Facing Africa And The African
Diaspora
(5)
Reform Of Judicial, Penal And Police Systems And The Provision Of Legal
Remedies For African And African Descendant Victims Of
Racism
(6)
Memorializing The African Holocaust And Telling The African Story To The
World
(7) The Development
Of National And International Oversight And Enforcement Measures, Structures And
Programmes
It must be
stressed again that the idea is not to discuss these themes all over again in
Barbados! These themes were already
discussed in Durban and during the Durban preparatory process. The idea is to
identify relevant demands, measures and project proposals contained in the
Durban Declaration and Programme of Action that relate to these themes, and to
discuss and outline detailed strategies that we will collectively pursue in
order to secure the implementation of such demands, measures and
projects.
The
"Congress Against Racism (Barbados) Inc." envisions that we will also use the
follow-up Conference to establish a global Pan African N.G.O organization or
"Coalition" that will have regional chapters corresponding to the several
geographical regions of the "Pan African World".
We have
given some thought as to how this new organization could be structured and have
come up with the following ideas:
(a) The members
of this global Pan African organization or "Coalition" should be our individual
African and African Descendant N.G.O’s.
(b)
The member
organizations of each "Regional Chapter" could be divided into seven (7)
sub-committees, corresponding to the seven (7) themes outlined above, and each
of these "Regional Sub-Committees" will elect a Chairman. The Chairmen of the seven (7) thematic
"Regional Sub-Committees" could in turn come together to form a "Regional
Coordinating Council", and each "Regional Coordinating Council" could elect its
own Chairman.
(c) There could
also be a "global" coming together of the Chairmen of the Regional "Thematic"
Sub-Committees. Thus, in the sphere of "Reparations" for example – each region
would have a sub-committee dealing with "Reparations"; each such "Reparations"
Sub-Committee would have a chairman; and the Chairmen of the Regional
Reparations Sub-Committees would come together to form a "Global Reparations
Committee".
(d) The Global
Governing Council of the entire organization would comprise the Chairmen of the
Regional Coordinating Councils.
We are also
proposing that a suitable name for the new organization would be – the "Congress Of African And African
Descendant Organizations" (CAADO).
These then
are the initial ideas and proposals that we are putting out for discussion and
feedback.
We are now
in the process of setting up a Conference website as a
vehicle for promoting the Conference and discussing and refining the ideas that
we have put forward.
In the
meantime however, please do contact us at the addresses outlined above so that
we could make full use of the very limited time at our
disposal.
Rev. Aaron
B. Larrier
Chairman
Congress
Against Racism (Barbados) Inc.
Submitted by brc-reparations@yahoogroups.com
*********
WCAR DOCUMENT –
DISPUTE ON SLAVE TRADE CONTINUES
November 27,
2001
A dispute over the African slave trade has still not been laid to rest nearly three months after it was supposed to have been settled at a stormy UN racism conference in South Africa.
Geneva - A dispute over the African slave trade has still not been laid to rest nearly three months after it was supposed to have been settled at a stormy UN racism conference in South Africa, diplomatic sources said on Tuesday.
Countries continue to haggle over where in the final documents to place a number of the paragraphs agreed in a last minute deal in Durban after the UN World Conference Against Racism ran over into an extra day.
African countries are demanding the wording goes into the operational part of the text, the programme of action rather than the so-called declaration, which is more statement of principle.
"It will not have the same moral and political weight than when it is very clearly said in the programme of action in which the commitment, especially financial ones, are very clear," Tunisian Ambassador Mohamed Hatem Ben Salem said.
The disagreement has prevented UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, who was the conference's secretary-general, from presenting the final texts to a UN General Assembly committee meeting in New York this month, the sources said.
The debate has now been postponed until
January. However the follow-up to
the Durban talks is already on the table at the UN Committee on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights, currently meeting here.
Negotiators were bitterly split during the August 31 to September 8 conference over how the talks should handle the Arab-Israeli conflict, with the dispute prompting both the United States and Israel to storm out.
But African demands for compensation and an apology for the past wrongs of the slave trade and colonialism also grabbed the headlines and got countries hot under the collar, provoking a north-south divide.
Several through-the-night sessions of tough talks finally produced compromises that stopped short of calling for reparations and an explicit apology from the nations that benefited directly from slavery and colonialism.
However, the text declared that "slavery and the slave trade are a crime against humanity and should always have been so", a formula that avoided specifically labeling historic slavery as such a crime.
It encouraged aid to be given to the developing world without defining such aid as reparations as the African countries had wanted.
But the conference participants did not make it explicit where all the paragraphs should be placed in the final documents.
Ambassador Ben Salem said that adding the paragraphs to the programme of action would "show the real will to rectify the injustices of the past".
Western countries, while agreeing for some of the wording to go in the operational part of the final text, are fearful that in other cases the position of the paragraphs could change the context, diplomatic sources said.
"The order (of the paragraphs) is very important because you cannot read those paragraphs in a vacuum ... all are linked," the source said.
"In a way, it is substance because it changes completely the meaning of the paragraphs that were agreed in Durban," the source added.
Jose Luis Diaz, spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Commissioner, said they hoped for a speedy resolution as the implementation of the Durban agenda was considered a top priority.
"We hope that the difference will be resolved so that this can be endorsed by the General Assembly and the budget can be agreed so the different activities that are foreseen can be undertaken," Diaz said. - Sapa/AFP
Read the story online:
http://www.news24.co.za/News24/South_Africa/0,1113,2-7_1114134,00.ht ml
Submitted by [WCAR-Updates]
randall@udayton.edu
More news at www.news24.co. za
NGO WCAR information is regularly updated on:
http://www.ngoworldconference.org
*********
November 2001
The twenty-first century
truly began -- politically, socially, and psychologically -- with two epochal
events: the World Conference
Against Racism, held in Durban, South Africa this summer, and the terrorist
attacks of September 11 which destroyed the World Trade Center towers and part
of the Pentagon. These events were directly linked.
At Durban, the Third World, led primarily by African Americans and African people, attempted to renegotiate their historically unequal and subordinate relationships with western imperialism and globalized capitalism. "Reparations" was seen by black delegates at Durban as a necessary precondition for the socioeconomic development of a black community in the U.S., as well as for African and Caribbean nation-states. September 11th was a violent statement by fundamentalist Muslims demanding an end to American imperialism's economic and political subordinate relationships throughout the Arab world. Both events symbolized a challenge to the U.S.'s uncritical support for Israel, and were to some extent expressions of solidarity with the Palestinians. The aftermath of both events left the U.S. government more politically isolated from the African and Islamic worlds than ever before.
Although the traumatic events of September 11, have pushed the black reparations issue temporarily into the background, the reality is that U.S. and Western European imperialism ultimately will be forced to acknowledge the legitimacy and necessity of at least a limited reparations agreement. U.S. policy makers will attempt to solidify their shaky relationships with African countries, to separate them from any possible coalition with radial Islamic states. The price for their diplomatic support may be debt forgiveness and some kind of financial aid package to assist in development projects. If African countries are successful in renegotiating their debt payments, based in part on the history of colonial exploitation and slavery, black reparations in the U.S. becomes more likely.
The most difficult challenge in winning the public relations debate over black reparations inside the United States is that of persuading African Americans to believe that reparations can be won. Black people, in a racist society, must constantly struggle to free themselves from cultural domination and psychological dependency, in order to acquire the belief in their own capacity to create social change. The quest for power begins first in one's mind. You cannot become free, unless you begin to think like a free woman or man.
Indeed, this was Malcolm X's greatest insight and gift to future generations of African-American people: he changed the way black people thought about themselves. Malcolm moved us from being the footnotes in someone else's history, to becoming the key actors in the making of new history. Instead of singing someone else's song, we discovered the beauty of our own voices. Reparations, thus becomes a way for us to challenge and to subvert the master narrative of white capitalist America, and to testify to the truth of our own history.
During colonialism, slavery and segregation, people of African descent were diverted forcibly into the history of another people. To reclaim our birthright, we must emotionally and historically return to the sites of the original crimes, and to speak on behalf of the victims who perished so long ago. Can we empower ourselves to bear witness on their behalf, to "speak truth to power," to tell their untold stories embedded in fractured, fragmented memories long past?
History is more than a simple record of the past; it is the prologue to the future. When we return to the source of our own history, we unlock new doors to finding our own identity. We can begin to imagine ourselves in new and exciting ways, as architects and builders of a new history, the tellers of stories not yet written, of great accomplishments and discoveries still distant from our view. I think Malcolm X really understood this. This partially explains the fierce loyalty and intense identification that African Americans still feel about Malcolm. One of my students several years ago explained the difference between how many black folk perceive Martin vs. Malcolm in this way: "Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., belongs to the entire world, but Malcolm X belongs to us."
Black reparations "belongs to us" in a
similar way. "Reparations" means "to repair," to "make whole again." The "double
consciousness" of Americans of African descent first described by W.E.B. Du
Bois, the age-old chasm between our identification with this country and our
cultural affinity towards the black diaspora and Africa, cannot be bridged until
there is a final rendezvous with our own history.
This is why, ultimately, that the
demand for black reparations is not fundamentally about the money. The rape
victim does not press charges, and go to court, simply to receive financial
compensation. The rape victim desires
and demands that the truth should be told about the crime. The Jewish
survivors and their descendants of the Holocaust in Europe during World War II,
and the Armenian people who experienced mass genocide under the Turkish Ottoman
Empire in World War I, are not motivated primarily by financial restitution. Victims want the public record to reflect
what actually happened.
Oppressed people live their lives in a kind of state-imposed traumatic existence, when the criminality and violence hurled against us is rarely acknowledged. We are presented to the world by our racist oppressors as being a people outside of history, devoid of a past of any consequence. To heal the effects of trauma, our stories must be told and retold. The oppressed thus perceive themselves in a new and liberating way. They can now, at long last, become actors and exercise agency at the vanguard of a new history. The divided double consciousness becomes a greater, critical and truer consciousness, creating the capacity to speak with clarity and confidence about oneself and the totality of society. As Du Bois wrote in 1903: "the history of the American Negro is the history of this strife – this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self."
At the recent United Nations World Conference Against Racism, these same points were made, in different ways, by many representatives from the Third World. The brilliant international attorney and former Foreign Minister of Jamaica, the Honorable Dudley Thompson, explained to hundreds attending the reparations plenary session: "Reparations is not about asking for money. You can't pay me for your raping my grandmother. You cannot compensate me for lynching my father. What we demand is the restitution of our human dignity, the restoration of full equality, politically, socially and economically, between the oppressors and the oppressed."
Harvard University law professor Charles Ogletree, a key theorist and organizer in the United States on behalf of black reparations also made clear the linkage between the past and the present at the Durban Conference. Ogletree reminded delegates that there were "millions of Africans today languishing in unmarked graves at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, and for whom reparations is a final vindication." Ogletree also predicted: "This is a movement that cannot be stopped. There are no plaintiffs that will not be considered. I promise that we will see reparations in our lifetime."
At the Durban Conference, the official U.S. position was that the
enslavement of millions of African people was not "a crime against
humanity." Around the same time as
the conference, President Bush's National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice
stated to the press that "in order for us to get along" in America's diverse
society today, that some of us "will have to forget" about what happened in the
past.
Should Condoleeza Rice, an
African-American woman who was raised in Birmingham, Alabama, who was brought up
when four little black girls were murdered by the bombing of the Sixteenth
Street Baptist Church in September 1963 -- forget? We dishonor those who died, and disgrace
ourselves, by distancing ourselves from the victims of past racist atrocities.
They perished in our behalf, to realize the deferred dream of freedom. Can we
deny their voices to history and to our collective memory?
There's a memorable line from "The Godfather" that's used several times in the film: "It's not personal, it's strictly business." By the end of the film, however, we learn that the business of life and death is always profoundly personal. So when I speak about my great-grandfather, Morris Marable, who was sold on an auction block in West Point, Georgia in 1854, for the sum of five hundred dollars, I say that this may have been a legal business transaction at that time, but I take it personal. When my grandfather was denied his Constitutional right to vote on Election Day in the Jim Crow state of Alabama for decades, I take it personal. When my son Joshua is racially-profiled by police officers, stopped and frisked when he leaves downtown shops and suburban malls, I take it personal.
Reparations helps us to understand the long-term effects of racial deficits, the historically constructed accumulated disadvantages, that restrict and retard black advancement today. The business of the U.S. state for centuries was to preserve, protect and defend white supremacy as the central organizing principle determining access to political participation and power. It was for white racists at that time "strictly business," but the black reparations struggle makes it "personal" for all of us.
The future beckons ahead as "an undiscovered country." History and culture are the essential navigator's tools in charting our sojourn from the present toward that undiscovered country lying just beyond our imaginations. And in the words of the famous song from the 1960 Freedom Movement, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn us around."
By Manning Marable <mm247@columbia.edu>
Dr. Manning Marable is Professor of History and Political Science, and the Director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University in New York.
"Along the Color Line" is distributed free of charge to over 350 publications throughout the U.S. and internationally. Dr. Marable's column is also available on the Internet at www.manningmarable.net <http://www.manningmarable.net>.
[After reading this article, those who were uninterested in REPARATIONS will surely make a profound stand to support this “Our” thrust for that which is due Descendants of Slaves. T.Y., Editor]
*********
THE
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
CAN
EASILY AFFORD REPARATIONS
FOR
AFRICAN AMERICANS
December 26,
2001
The
U.S. Government, which is actually an arm of the American ruling class, has been
fighting the idea of Reparations for African Americans for years. The U.S. Congress has blocked the
Conyers bill for a decade, even though it just called for a study of the
issue. Prior to the World Conference Against
Racism in Durban, South Africa President Bush publicly opposed the idea of
Reparations and threatened not to send delegates to the Conference if
Reparations for Blacks was on the agenda. Subsequently the low-level delegation he
sent withdrew in a cowardly manner from the WCAR when it witnessed broad support
for condemning the trans-Atlantic slave trade and on-going oppression of
Blacks. In December, a hypocritical
President Bush declared a "Human Rights Week." That ranks as one of history's most
ironic announcements, considering the fact that for centuries the U.S.A. has
practiced ethnocide, forced assimilation and institutionalized racism against
millions of our people. Moreover,
Mr. Bush only acquired his lofty position through a process of fraud and deceit,
which included depriving many Black citizens of their right to
vote.
Presently
the U.S. Government and the mass media, which are largely controlled by the top
one per cent of the population that, according to official statistics, owns at
least 46% of all private wealth, are trying to sell African-Americans on two
bogus ideas, which are greatly injurious to ourselves. Since they see a growing number of
African-American activists, including the Honorable Silis Muhammad, making a
solid legal case for massive Reparations inside the United Nations, our adversaries want to side-track the
Movement by persuading Blacks to put the issue on the back-burner, wrap
ourselves in the American flag and give full-fledged support to President Bush's
grandiose plan to "rid the world of all evil-doers." The same television networks, newspapers
and magazines which have knowingly suppressed coverage of interventions on our
behalf before the Human Rights Commission in Geneva-- and repeatedly failed to
share information illustrating the many ways that the U.S. has violated U.N.
Covenants by depriving us of our mother tongue and the right to
self-determination--now trumpets the
assertion that many Blacks are rallying around the President. Our foes are also highlighting the fact
that maybe Blacks do deserve something after centuries of barbaric
mistreatment--like a museum, some statues, and diluted, bogus Reparations in the
form of so-called educational benefits and health care programs designed by the
oppressor to maintain us in the status of servants of white America, rather than
forgers of our own destiny.
The second
malevolent sales pitch contends that, even if there is some merit to the
theoretical concept of Reparations, the U.S. government cannot afford them in
the midst of a recession and the multi-billion-dollar cost of Mr. Bush's
campaign to eliminate all evil-doers globally. However, that ghastly untruth will never
fly in the minds of awakening, better informed African-Americans. The U.S. has the money and resources to do
anything which pleases it. For
years it has pumped money into the manufacture of anthrax. For decades it has systematically
transferred huge blocks of wealth from the middle class and the underclass to
the upper class. Each time a space
shuttle is launched, one billion dollars is burned. While bemoaning its economic woes, the
U.S. is eroding affirmative action, diluting meager civil rights gains and
spending fortunes building new prisons most of whose occupants will be Black and
Hispanic slave laborers.
One of
President Bush's keenest fears is that millions of African Americans will
realize that we will never obtain real justice by asking for mercy from a people
who have historically shown no mercy or respect for us. It would be a grave mistake for us to ask
the oppressor to serve as a judge or arbiter on the crucial issue of
Reparations. That would be like
hemophiliacs appealing to Count Dracula to remedy their blood disorder. We must pour more resources into mobilizing
a mass movement to make our demand (not request) for massive Reparations heard
and acknowledged within the United Nations, which does have the power and
authority after carefully weighing the facts and evidence, to place a
Reparations Sanction on the guilty U.S. Government. We must also teach larger numbers of our
people that, as Mr. Muhammad has repeatedly emphasized, Reparations encompasses
far more than monetary restitution.
It revolves around the concept of our Restoration as a people.
Everything
that was taken from us--our original language, our original culture and our
capacity to govern ourselves on some of this Earth that we can call our
own--must be restored. Mr. Bush dreads the idea that many who
read this article will visit the AFRE website (http://www.afre-ngo.org) and
decide to donate as little as $1 per
week to the Reparations War Chest.
By making such a donation and spreading the message of the
Reparations Movement in your neighborhoods, workplaces and schools, you, my
brothers and sisters, will be striking a blow for freedom and helping to secure
the future not just of this Black generation but of countless generations to
come.
Peace Be
Unto You,
Minister
Malik Al-Arkam
Malik Hakim
<alarkam@webtv.net>
In
thinktank@y..., "alarkam2001" <alarkam@w...>
Boston
Representative of the Honorable Silis Muhammad
Submitted by TheBlackList@topica.com
*********
ABOUT
REPARATIONS
Greetings to all Reparationists!
I'm look for educational resources to include on a list to be made available to individuals who want to learn more about reparations. If you have books, booklets, tapes, audio or video that you would like to have listed, please E-mail me. Also, I'm putting together a list of reparations organizations and organizations that have a reparations component. If you know of anyone who would like to be included on that list, please send me that information as well. Organizational name, Contact person, Phone numbers, Mailing address, E-mail address, and best time to call.
Also, if you have read any books that you think are a must read for us to be well grounded in the reparations movement, please include the Title, Author, Publisher, etc., and where to find/buy.
Last but not least, if you wish to be included in a Reparations Speaker's Bureau send a one-page bio with contact information.
Please forward the E-mail request to anyone you think would be interested.
Reparations Now!
Dorothy Benton Lewis
National Co-Chair,
N'COBRA
<OrAvouChe@aol.com>
[With whatever resources you acquire, by all means encourage EVERYONE to read the REPARATIONS NOW IN OUR LIFETIME Newsletters that are replete with information about this “Our” thrust for a “Debt” that is so long overdue. (www.thelawkeepers.org and Click on “Repnow”) The information exhibited in these Newsletters is of great significance and encourages readers to want to learn more about the TransAtlantic Slave Trade and the Reparations Movement. As well, these Newsletters introduce readers to many Black Professors and professionals in the knowledge of Black History and Black issues. T.Y., Editor]
***
The National Congress of Economic Development Commissioners (NCEDC) was developed by N’COBRA to represent all Black communities during the negotiations with the government for reparations.
The duties of the congress are to discover
specifically what each community needs and to establish a plan of action with
the expected reparations payments on how to supply these needs. It is also our responsibility to
formulate plans of action in the meantime as well as spread reparations awareness.
Economic Development Commissioners (EDCs) are elected by their communities every two years. We are currently in an election year. Elections will be held April 26-28 2002. Nominations are due no later than March 31st. I am currently the female co-chair for the NCEDC. If this interests you or if you know of someone who would be interested in this type of work, please feel free to e-mail me with any questions you have.
Peace & Blessings
Taiwo Kujichagulia-Seitu
*********
The
Reparations Movement’s goals are as follows:
- Obtain Reparations
from all countries that prospered from Black Slave Labor
-
Schedule Conferences, Marches, and Protests until the White Society
apologizes and
compensates Descendants of the
Slave Trade
-
Speak at the United Nations on Reparations for Survivors of the Slave
Trade in order
to gain International Support from
all or most countries
- Demonstrate in front of the UN in Geneva
for World Attention
- Establish an International Fund for
Descendants of Slaves
-
Target Companies that existed during the days of Slavery for Reparations,
and if they
do not comply, then list them as
“Unworthy” for Black patronage
- Seek support for Reparations from
Companies that prosper off of Black Clients
- Seek Celebrity support for
Reparations
- Involve the Media
- Make “Reparations” the buzz word for
this new century
- Etc., etc., and by “any means necessary”
within the Law
*********
REPARATIONS YES - MOVEMENT
Announces Historical Nation-Wide Petition Campaign
The Reparations - Yes
International Petition
Drive Web Site is Up and
Running!
The International
Reparations Petition
located online
at:
>>>unity4theworld.com<<<
has
reopened!
Please pass the word
&
Remember the goal
is
No Less
Than
150 Thousand signatures per
state!
Please visit
www.unity4theworld.com and sign the petition Today!
Remember we are trying to
secure 50 Thousand signatures from each state and foreign country, every
signature counts, including yours!
CONTACT:
Ms. Clara Peoples
503-287-7532
Ms. Lisa Clay
503-284-6152
www.unity4theworld.com
www.nabvets.com
JoeWynn.Nabvets@verizon.net
Dr. Saharra Bledsoe
202 783-3705
MzWayMaker@aol.com
*********
IN SUPPORT OF REPARATIONS!
WAKE
UP!
STAND UP!
STEP UP!
and DO SOMETHING IN SUPPORT OF REPARATIONS!
OR
THERE CAN BE NO REAL - PEACE!
Ahna Tafari
*********
AFRICAN LIBERATION SUPPORT CAMPAIGN (ALISC)
PRESS INFORMATION
Mark your calendar! Sunday 21 April through to Monday 29 April is Nkrumah Week. The African Liberation Support Campaign (ALISC), with the support of the Afrika Studies Centre of the University of East London, will run a series of eight workshops at venues across London, with a main event on Saturday 27 April, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the death of the first president of Ghana and Pan-Africanist, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.
The workshops will cover subjects such as reparations; culture and Africa; the role of the Diaspora and the struggle of Black women. The theme for the Saturday event is: Against globalisation to reclaim the fountainhead of Pan-Africanism. It will be a day of presentations, discussion, poetry, recitals and songs. Invited speakers include Nkrumahís son, Gamal Gorkeh Nkrumah, International Editor of Al Ahram newspaper, Cairo and Professor Kwesi Prah of the Centre for Advanced Study of African Society, South Africa.
The schedule will run as follows:
Day 1: Sunday 21 April: Struggle of Black Women
Day 2: Monday 22 April: Culture and Africa
Day 3: Tuesday 23 April North/South Debate and Self determination.
Day 4: Wednesday 24 April: Globalisation and reparations
Day 5: Thursday 25 April: What does the future hold for Africa?
Day 6: Friday 26 April Spirituality and Africa
Day 7: Saturday 27 April Anniversary presentations, poetry, discussions, recitals and songs
Day 8: Sunday 28 April Socialism and Africa
Day 9: Monday 29 April African Diaspora
For details of venues and more information about the event, call 020-8223, 020-4559
ABOUT ALISC
ALISC aims among other things to
1) build a movement in Europe against western banks, governments and multinationals recolonising Africa, which results in the death ants impose on behalf of the western powers;
2) about the struggles of African people world wide against oppression
3) further the total emancipation of African women and men. ALISC can be written to P.O. Box 21266, London W9 3YR. Or contacted by telephone on: 020 8749 7179.
TEXT FOR FREE LISTINGS
DRAFT PAN-AFRICAN EVENT
African Liberation Support Campaign (ALISC), with the support of the Afrika Studies Centre, University of East London, is running a series of eight workshops and a main event to mark the anniversary of the death of Pan-Africanist Kwame Nkrumah. The workshops will cover subjects such as: reparations; culture and Africa; the role of the Diaspora and the struggle of Black women. They will take place at venues across London from Sunday 21 April to Monday 29 April. The main event will take place on Saturday 27 April. Speakers will include Gamal Gorkeh Nkrumah, son of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and International Editor of Al Ahram newspaper, Cairo.
For more info, please call:
Tel. #’s 020 8223 4559 (ASC-UEL)
Tel: 020 8749 7179 (ALISC)
Submitted by THE BLACKLIST ISSUE 948
*********
*****MARK YOUR CALENDAR OF
EVENTS*****
Muhammad Mosque of Islam in Boston, Massachusetts invites you to attend weekly meetings each Sunday at the Dillaway located at:
183 Roxbury
Street
Roxbury, Massachusetts
(Next to the Timilty School, in Roxbury)
Meetings start at 2:00 PM, but on the last Sunday of the month we start at 1:00 PM.
For more information and to schedule free lectures on Reparations at your church, school, business or organization, feel welcome to telephone Minister Malik Al-Arkam at (617) 770-2017.
*********
February 23, 2002
Saturday
Time: 5:00 P.M. - 9:00 P.M.
NATIONAL COALITION OF BLACKS
FOR REPARATIONS IN AMERICA- N’COBRA
“N’COBRA FUNDRAISER - MEMBERSHIP DRIVE”
AN EVENING OF EDUCATION ON OUR LEGAL
STRATEGIES AND REPARATIONS
AFTER DURBAN
4673 Labadie Ave.
St. Louis, MO 63115
Time: 5:PM - TO- 9:PM
Keynote speaker:
Attorney ADJOA A. AIYETORO, ESQ. (N’COBRA)
N’COBRA’s LEAD ATTORNEY - Legal Strategies Commission
“MILLIONS-MASS- MOBILIZATION FOR REPARATIONS”
DR. CONRAD WORRILL- National
Chairman
National Black United Front (NBUF)/DURBAN 400
plus other guest speakers
TICKETS: $15.00 (ADULTS) $10.00 (SENIORS) $5.00 (CHILDREN UNDER AGE 10)
REFRESHMENTS
WILL BE SERVED
For More Information
Call:
839-0422 or 383- 6103
NATIONAL BLACK UNITED
FRONT-NBUF
FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, REPARATIONS AND PAN-AFRICANISM
On the 115th Anniversary of Marcus
Garvey,
Rally In Washington D.C., August 17, 2002
Submitted by teambeat@netscape.net
*********
Time: 2:00 P.M.
INVITATION TO FEBRUARY 24TH
SAVIOUR’S DAY LECTURE IN ATLANTA, GEORGIA
Title: JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS FOR THE BLACK
MAN
Speaker: The Honorable Silis Muhammad, CEO of the
Lost-Found Nation of Islam and Chairman of the Board of AFRE (All For
Reparations And Emancipation
Place:
Speaker’s Auditorium in The Student Center of Georgia State University
44 Courtland Street
Atlanta, Georgia 30303
Telephone #’s (404) 463-9115
(404) 344-9757
Learn more about the international legal battle for massive Reparations for all African Americans. Since 1998 Mr. Muhammad has repeatedly testified before diverse United Nations bodies, including the Human Rights Commission, concerning ethnocide, genocide, forced assimilation and institutionalized racism as well as the urgent need for a U.N. Forum to facilitate justice for our people.
Submitted by BRC-REPARATIONS: Black Radical Congress – Reparations Caucus
Questions/Problems: send email to <brc-reparations-owner@egroups.com>
*********
In September
of 2000 at Georgia State University (GSU) in Atlanta, Georgia, the Southern
Region of the Black Law Students Association was among several organizations to
co-sponsor a student conference on the Reparations Movement.
On February
28th through March 2nd NBLSA will co-sponsor a National Reparations Symposium:
Beyond Rhetoric, the Reality of Reparations, at GSU, in Atlanta.
An
additional component of the symposium will be series of workshops for community
activists and students that will provide a foundational understanding of some of
the Reparations Movements different aspects and approaches.
The event will be free to the public.
For more
information contact-
reparationsgsu@yahoo.com
Mawuli
Davis
NBLSA
Reparations Chair
*********
AFRICAN LIBERATION SUPPORT CAMPAIGN
(ALISC)
PRESS INFORMATION
The African Liberation Support
Campaign (ALISC), with the support of the Afrika Studies Centre of the
University of East London, will run a series of eight workshops at venues across
London, with a main event on Saturday 27 April, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the
death of the first president of Ghana and Pan-Africanist, Dr. Kwame
Nkrumah.
The workshops will cover subjects such as reparations; culture and Africa; the role of the Diaspora and the struggle of Black women. The theme for the Saturday event is: Against globalisation to reclaim the fountainhead of Pan-Africanism. It will be a day of presentations, discussion, poetry, recitals and songs.
Invited speakers include Nkrumahís son, Gamal Gorkeh Nkrumah, International Editor of Al Ahram newspaper, Cairo and Professor Kwesi Prah of the Centre for Advanced Study of African Society, South Africa.
Please see full
details in this issue of the REPNOW Newsletter.
*********
May 25,
2002
Stay tuned for further
details.
Contact: ebontek@earthlink.net (Sam
Anderson)
*********
AFRICAN AND
AFRICAN DESCENDANT FOLLOW-UP TO
THE U.N.
WORLD CONFERENCE AGAINST RACISM
A CALL TO
THE BARBADOS CONFERENCE 9th – 13th AUGUST
2002
CONGRESS AGAINST RACISM (BARBADOS)
INC.
The
Caribbean caucus, which includes Barbados accepted the proposal for an immediate
follow-up to Durban. It is with this understanding of our duty therefore that
the Congress Against Racism (Barbados) Inc., (formerly the Barbados N.G.O
Committee For The U.N. World Conference Against Racism) on behalf of the
Caribbean Caucus hereby sends out a call
to all member organizations of the "African And African descendants Caucus" and
to all other African and African Descendant N.G.O’s that share our commitment to
the Durban Declaration And Programme Of Action, to attend an "African And
African Descendant N.G.O. Follow-up Conference" in the Island of Barbados
between Friday 9th and Wednesday 13th August 2002.
The
conference will be held at:
The "Sherbourne Conference Centre"
Two Mile Hill
St. Michael, Barbados
Conference participants would be
expected to finance their airline passages to Barbados, and their accommodation
in Barbados. However, our
Conference Organizing Committee will be arranging special discounted airline and
hotel rates. There will also be a modest conference
registration fee.
The
relevant contact information for the conference secretariat is as
follows:
Congress
Against Racism (Barbados) Inc.
Pan-African
Conference Secretariat
Thomas
Daniel Building, 2nd Floor
Hincks
Street
Bridgetown,
Barbados
Tel:
(246) 228-8757/8/9 / Fax: (246)
228-8817
Please see full details in this issue of the REPNOW Newsletter.
*********
The Millions
for Reparations March, Protest, and Demonstration demanding reparations from the
United States Government will be held in its Capital City, Washington, D.C. on
August 17, 2002. This date,
August 17th, is significant because it marks the 115th anniversary of the birth of one
of our great ancestors and leaders, the Honorable Marcus
Garvey.
The call for this march by the Durban 400
is picking up steam in the African Community throughout America. Thousands
of African people in America are beginning to get prepared to participate in the
march and are actively mobilizing to encourage our people to be present and accounted for in Washington,
D.C. on August 17, 2002.
Dr. Worrill is the
National Chairman of the National Black United Front / NBUF located at:
12817 S. Ashland Ave.
Fl. 1, Calumet Park, Ill. 60827
Telephone #708-389-9929
Fax 708-389-9819
E-Mail: nbufchi @allways.net, Web site: nbufront.org)
Please see full details in this issue of The REPNOW Newsletter.
*********
REPARATIONS YES - MOVEMENT
Announces Historical Nation-Wide Petition Campaign
The Reparations - Yes
International Petition
Drive Web Site is Up and
Running!
Please visit
www.unity4theworld.com and sign the petition Today!
Remember we are trying to
secure 50 Thousand signatures from each state and foreign country, every
signature counts, including yours!
CONTACT:
Ms. Clara Peoples
503-287-7532
Ms. Lisa Clay
503-284-6152
www.unity4theworld.com
www.nabvets.com
JoeWynn.Nabvets@verizon.net
Dr. Saharra Bledsoe
202 783-3705
MzWayMaker@AOL.COM
*********
FREE THE MIND... FREE THE PEOPLE... FREE
THE LAND
THE
NATIONAL COALITION OF
BLACKS
FOR
REPARATIONS IN AMERICA (N’COBRA)
*********
Muhammad Speaks
Newspaper
December/January
muhspeaks@yahoo.com
On September 11, 2001, a very small number of men delivered a strike to the foundation of America. These 19 men, mostly Saudi Arabian Nationals, destroyed the World Trade Center, damaged the U.S. Pentagon and attempted an attack on the White House. On that day they destroyed the comfort and security that white Americans have long enjoyed.
Through television we witnessed the fire of America's burning. Terror and fear was in the faces of the people. They could not hide their fear, knowing that they were seeing something dreadful. This fear should not surprise us, as the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said that men's hearts would be failing because of fear, when they see the destruction and judgment of Allah coming upon them.
The strike against America, delivered by such a small group of men, caused great damage. America has staggered from the blow. She is now engaging in a "War on Terrorism" in Afghanistan and elsewhere presumably to bring about an end to her enemy. However, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad predicted that America will not be able to keep away her enemy. He said that a divine torment is coming against America, and we should come out of her.
On page 170 of The Fall of America, written by Messenger Muhammad (peace be upon him), he says, "It is useless for you to try to prevent the fall of the white man's world. There is no checking it. The white race has not tried to do the right thing ... justice. The doing of justice would have checked her fall (Bible, Jeremiah). But America was never willing; and even at this hour she is not willing to do justice by those whom she has mistreated. She has dealt injustice to her Black once-slave for the nearly five hundred years she has been in the Western Hemisphere."
America is fighting enemies within her own
borders also. Many arrests have
been made, and new laws against terrorism have been passed. Some of America's white citizens are
concerned that these laws will take away freedoms and civil liberties. We, the descendants of slaves, have
never enjoyed freedoms and civil liberties in the manner of America's white
citizens, thus we have not been greatly concerned about the September 11
incident and the new terrorism laws.
We know that terrorism can be
brought upon us at any time, and it has been. We expect that America will not hesitate
to try and terrorize us again.
Now is the time for us to see
ourselves as a people, separate from white America. We have been inside of America for more
than 400 years, living without our human rights: our own language, culture and
religion. Even though we have
fought in America's wars and died in attacks on America, we have never been
given freedom, justice and equality with America's white citizens. Now that America has been attacked, we are
asked to join with the white citizens in unity. We need to join in unity with
ourselves.
We are engaged in battle at the United Nations for recognition of African Americans. It's this battle that should most concern us. We need to gain our human rights including our right to be restored, with dignity. Other peoples of the earth have these rights, but we have been left out because America has hidden our existence: our identity, from the world, by ever changing our names. Our names have been changed from niggers to Negroes, Coloreds, Blacks and African Americans. For the past few years we have been at the UN telling the world that we exist, we want restoration, we want justice: reparations, we want our human rights.
We who are descendants of America's slaves must recognize ourselves and we must recognize the time which has come for America. America has reached the stage of divine chastisement about which she has been warned. We, America's captives, must now see that we belong to each other, not to America. We must gain our freedom by gaining our human rights.
Submitted by ALARKAM@webtv.net (Malik Al-Arkam)
As
you consider the "debate" over "reparations for slavery" consider this:
Since the
passage of the original Civil Rights Act in 1964, many billions of dollars --
even trillions -- have been paid to U.S. blacks in the form of racial job quotas
and racial preferences which have mandated that a certain proportion of blacks
be hired and/or promoted over whites. The U.S. Government Accounting
Office and the Office of Management and Budget are reluctant to publish these
politically incorrect figures, but they are an historic and undeniable
fact.
Additionally,
hundreds of billions of dollars have also been paid to poverty-level black
families via welfare entitlements during this same period. The U.S.
Government Accounting Office and the Office of Management and Budget figures on
this score are quite telling.
Since these
huge "reparations" have already been paid, and if blacks still feel they are not
succeeding in the U.S., one must logically ask: Who, really, is
responsible for their perceived failure?
Consider the
following historic facts regarding slavery of blacks (nominally Africans) over
the centuries:
The West
African state of Benin was known in the 17th century as "Dahomey", and they
ruthlessly rounded up tribespeople and sold them to Spanish, European, and
American slave traders. 20th century Benin recently apologized for the role it
played in the American slave trade. Luc Gnacadja, Benin’s minister of
environment and housing, told a Richmond, Virginia, audience "We cry for forgiveness and reconciliation"
during a state visit on Saturday, April 29.
But American
blacks aren’t very impressed by Benin’s acknowledgment of its role in the slave
trade. The reason? Benin is a poor country and has no money to offer for
"reparations". The reported per capita income in Benin today is $400 per year.
Thus, American blacks really don’t care how much responsibility the West African
state of Benin may have had for selling their fellow Africans into slavery. So
much for justice.
During the
height of the slave trade, the African nation of Senegal profited greatly by
using its island of Goree as a major shipping point for slaves bound for many
foreign markets, including the U.S. To date,
not one American black has demanded payment of "reparations" from Senegal.
Hmmm.
According to
author and racial historian David Horowitz, "It was not whites but black
Africans who first enslaved their brothers and sisters. They were abetted by
dark-skinned Arabs who organized the slave trade. Are reparations going to be
assessed against the descendants of Africans and Arabs for their role in
slavery? There were also 3,000 black slave owners in the antebellum United
States. Are reparations to be paid by their descendants
too?"
Also
according to Horowitz: "American blacks on average enjoy per capita
incomes in the range of 20 to 50 times [2000% to 5000%] those of blacks living
in any of the African nations from which they were
kidnapped."
Also
according to Horowitz: "West Indian blacks in America are also descended
from slaves, but their average incomes are equivalent to the average incomes of
whites (and nearly 25 percent higher than the average incomes of American-born
blacks of all classes). How is it that slavery adversely affected one large
group of descendants but not the other? And how can government be expected to
decide an issue that is so subjective—yet so critical—to the case? The fact is that nobody has demonstrated
any clearly defined causal connection between slavery or discrimination and the
"disparities" that are alleged to require
restitution."
The buying
and selling of African people into slavery had been practiced for hundreds, and
even thousands, of years before the United States even existed!
Furthermore, many of the "buyers and sellers" were not white or even
European. Since the U.S. didn't exist at that time, and since the volume
of Africans sold into slavery in the pre-U.S. period far exceeds the number of
slaves sold to U.S. citizens, shouldn't
the bulk of "reparations" be paid by this historic enslavers and not by U.S.
citizens?
The majority
of U.S. citizens alive today (both non-white and white) descended from
post-Civil War immigrants to this great nation! The descendants of these post-Civil War
immigrants thus have no ancestors who ever participated in any way in
slavery.
The largest historic surges in immigration to the U.S. took place after 1880 (15 years after the Emancipation Proclamation), and after 1960 (95 years after the Emancipation Proclamation). Should not the descendants of these immigrants be excluded from paying "reparations"? Should not the black descendants of these post-slavery black immigrants be excluded from receiving "reparations"?
[Who sent me this jive article? Enough of these White Folks who are too racist to see the GOD’s Truth. How the heck do they think Blacks got to these shores, anyway? They are obviously oblivious to the barbaric Slave Trade and blind to the “Haves and the Have nots” in the US and World and wish to believe that Blacks and the racism and discrimination that accompanied us to White Societies came out of the woodwork our mothers polished for them. Now, Descendants of the Slave Masters are futilely attempting to wipe out the guilt by denying the facts. But we will not let their dope fly! Reparationists are on the case!!! T.Y., Editor]
*********
BOOK LISTINGS
The book listing on Reparations and Black History can be found in REPNOW Newsletters 1 - 5.
***
KHALIFAH'S BOOKSELLERS & ASSOCIATES
Producers & Disseminators of the Literature that is Finally Freeing Afrikan People:
"Those at Home and those abroad!"
www.KBAbooks.com
*********
WE SHALL WIN THIS
WAR!
Imari A. Obadele
*********
“Without Sanctuary”
The web address for Without Sanctuary” is listed in the REPNOW Newsletter #13.
Please pass this information on to others for it is out of…
AMERICA'S SHAME: CONTEMPT & THE LYNCHINGS
James Allen’s photos on the lynchings of Blacks in America
*********
January 28, 2002
ATLANTA -- On a spring afternoon nearly two years ago, Jimmy Allen met Rick Beard for lunch at a luxurious restaurant in this city's wealthy Buckhead community. The food was superb, but what brought them together was a shared vision of mounting one of the most powerful and controversial exhibitions of vintage photographs in Atlanta's history.
Allen, a collector, had the art -- 75 photographs taken during the lynchings of African Americans across the South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His picture book, "Without Sanctuary," was a national bestseller. Beard, executive director of the Atlanta History Center, had the facility -- a palace of gleaming wood, marble and glass that could accommodate thousands.
But as lunch went on, Allen sensed a reluctance in Beard that overshadowed their enthusiasm for revisiting a historic American evil in the city widely regarded as the jewel of the New South. Over and over again, Beard asked, "Is Atlanta ready for this?"
Now, they finally have an answer -- yes. Pictures from "Without Sanctuary" will be shown, not at the History Center, but in a small room at the Martin Luther King National Historic Site from May through December. That's because the process that led the exhibit to the King site drove Beard and Allen apart.
In a well-publicized feud, they slung epithets such as "liar" and "racist," even though both are white. Acquaintances say the two men may never speak to each other again. Their feud could serve as a microcosm for the angst that Atlanta felt over photographs that show white America's mistreatment of black Americans in its rawest form.
When "Without Sanctuary" was shown at the New-York Historical Society in 2000, 50,000 visitors attended, making it one of the most successful shows in the museum's history, said director Jan Ramirez. Yet she acknowledged that the exhibit might never have gone up if it hadn't been for the persistence of a staff member. And black historian Joseph Jordan, former director of Atlanta's Auburn Avenue Research Library on African-American Culture and History, said it was unfair to single out the Atlanta History Center, and even the South, for shrinking away from lynching.
But lynching is an integral
part of American history, particularly in the South.
After three white men dragged James Byrd Jr. to death behind a truck in Jasper, Tex., in 1998, outrage registered across the country. But the grainy black-and-white images in Allen's collection hark back to a time when such atrocities were commonplace, even encouraged.
During the half-century beginning in 1882, some 2,500 black men, women and children were lynched, according to E.M. Beck, a University of Georgia sociology professor and the co-author of a book on the period, titled "A Festival of Violence."
Documents discovered by Beck and "Festival" co-author Stewart E. Tolnay list some of the reasons for the killings: Stealing, assault and murder are there, along with "voted for the wrong party," "argued with a white man," "demanded respect," "lived with a white woman," "tried to vote" and "sued a white man."
Georgians, Beck said, accounted for at least 423 lynchings, second only to Mississippi. Lynching was as much a part of the state's history as the images painted by Margaret Mitchell in "Gone With the Wind."
"White Americans just cannot imagine that we would do to our fellow citizens the kinds of things we have done," said Randall Burkett, an Emory University curator of African American art. "We just can't imagine we could do these things week after week, year after year, decade after decade. When white folks look at those pictures, they have to wonder where they fit."
The photographs in "Without Sanctuary" show black bodies dangling from the limbs of poplar trees and smiling white Southerners gathered around, mugging for the camera like children at a picnic. The pictures were often made into postcards and sent to relatives in such places as New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
Among those lynched was Samuel Hose. In April 1899, he struck his white boss, Alfred Cranford, with an ax after Cranford picked up a gun during an argument over unpaid wages, according to Burkett and historical records. The Atlanta Constitution drove the manhunt for Hose, falsely reporting that he had struck Cranford for no reason, and had then raped his wife.
There was no trial after Hose was captured. He was tied to a tree in Newman, Ga., just outside Atlanta, and burned. Souvenir hunters stripped his body and collected his bones. His knuckles were placed in a jar. Strips of his heart were sent as a present to the governor of Georgia.
Two thousand people were present. No one was questioned by police. Afterward, the Constitution appealed for outsiders to understand that good Christians were compelled to seek justice.
Hose's story is just one among many that the exhibit would open up.
"Atlanta has something to hide," said Michael Lomax, the black former chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners and Atlanta mayoral candidate. "It has a history of violence and discrimination against black people. It's a very brutal history that the general public doesn't know about."
Lomax is president of Dillard University in New Orleans but maintains a home in Atlanta, where he serves on a board that oversees the Atlanta History Center's official publication. "Maybe I'll be expelled for saying this, but I think they're wrong," Lomax said of the decision by the main 33-member board to put off the exhibit. He characterized its members as mostly descendants of privileged old Atlanta families "who made up the power structure when things like lynchings were happening, but did nothing to stop it."
Jordan, currently the director of a black cultural center at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, said that any museum board in America could have had the same reaction. "I think you might have had the same problem with this exhibit in Washington, D.C.," he said.
But Atlanta, unlike the District, stakes its reputation on good race relations, advertising itself as a commerce-minded city that's "Too Busy To Hate." Yet its racial divide is deep: White people live on one side of the city, black residents on the other.
In an effort to help prepare Atlanta for the pictures in "Without Sanctuary," Emory and the Auburn Avenue Research Library held public hearings in white and black communities while the project was still being planned. Some people wept, others moralized angrily. But the communities were united in saying the exhibit should be held.
That still left the questions of where and when.
Beard said the History Center wanted to mount a thoroughly researched exhibit about all facets of slavery. But under that plan, the exhibit wouldn't open until 2004.
In a letter to Burkett, Beard explained why his institution wanted to wait. "Put bluntly," Beard wrote, "the city that's 'too busy to hate' is also the city too busy to think deeply about the painful aspects of its past until somebody 'foreign' tells them it's okay."
Allen said that was a ruse to make the exhibit go away. "The bottom line is that rich white people did not want it here," he said. "They shouldn't call it a history center. They should call it the Atlanta Heritage Society."
In the end, Allen got what he wanted, Beard said. "He took his photographs and went somewhere else," Beard said, meaning the King historical site.
When the exhibit opens in May, said Rich Rusk, he'll be there.
He lives in Monroe, Ga., a few miles south of Atlanta. Rusk, a columnist for the Oconee (County) Enterprise, helped form the Moore's Ford Memorial Committee Inc. in 1997 out of respect for four black people who were hanged at the Moore's Ford Bridge there.
In 1946, Roger Malcolm was driving over the bridge with his wife, Dorothy, and two friends when a white mob descended on them. Malcolm was accused of stabbing his boss, a white man named Barney Hester, in the chest. Hester, who survived the attack, said Malcolm was drunk; others said Malcolm went after Hester after he sexually assaulted Malcolm's wife.
Malcolm and everyone else in the car were lynched at the Apalachee River.
A while ago, Rusk drove to the bridge to face what happened there. "Then I put it out of my mind," he said. "I'm a journalist and don't like to duck hard stories, but I ducked that one. The history is so disgusting, it's gross. It's appalling behavior. And this stuff was all over the country."
By Darryl
Fears
To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46749-2002Jan27.html
Submitted by alarkam@webtv.net
[ Not to
overshadow Allen’s "Without
Sanctuary," but 100
Years of Lynching by Ralph Ginzburg is another account of the heinous
crimes against Black Humanity.
T.Y., Editor]
*********
See a wide range of E-mail Addresses & WebSites on REPARATIONS in the REPNOW Issue #13.
*********
BROAD RANGE OF
TACTICS
Minister Malik Al-Arkam
Boston Representative of the
Honorable Silis Muhammad
www.afre-ngo.org
*********
JOIN THE BLACK REPARATIONS
MOVEMENT TODAY !
IT IS A WIN, WIN CASE FOR
US!
Oscar L.
Beard
*********
Dejoser
**********
Hotep,
I am Gregory Carey, Founder and President of Reparations Central, an online reparations searchable database. We would like for you to view our website that is in the development stage at http://www.reparationscentral.com
We are also attempting to
unify and centralize the reparations movement. We are looking for other
organizations that are doing reparations work to put on our website. Also, we
are asking every organization to consider putting an audio/video presentation on
our website. This website is the hub of the reparations movement worldwide. We need your support and help to make this
reparations clearinghouse a successful venture.
In Struggle,
Aluta Continua Asante Sana
*********
HOW CAN I SUPPORT THE REPARATIONS MASS MOVEMENT?
1.) I suggest that you approach the city in which you reside for reparations, support for reparations, or information as to how to obtain reparations. Your strategy may be a model we all may benefit from at the local level.
2.) Next, demonstrate your willingness to join others in the struggle for reparations.
3.) I would hope that you join or start an N’COBRA chapter in your locale area (if there is none) and become an active and energetic member/reparations information resource, for your Afrikan brothers and sisters.
Submitted by R. Hazard, N’COBRA
*********
"Together We shall Win
REPARATIONS NOW!!!"
Free Your Mind - Join N’COBRA.... Free The People.... Free The Land...
Robert Hazard
S.E. Regional Rep.
N’COBRA
*********
NEW NIC
RELATED ADDRESS:
N’COBRA_INT_COMM@HOTMAIL.COM
January 27,
2002
ALL
ELECTRONIC N’COBRA INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION RELATED BUSINESS WILL BE CONDUCTED
THROUGH THIS NEW EMAIL ADDRESS AS OF
JANUARY 27, 2002.
ncobra_int_comm@hotmail.com
ALL PERSONAL
MATTERS FOR ONAJE MUID WILL REMAIN ON
onajemuid@hotmail.com
PLEASE
ADJUST ALL YOUR EMAIL RECORDS
ACCORDINGLY.
THANK
YOU,
ONAJE MU'ID,
N’COBRA
*********
JOIN
N’COBRA AND THE MILLIONS FOR
THE
AUGUST 17, 2002
REPARATIONS
MARCH
January 31,
2002
By Dr.
Conrad W. Worrill
The Millions
for Reparations March, Protest, and Demonstration demanding reparations from the
United States Government will be held in its Capital City, Washington, D.C. on
August 17, 2002. This date, August 17th, is significant because it marks the
115th anniversary of the birth of one of our great ancestors and leaders, the
Honorable Marcus Garvey.
The call for
this march by the Durban 400 is picking up steam in the African Community
throughout America. Thousands
of African people in America are beginning to get prepared to participate in the
march and are actively mobilizing to encourage our people to be present and
accounted for in Washington, D.C. on August 17, 2002.
A National
Steering Committee has been established from representatives from more than
thirty key cities in America with large concentrations of African
people. These
representatives have agreed to take the responsibility to mobilize and organize their cities and
states to attend the Millions for Reparations March from the bottom up. The
emphasis of organizing for this march will be at the local, state, and regional
levels, block-by-block, and neighborhood-by-neighborhood, throughout America,
where African people live.
The
organization that has been primarily responsible for building the Reparations
Movement in America is the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in
America (N`COBRA). In November
of 1987, a coalition was formed for the purpose of making "the demand for
reparations a national priority and international issue." Immediately, the idea caught on and many
individuals and organizations became members.
The
chairwoman of N`COBRA's Legal Commission, Atty. Adjoa Aiyetoro explains that "The idea for N`COBRA came out of the
National Conference of Black Lawyers in1987 at the conference on the United
States Constitution. Dr. Imari
Obadele initiated the call for the creation of
N`COBRA."
N`COBRA has
focused on the issue of reparations as its major organizing focus since its
inception. Atty.
Aiyetoro reveals that "N`COBRA held its first town hall meeting in Washington,
D.C. on April 8, 1989 and State Senator Bill Owens of Massachusetts spoke. He
had introduced at reparations bill in Massachusetts. On June 3, 1989, N`COBRA
held a successful forum on the Religious Communities Response to the demand for
reparations."
Continuing,
Atty. Aiyetoro writes, "At that forum a decision was made that Atty. Chokwe
Lumumba, Chairperson of the New African Peoples Organization and Atty. Adjoa
Aiyetoro would co-chair a national N`COBRA committee to plan for a national
reparations conference that was held on July 8, 1989 in Washington,
D.C."
A draft
reparations bill, " prepared by Congressman John Conyers was discussed in detail
with members of the Congressman's staff." This bill has been sponsored by
Congressman Conyers every year since 1989. The purpose of the bill is for the Congress
to conduct Congressional hearings and to create formal findings on the nature
and impact of slavery and post slavery discrimination on African people in the
United States. This bill is currently HR40.
As we
prepare for the Millions for Reparations March on August 17, 2002, we think it
is important for all African people in America to become a member of
N`COBRA. By becoming
a member of N`COBRA you will be joining the one organization in America that
dedicates its entire organizing work to the issue of reparations. By joining
N`COBRA you will help strengthen its organizational capacity to make the demand
for reparations from the United States Government a much more powerful
demand.
We
join N`COBRA's "Million Member Drive," encouraging our families, neighbors, and
friends to join individually for $10.00 or as a group for $25.00, and for
$100.00 as an organization."
By joining
N`COBRA, as you prepare to participate in the Millions for Reparations March,
Protest, and Rally, you help strengthen N`COBRA's Reparation Litigation
Committee, which is formulating a class
action lawsuit for the continued horrors of enslavement and the vestiges of
slavery.
By joining
N`COBRA, you can help put pressure on the Congressional leaders to support
Congressman John Conyers' bill HR40, to
immediately begin hearings to study the payment of
reparations.
As Baba
Hannibal Afrik, former co-chair of N`COBRA has written, "Throughout this
country, a new spirit of self determination is being fueled by the Reparations
Movement. N`COBRA has assumed a major leadership role in not only articulating
the pain and sufferings of our beloved ancestors, but also the chronic
injustices being endured even today. Everywhere Africans in America live, there
are constant reminders that institutional racism is a thriving, growth
industry."
On the way
to participate in the historic Millions for Reparations March on August 17,
2002, join N`COBRA immediately. By joining N`COBRA, our collective
organizational power will intensify our demand for reparations.
THEY
OWE US!
By Dr.
Conrad W. Worrill
Dr. Worrill
is the National Chairman of the National Black United Front National Chairman of
the National Black United Front
12817 S.
Ashland Ave., Fl. 1
Calumet
Park, Ill. 60827
708-389-9929, Fax 708-389-9819, E-Mail: nbufchi@allways.net,
Submitted by [BRC-REP]
*********
"If you are thinking one year ahead, sow a seed.
if you thinking ten years ahead, plant a tree.
If you thinking one hundred years ahead ...
educate the people."
Compliments of Shakira A. Ali
*********
Up You
Mighty Race; We Can Accomplish What We Will!!!!
I Remain to Serve,
Senghor Baye
*********
INTERESTING INFORMATION OF SIGNIFICANCE AND FYI:
Construction
on a national slavery museum planned for Fredericksburg will begin in the coming
year, and a portion of the extensive project could open as soon as 2003, a year
earlier than originally expected, museum officials
said.
"It's going
full steam ahead," said former Virginia governor L. Douglas Wilder, who is
heading the group building the museum.
"It's way, way along."
The site for
the museum, originally slated to be about 22 acres, has grown to almost 35
acres, said Jud
Honaker, vice president of the Silver Cos., which is donating the land. Honaker
said the deed for the property, valued at about $17.5 million, would be handed
over soon.
The museum
will be a centerpiece of Celebrate Virginia, a 2,100-acre commercial,
recreational and tourism project in
Fredericksburg and adjacent Stafford County. It will sit on a bluff overlooking
the Rappahannock River and Interstate 95, and the extra acreage will serve as a
buffer between the site and other parts of the project, Honaker
said.
Planners
envision Celebrate Virginia as a catchall for working, shopping, playing and
vacationing. It is
slated to include an office park, golf courses, hotels, stores, eco-tourism
activities and a convention center. But it has drawn considerable criticism from
local officials and residents who fear it will harm the environment, pull
visitors away from downtown Fredericksburg and spur suburban
sprawl.
Even local
officials who believe the slavery museum will be a boon to Fredericksburg say it should be
more fully integrated into other area historical sites, and they're uneasy that
the museum will be such a major part of a commercial
venture.
"It's
basically an anchor tenant in a shopping center," Fredericksburg Mayor Bill Beck
said. "Is it proper to have a museum dealing with such a significant and complex
issue housed in a shopping center location? I worry about the dignity of the
site.
"Virginia has an enormous number and long tradition of important museums and historic sites," he said. "I don't know any of them that were created for their economic impact."
Planning to
open part of the museum in 2003 could be ambitious, considering that organizers
have said they have not begun soliciting donations. Officials estimate that the museum will
cost $100 million to $200 million, and Wilder has said he will try to raise $200
million.
The state
has committed $1.1 million for the project, while the City of Fredericksburg has
agreed in principal to give $1 million.
Wilder said
museum planners will send out invitations to as many as 100 supporters
nationwide for a first organizational meeting to take place in January or early
February. The meeting will include museum experts, historians and other
backers.
Museum
officials also are organizing a nationwide design competition for the
project. Students
from Howard University, Hampton University and the University of Virginia are
expected to be among those submitting proposals, Wilder
said.
The museum
is envisioned as a national testament to slavery in America, tracking it from
when the first Africans were hustled onto the shores of Jamestown to its
abolition more than two centuries later.
It will
focus on education and will include lecture halls, an auditorium, classrooms and
a library of about 250,000 books. A theater, a traveling exhibit and materials
on slavery in
other countries are planned.
There will
also be a reproduction of a slave ship that officials said would use virtual
reality equipment to give visitors the feeling of crossing the sea as the slaves
did.
"You'll get
a sense of the claustrophobia, the sense of the aloneness of being on a [slave]
ship," said Michael Neiditch, a former director at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Museum who is assisting the slavery museum project.
"We're very
taken in giving you a sense of being a teenager and leaving West Africa,"
Neiditch said.
Exactly how
that and other exhibits will be formed remains a question, officials said,
noting that they're wary of presenting the story of slavery in a way that leaves
visitors depressed.
Wilder said
they must answer the questions: "How do
we want people to feel when they go in? And how do we want them to feel when
they come out?"
Neiditch
said the museum will deal with disparate issues, ranging from a slave's
experience to the decision by 15 U.S. presidents to let the institution
stand.
"I would hope the exhibition accurately tells the story of slavery in America from several perspectives," Neiditch said. "That of the slave and the slave family, that of young Africans abducted and pulled out of their homes in West Africa, the economy of the South that drove this institution and . . . how the clergy in the 11 states that became the Confederacy defended slavery.”
"This
exhibition will help to explain how long it's taken for blacks in America to
achieve equality," Neiditch
said.
By Steven
Ginsberg and Craig Timberg
Washington
Post Staff Writers
Monday, December 31, 2001; Page B01
_____Slavery
Museum_____
•
Site Named For
Museum On Slavery (The Washington Post, Oct 9, 2001)
• Fredericksburg Is
Serious About Slavery Museum (The Washington Post, Aug 16, 2001)
• Fredericksburg Prodded on Slavery
Museum (The Washington Post, Aug 11, 2001)
[For
a very long time, I have had my own (detailed) visions of a Museum for the Black
Holocaust: one prearranged by
Blacks, that covers at least a square mile, with a replica of a Slave Ship,
etc., etc., and located in Africa, preferably Ghana, where stand the
holding stations, “Castles,” for the once chained and shackled Slaves destined
to the four corners of this Earth.
When
visitors leave the Museum, they should know the full story about the Slave
Trade, i.e., who all enslaved the Blacks out of Africa, why, the
affects of this enslavement on Blacks around the World, and why Reparations is
due Descendants of Slaves. T.Y.,
Editor]
*********
INVENTIONS
BY PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT
COULD
NUMBER OVER 100,000
February 6,
2002
According to
Black researcher Keith Holmes, inventions by Black inventors, could number over
one hundred thousand. The area of inventions by Black people is a
global one and has had a major impact on civilized living worldwide.
However, it's the depth of these inventions, that covers all areas of modern
living (agriculture to zoology). What we are talking about here is an
accumulation of inventiveness dating from 1620 to the present, something that
few ethnic groups can match, and given the challenges that Black people face in
the modern world today, this is
something to not only highlight but to celebrate.
The impact
of kidnapping and transplanting millions of Africans to the Americas, Canada,
Caribbean and Europe meant that the culture and creativity was transported as
well. The
ingenuity and inventiveness of African people was fully used in nation building
from the very beginning.
The Black
inventor will have a rebirth, thanks to the information technology and research
sciences. Using the
resources of the Internet coupled with library materials, one can site an
invention by a particular inventor and give life back to the whole phenomena of
"Black Inventions". Thus calling forth today's and tomorrows Black inventors to
create more technical, medical and labor saving
inventions.
There was a
time when the names of Black inventors were not known or hidden from the
mainstream. And to some this was an indication that black people were not
inventors at all. Today is a
new day for black inventors of both past and present, putting at the hands of
any curious mind their mark on civilized living? Invention is the ability to see a higher
and more efficient way of functioning. This takes passion, craftsmanship,
courage, vision and wisdom, all of the qualities that a highly developed
individual and race has - and more than one hundred thousand blacks were and are
at that level of functioning. And the most important perspective that makes
these statements more powerful is the position that Blacks find themselves in
today's society; poverty, low self esteem, and the lack of a unifying effort
coordinated to uplift the race, all
stemming from not knowing the magnitude of their inventive genius to mankind
worldwide.
So far, Mr.
Holmes has found over 6,000 inventions, design patents and trademarks by black
people from around the world.
Listing
of patent sites:
African
Intellectual Property Organization www.oapi.cm
Canadian
Intellectual Patent Office
www.patents1.ic.gc.ca/intro-e.html
European
Intellectual Patent Office gb.espacenet.com
United
States Patent and
Trademark Office www.uspto.gov
World
Intellectual Property Office www.wipo.int
Do you have
a name or patent number on a Black inventor, but still can't find any additional
facts? If you are searching for an inventor or patent numbers you can search the
following web sites:
Black
Patents Website www.blackpatents.com
Great Lakes
Patent and Trademark Center African American Inventors Database
www.detroit.lib.mi.us/glptc/aaid
Black
Inventors website www.blackinventors.org
African
American Inventors Series website
www.ehhs.cmich.edu/~rlandrum
African
American Inventors website
www.inventorsmuseum.com/africanam.htm
Black
Inventors www.members.home.net/amitzmi/page23.html
About Black
inventors website inventors.about.com/cs/blackinventors
The
Faces of Science:
African
Americans in Sciences website
www.princeton.edu~mcbrown/diplay/faces.html
An
African-American Bibliography: Science,
Medicine and Allied Fields website (case sensitive)
www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Bibliography/AFAM_SciencE.html
In 1990, a
major breakthrough in the recognition of Black inventors occurred. Dr. George
Washington Carver (chemurgy and Tuskegee Institute) and Dr. Percy Lavon Julian
(soy products and Griffith Labs, Julian Labs) were the first black inventors
nominated and inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Since then
two more Black inventors Mark E. Dean (computers and IBM) and James E. West
(microphones and AT&T Bell Labs and Lucent technologies) were recently
inducted in 1997 and 1999 respectively. You can visit www.invent.org for more
information on all four inventors. However, there are a number of Black
inventors who deserve that same honor.
Talk to your
friends and family; contact your local librarians, teachers or historians to
find additional inventors. Find and speak with your local Black
engineers, doctors, dentists or scientists. If you are in need of some
assistance in finding patent information on an inventor from 1925 to the
present, send an email to kcholmes@i-2000.com or call/fax information to
718-284-8965 make sure to include the names and/or patent numbers. Mr. Holmes
can supply a partial list of inventors and inventions from your state or
country.
Henry E.
Baker, whose initial research and devotion laid the foundation into finding over
one thousand inventions by black people in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century. It is Mr. Holmes vision to continue documenting inventions by
Black people.
There are a
number of books on the subject of Black Inventors that are very important, below
is a partial list.
African
America First in Science & Technology, Gale, 1999.
African
America First in Science & Technology, Gale, 1999.
Black
Engineers in the United States, James Ho, 1974.
Black
Inventors of America, Burt Mckinley, 1969.
Black
Pioneer of Science and Invention, Louis Haber, 1970.
Blacks in
Science and Medicine, Vivian Ovelton Sammons, 1990.
Creativity
and Inventions, The genius Afro-Americans and Women in the United States and
their patents, Patricia Carter Ives, 1987.
Hidden
Contributors: Black Scientists and Inventors in America, Aaron E. Klein,
1971.
Outward Dreams: Black Inventors and Their Inventions, James S. Haskins,1991
Submitted by [BRC-REP]
[Blacks are second to none,
and we have proven it. We have only
been made to believe that we are an “inferior race” because we are yet subjects
of our captors and have no real freedom but rather absurd brainwashing that has
sustained us in ignorance and misconceptions. Great inventors came out of Biblical
days, and these Peoples were Black:
the Ancient Egyptians and the Children of Israel – BELIEVE IT OR
NOT! T.Y., Editor]
*********
Week of February 3, 2002
WHOSE SHEEP IS GETTING SHEARED IN THE REPARATIONS SCAM Giving The IRS Its' Due, While Getting Ours People who charge $50 or $100 fee to assist your applying to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for a "tax refund" or "credit" as compensation for atrocities of slavery are perpetrating a fraud. It's a scam; there is no tax break for the slavery of our forefathers!
That being said, the debt African-American
descendants are owed will have to come from the U.S. Congress and requires more
letter writing than filling out tax forms. There are two claims people for
reparations should make. One is to ask your congressional
representative to support H.R. 141, authored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI). The other is to file a reparations
claim with the U.S. courts.
Any one telling you that direct descendants of slaves have no right to compensation for slavery, Jim Crow and other forms of discrimination, over the past 500 years, is also pulling off a fraud. Other American ethnic groups have received payments for wrongful laws and dealings, but Black Reparations claims have been ignored continuously. Since 1989, Detroit Congressman John Conyers Jr. has introduced legislation to establish a congressional commission to examine the institution of slavery and study the impact of subsequent and continuing discrimination against African Americans that resulted directly and indirectly from slavery. If there is to be any compensation, it's this commission that will make recommendations concerning its form.
Reparations seekers need to recognize that
there are currently no tax code provisions for slavery reparations
deductions. The idea of
tax-based reparations took wings in filings for 2000; nearly 80,000 returns were
filed seeking more than $2.7 billion in reparation refunds. This was up from 13,731 in 1999
filings. A Texas man, 46-year-old Vernon T. James,
promoted a reparation tax refund scheme, telling church parishioners they could
file for a $40,000 "black investment tax" credit. Reparations People should note that Mr.
James is spending 80 months in the slammer, and to avoid same, they will not
submit returns claiming reparations.
The IRS could assess you a $500 penalty for frivolous
filing.
Many middle-class African Americans have
adopted Clarence Thomas-like traits and caution against reparations. These affirmative-action recipients, who
are now affirmative action opponents, seemingly are frightened that whites will
be angry with them if they ask for the money. Most Congressional Black Caucus (CBC)
members are not of that ilk, simply stuck in the Capitol Hill "ole boy"
system. They need lobbying
letters in hand to put other House Members to action. Congress will never act if they continue
being convinced the majority of African Americans are passive, silent and
indifferent about this issue.
Dr. Robert L. Brock, a reparations
lawyer for 40 years whose Committee for Self Determination helps people file
court claims, says, "Most blacks are unfamiliar with the legal terms and
practices associated with getting reparations." He points out a simple fact "You can't get reparations if you don't
file a legal claim." Rep.
Conyers says: "Given the trust funds that have been established for Holocaust
survivors, internment victims and Native Americans, there is ample precedent for
reparations. Clearly the issue merits discussion at both
an American and international level to develop a consensus on the most
appropriate way to confront the vestiges of past and continuing
discrimination."
XXX
By William Reed
BUSINESS EXCHANGE
Submitted by "Yehudah" <Yehudah@wrightwebdesigns.com>
*********
February 14, 2002
Forwarded from Louis Clayton Jones:
As you know, I terminated my NAACP
membership in 1959, when the Negro organization refused to include W.E.B. DuBois
in its 50th Anniversary Celebration. In the intervening years, I have found no
reason to renew that membership. The
NAACP is not now, nor has it ever been, a Black organization. Their award to
Rice is consistent with their record of equating, with "success," a putative
acceptance of certain Negro accommodationists by white media and the white
American establishment.
The struggle for racial
"integration" in America has had nothing whatever to do with racial progress in
America. Brown v. Board, the crowning achievement of the NAACP's Legal Defense
Fund, is a sterling example of the sterility of an integrationist approach to
racial progress. 48 years after the Brown decision, our children in the ghetto schools of
America cannot read and the prisons and jails are bursting at the seams with the
products of America's "integrated education" system.
Attendance at this year's Image Award ceremonies is, in my opinion, tantamount to racial treason. It is a shameless surrender to the Fascist state in America and to all the totalitarian principles for which it stands. Any Negro, who purports to lead the race, should think twice before showing up at this obscene affair.
Of course. the American Negro has
been misled down this treasonous and disastrous path before, when the Negro
leaders failed to protest the appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court of
the United States, on the basis of the altogether specious premise that "any black face is better than none."
History has disproved that premise and we are left with a leadership class,
exemplified by the executives and board
of the NAACP, that is poised to repeat the lessons of our tragic history in a
racist land.
In closing, I shall pronounce the same benediction on the leadership of the NAACP as I pronounced on Andy Young when, as UN ambassador, he vetoed sanctions against the Fascist state of South Africa: "He (They) shall spend the balance of his (their) days, wandering from corporate board room to corporate board room in the service of his (their) masters. May his (their) soul (souls) rest in peace."
In sorrow,
Louis Clayton Jones
***
NAACP to Honor Condoleezza
Rice: What's Next,
A Lifetime Achievement Award
for Clarence Thomas?
As a member of the NAACP, I've recently had
the opportunity to work on one of its national task forces. I don't recall any
Black Republicans or conservatives being held in high esteem. In fact, Black
Democrats were often publicly and privately castigated for capitulating to the
right wing agenda. After a long absence, it was that kind of tough talk that
caused me to reactivate my NAACP membership. So imagine my profound disappointment when I
read recently about the organization's decision to honor Bush's national
security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, at its next Image Awards
ceremony.
"Playa Hatin" is not driving my disillusionment. The NAACP rightly points to Rice's academic achievements; her status as the first female national security adviser; and as one of Baby Bush's most trusted aides, as the basis for her award. After all, the organization's website states, "...the Image Awards are presented...to those who strive for the portrayal of positive images and meaningful opportunities for African Americans..." I am certain that Rice is very personable and every bit the "positive image" of discipline, devotion, and other achievement-oriented qualities that are admirable and should be generally celebrated-but that is where the positive ends and the negative begins.
Politically, Condoleezza Rice is the last
thing in the world Black people should honor. She is the handmaiden of white
supremacy-period. Her representation of "meaningful opportunities for
African Americans" especially repugnant because she continues to assist this racist
government in its extermination of the rest of us. As National Security
Advisor, I don't see her telling John Ashcroft to back off his assault on what
little fairness and justice we have left in this society. I didn't see Rice siding with "militarist"
Colin Powell when supposedly; he forcefully advocated military restraint in
response to the events of September 11th. Nor did I see her standing next to
Powell, at the Republican National Convention, when he took the Republican Party
to task for not addressing America's racial contradictions. In fact, it was
Rice, not "General" Powell who declared to a world audience, "It is time to have
a president devoted to a new nuclear strategy and to the deployment of effective
missile defenses at the earliest possible date." I think I even saw Colin
flinch.
Writing in Slate.com, writer
David Plotz, I think, captured the essence of Condoleezza Rice's political
orientation when he wrote, "Early on she
decided that national interest and the balance of power, not humanitarian
principles, should determine U.S. policy." I was profoundly struck by Rice's
additional statements at the Republican convention when she proudly justified
her Party membership because she, " . .
. found a party that sees me as an individual, not as part of a group."
Iyanla Vanzant, she is not! To me,
Condoleezza Rice clearly represents everything the NAACP says they are
diametrically opposed to and advocates against. What is going
on?
There are three possible
reasons why the organization would honor someone so anti-human:
1) The NAACP's
leadership is on crack
2) The "integration and acceptance at any cost" philosophy is alive and well within the organization
3) Financial benefactors, not African, are calling the shots.
Personally, I think it's all three.
Whatever the reason, if I'm still a member come next year, I'm nominating
Clarence Thomas for the 2003 Image Award!
By J Tolbert Jr, criticalman@earthlink.net
Submitted by merukheop@hotmail.com (Meru Kheop)
[Unfortunately, NAACP is an organization for Blacks who still call themselves “Colored People” and who maintain a presence off White Folks’ money as they go about White Folks’ concerns. Leopards can’t change their spots, but the oppressed and afflicted know that only a change can make a difference! REPARATIONS, REPARATIONS, REPARATIONS!!! NAACP, are you listening?! T.Y., Editor]
*********
November 16, 2001
PRINCETON -- Movie star Danny Glover, known for his brutal gunplay in the Lethal Weapon movie series, last night called on the U.S. to spare the life of Osama bin Laden.
As guest speaker at an anti-death
penalty forum at Princeton University, Glover said America was the one to blame
for bombing and terror around the world.
"Yes -- Yes!" Glover said when asked if American forces should spare the Saudi terrorist's life.
"When I say the death penalty is inhumane. I mean [it's inhumane] whether that person is in a bird cage [jail] or it's bin Laden."
Glover spent the first 30 minutes of his presentation at McCosh 50 auditorium deriding the death penalty, which he called "homicide as the official tool of the state."
He went on to chide the U.S. government for incarceration of nearly 1,000 illegal immigrants in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, and derided John Ashcroft for asking permission to listen to conversations between terrorist suspects and their lawyers.
"It gets even worse," he added.
"This week President Bush implemented a
military tribunal ... which will make it easier for us to execute
(people)."
"This clearly is a slippery slope. We must stand vigilant against Bush in these times and work with the abolitionists.
"One of the main purveyors of violence in this world has been this country, whether it's been against Nicaragua, Vietnam or wherever," Glover added.
The event was sponsored by the Mercer County Chapter of Amnesty International, a group with 1,000 members, which opposes the death penalty and advocates human rights.
Glover has received wide recognition for his roles in more than 50 films, including his role as a gun-toting police officer in the Lethal Weapon movies.
When asked how he could justify playing a Los Angeles cop who guns down villains in the movies, Glover said he compromised with Warner Brothers and Sony, the movie financiers.
For example, Glover said Warner Brothers agreed to finance half the cost of movies with pacifist themes, such as Beloved and Buffalo Soldiers, in exchange for him agreeing to perform in films where he often ignores the rights of criminal characters.
Glover said 741 people have been executed in the U.S. since the U.S. Supreme Court made it legal again in 1976.
Currently 13 states allow executions, and two allow juveniles to be put to death, he said.
Of the thousands currently on death row, 98 were freed recently after new evidence proved them to be "absolutely innocent" and not on some technicality, he claimed.
"I've been an advocate for peace my whole life. But one of the main purveyors of violence in this world is this country," he said.
Glover, who grew up in South Central Los Angeles, also starred in the screen adaptations of Alice Walker's The Color Purple and Toni Morrison's Beloved.
He received a Cable ACE Aware after starring in HBO's production of Mandela and has been the recipient of an NAACP Image Award.
A tireless human rights crusader, Glover is a recipient of the Amnesty International USA Lifetime Achievement Award for his role in the civil rights movement in Namibia, his work as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Program and his commitment to abolition of the death penalty.
http://www.zwire.com/site/Danny_Glover.html
By Dave Sommers
The Trentonian
BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress - General News Articles/Reports
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe: <mailto:majordomo@tao.ca?body=unsubscribe%20brc-news>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe: <mailto:majordomo@tao.ca?body=subscribe%20brc-news>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Digest: <mailto:majordomo@tao.ca?body=subscribe%20brc-news-digest>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help: <mailto:worker-brc-news@lists.tao.ca?subject=brc-news>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/brc-news@lists.tao.ca>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive: <http://groups.yahoo.com/messages/brc-news>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive: <http://www.escribe.com/politics/brc-news>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post: <mailto:brc-news@lists.tao.ca>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
*********
SLAVERY FREE CHOCOLATE?
February 8,
2002
African
child slavery, cheap labor ... and big
profits for major corporations in the chocolate industry ... This month alone
Americans will consume millions of pounds of chocolate. Do you really know where your chocolate
come from or the conditions under which the cocoa beans are produced? Like
the diamonds from Sierre Leone, something to think about the next time you crave
chocolate or decide to give chocolate ...
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12373
Delores
Chamblin
chamblin@africreations.com
AfriCreations
http://www.africreations.com
Submitted by
TheBlackList@topica.com, issue
962
*********
ZA
BLACK REPARATIONS QUIZ #1
February 1,
2002
Quiz
#1: What is wrong with the following
statement?
The 40-acre
and a mule Black Reparations field order by General Sherman failed because
Lincoln was assassinated and President Andrew Johnson revoked the
order.
Answer:
There is a
great deal wrong with the above statement. But suffice
it to say that Lincoln's solution to the Black problem was not a domestic
one.
Lincoln
wanted to export slaves just as we had been imported, by establishing colonies
outside of the U.S. Hence, Lincoln's Haiti initiative. Lincoln was not a
Reparations Activist. Secondly, Sherman's field order was not an U.S. Public Law
and was never ratified by Congress even before Lincoln's assassination. Thirdly, the so-called 40 acres
"Reparations" initiative was not Reparations at all. The form it took was an
arrangement during the initial phase of The Freedmen's Bureau by which slaves
could rent lands formerly "owned" by a Confederate
slavemaster.
This was not
Reparations in any sense. The rental
"rights" to the land would have to be forfeited to the former owner if the owner
came to reclaim the land. The few
thousand Blacks in Florida and South Carolina who had started renting
land-maybe-to-own someday if the slavemaster never shows up, were forcibly
removed from this land by the same army, The Federal Army, from whence the idea
had first emerged. We died fighting the U.S. Army, defending what we thought to
be our "right" to rent the land. Under President Andrew Johnson, White
Reparations were paid to former Confederate slavemasters, with no rent-to-own
scheme at all. They resettled their land with White Reparations from the
U.S.
Government.
See The Forty Acres Documents, The House of Songhay, 1994. You might say that,
as we perceive it, 40-acres and a mule
is a Figment of our igment. There was never any mule
anyway.
Za
Reparations Quiz
Wewinnin@juno.com
*********
THE
MIDDLE PASSAGE (HBO FILM SCREENING)
February 14,
2002
Greetings,
Folks!
I am
responding to the message regarding the Middle Passage, just in case anyone is
interested in participating in a discussion of it. On Monday,
25 February 2002 at 7:00 p.m in Mitten Hall on the main campus of Temple
University in Philadelphia, PA, a film screening and panel discussion of the
Middle Passage will take place. You are cordially invited.
This event
is co-sponsored by HBO Films, Sports & Entertainment, the Pan-African
Studies Community Education Program (PASCEP), Student Services / Mr. Arnold
Boyd, African-American Studies, and others.
There will
be a panel of local presenters and some "celebrities" who will hold the
discussion. Please contact Mr. Arnold Boyd for more information and flyers.
215.204.1209.
Fraternally,
YUMY ODOM,
PASCEP
Founder /
Facilitator - Human Race Studies: A Certificate Course
215.204.3449
Submitted by
todomrob@nimbus.ocis.temple.edu
*********
REP.
CYNTHIA MCKINNEY EXPOSES U.S. PERSECUTION OF ZIMBABWE
ZIMBABWE
DEMOCRACY AND ECONOMIC RECOVERY ACT OF 2001
(Extensions
of Remarks - December 05, 2001)
SPEECH OF
HON. CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY OF GEORGIA
IN THE HOUSE
OF REPRESENTATIVES
December 4,
2001 * Ms. McKinney
Mr. Speaker,
at the international Relations Committee meeting of November 28, 2001, which
considered the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001, I asked a
question of my colleagues who were vociferously supporting this misdirected
piece of legislation: ``Can anyone
explain how the people in question who now have the land in question in Zimbabwe
got title to the land?'' * My query
was met with a deafening silence. Those who knew did not want to admit the
truth and those who didn't know should have known--that the land was stolen from
its indigenous peoples through the British South Africa Company and any
``titles'' to it were illegal and invalid. Whatever the reason for their
silence, the answer to this question is the unspoken but real reason for why the
United States Congress is now concentrating its time and resources on squeezing
an economically-devastated African state under the hypocritical guise of providing a
``transition to democracy.'' * Zimbabwe
is Africa's second-longest stable democracy. It is multi-party. It had
elections last year where the opposition, Movement for Democratic Change, won
over 50 seats in the parliament. It has an opposition press which vigorously
criticizes the government and governing party. It has an independent judiciary,
which issues decisions contrary to the wishes of the governing party. Zimbabwe is not without troubles, but
neither is the United States. I have not heard anyone proposing a United
States Democracy Act following last year's Presidential electoral debacle. And
if a foreign country were to pass legislation calling for a United States
Democracy Act which provided funding for United States opposition parties under
the fig leaf of ``Voter Education,'' this body and this country would not stand
for it. * There are many de jure and de facto one-party states in the world
which are the recipients of support of the United States government. They are
not the subject of Congressional legislative sanctions. To any honest observer,
Zimbabwe's sin is that it has taken the position to right a wrong, whose
resolution has been too long overdue--to return its land to its people. The Zimbabwean government has said that a
situation where 2 percent of the population owns 85 percent of the best land is
untenable. Those who presently own more than one farm will no longer be able to
do so. * When we get right down to it, this legislation is nothing more than a
formal declaration of United States complicity in a program to maintain
white-skin privilege. We can call it
an ``incentives'' bill, but that does not change its essential “sanctions''
nature. It is racist and against the interests of the masses of Zimbabweans. In
the long-run the Zimbabwe Democracy Act will work against the United States
having a mutually beneficial relationship with Africa.
Submitted by
ALARKAM@webtv.net (Malik Al-Arkam)
***
As-Salaam-Alaikum
Several
months ago President Robert Mugabe asked, "What is our
crime?
Our crime is
that we are Black and in America Blacks are a condemned
race."
As-Salaam-Alaikum
*********
REPARATIONS
AND DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN
December 14, 2001
U.S.
Congressman John Conyers has led a crusade for reparations for nearly a decade
and the debate has been recently fueled by a best selling book written by
Randall Robinson. It was
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, however, the former Democratic Senator from New York,
who laid the groundwork for the case on reparations for African-Americans more
than thirty-five years ago building on the scholarship of W. E. DuBois and
others. I am surprised that no one has invoked his name in making a case for
reparations.
Robinson,
Conyers and other leaders in the reparations movement have overlooked the most
injurious consequence of slavery for African Americans-- the destabilization of
the black family. Much of the
accumulated disadvantage that African-Americans experience is directly linked to
the weakened structure of the black family over time. Perhaps reparation
activists have steered clear of this issue due to the public acrimony that was
created when it was first raised in 1965.
Moynihan was
the first persons to bring this issue to the nation's attention. As an
assistant to President Lyndon Baines Johnson and a Harvard-trained sociologist,
Moynihan wanted government policymakers to make better use of social science.
The Moynihan Report, as it came to be known, created a controversy that would
reverberate for years throughout a nation beleaguered by some of the most
menacing racial turmoil in its history.
In this
Report, Moynihan condensed over three decades of research on the "Negro problem"
and documented the "deterioration of the Negro family:"
1) Nearly a
quarter of black marriages are dissolved;
2) Nearly
one-quarter of births to blacks are to unmarried mothers;
3) As a
consequence, almost one-fourth of black families are headed by women;
4) This
breakdown in the black family has led to a startling increase in welfare
dependency.
Moynihan
further asserted that the "roots of the problem" lie in slavery; in the effects
of Reconstruction on the family and particular on the position of the black man;
in urbanization, unemployment, and poverty; and in a wage system that often does
not provide a family wage. "In a society that presumes male leadership in
private and public affairs," Moynihan wrote, "the dependence on the mother's
income undermines the position of the father."
He went on
to describe the black family as a "tangle of pathology" (a phrase
borrowed from Kenneth Clark's description of Harlem ghetto life) and black
family structure as "matriarchal" (because black women fare better
interpersonally and economically and tend to dominate black family life). He
called for a "national effort to strengthen the black family." and urged
government support to ensure that "every able-bodied Negro man was
working."
Let me say
parenthetically that there were problems in some of Moynihan's analyses. For
example, he misread the absence or marginalization of black fathers in poor
families as the
black woman's dominance in the black community at large and overlooked the fact
that 88 percent of black professional women were clustered in the lower paying
occupations such as elementary and secondary teaching, social work, and
nursing.
Black men,
on the other hand, were granted 91 percent of the professional degrees in the
combined fields of medicine, law, dentistry, veterinary medicine, and theology.
Moynihan also failed to note that the median annual income for black families
with both husbands and wives employed was $7,782, whereas the median income of
white families was with only one wage earner was $8,450. Black women's income
was lower than black men's--$2,908 and $4,874
respectively.
The income
of black women was clearly crucial to the family's economic well-being. His
major point, however, that slavery and its aftermath had left an indelible
imprint on the black family was irrefutable.
President
Johnson spoke at a Howard University commencement on June 4, 1965 and drew
heavily from Moynihan's report. Before Johnson delivered the speech at Howard,
prominent black leaders-including Martin Luther King, Roy Wilkins, and Whitney
Young-had been called in by the White House to read the president's
speech.
At the time,
they expressed their enthusiasm and "anticipated other civil rights leaders'
pleasant surprise at hearing the speech. Johnson announced that he intended to call
a White House Conference to "shatter forever not only the barriers of law and
public practice but the walls which bound the conditions of many" by the color
of their skin.
The
Washington Star broke the story of the White House Conference planning activity,
noting that in the Howard speech the President had "urged black Americans to
forgive and forget and to look frankly at their own failures." The article
further asserted that the President wanted to "hand the civil rights movement back to
Negroes and enable them to speak out on the overwhelming problem that faced
them-the breakdown of the Negro family structure."
The New York
Times, however, wrote the first story to deal specifically with the contents of
the Moynihan Report. The NY Times was authorized to read and write about the
Report but not to disclose its authorship. The article described a "White House study
group" that was "laying the ground work for a massive attempt to revive the
structure of the Negro family."
On August
9th, several days before the outbreak of rioting in Watts, Newsweek carried a
two page article summarizing the Report's main points and expressed concerns
about the touchiness of the issue: "The Negro family problem was scarcely news
to social scientists. But its very intimacy has excluded it from the public
dialogue on civil rights; it reaches too deep into white prejudices and Negro
sensitivities."
Once the
report was officially released, the attitude of civil rights leaders was perhaps
best expressed by William Ryan: If we are to believe the new ideologues, we must
conclude that segregation and discrimination are not the terrible villains we
thought they were. Rather, we are told the Negro's condition
is due to his "pathology," his values, the way he lives, the kind of family life
he leads. The major qualifications-the bow to egalitarianism-is that these
conditions are said to grow out of the Negro's history of being enslaved and
oppressed-generations ago.
(Interestingly
enough, conservatives are currently using the victimization argument to assert
that the issue is ultimately one of black responsibility.)
Stokely
Carmichael, who first articulated the ideology of the Black Power movement,
offered a more pungent, streetwise critique of Moynihan's analysis: The reason we are in this bag we are in
isn't because of my mama, it's because of what they did to my
mama."
Moynihan's
Report spawned rigorous research that challenged virtually every assumption that
had been made about the management of slaves, their work habits, their domestic
welfare, and the emergence of black family formation patterns. A group of
historians emerged during the 1970's catalyzed by the Moynihan report to
challenge many of the ideas set forth by scholars who had studied the aftermath
of slavery and its effect on the African-American family.
Reexamining
the impact of slavery on the African-American family, contemporary scholars of
slave culture argue that it developed as an adaptation to the slaves'
environmental conditions. In that slaves were not allowed a legal marriage
and all births were out of wedlock, what emerged out of this slave culture was a
value system that refrained from stigmatizing the offspring of women who gave
birth outside of marriage.
In addition,
two distinct types of family structure emerged from slavery- single-mother
families and two parent families. Plantation
size was a key factor in the slaves' family patterns. Two parent families were
more likely to emerge from large plantations where the probability of having a
white father was substantially lower.
The late
historian Herbert Gutman has provided some of the most incisive analysis of why
prenuptial intercourse, which was common among both indentured servants and
slaves, survived much longer among slaves: Reproducing the slave labor required only
the simple biological dyad "mother and child." The social dyads "husband and wife" and
"father and child" were not essential. Neither was the completed nuclear
family. But many owners did little to discourage prenuptial intercourse among
their slaves, nevertheless encouraged the formation of completed slave families.
Slave women mostly counted in the calculation of their owners as mothers, and
slave men counted as laborers.
When former
slavers were interviewed, 82 percent reported the presence of their mothers
during their early childhood years, whereas only 42 percent remembered having
contact with their fathers. About
one-third of those who mentioned the presence of a father during childhood also
noted that these men did not live with their family on the same
plantation.
The
cumulative effects of four factors, in addition to slavery, have transformed the
African-American family structure over time. These
historical factors include-- the northern migration that resulted in the loss of
communal institutions; welfare policies that initially forced fathers out of the
home; decreasing job opportunities for working class black men; and social
isolation in neighborhoods of high poverty concentration and the disappearance
of jobs in these communities.
In addition
to these factors, the structure of black families, like that of other white and
ethnic families, has been affected by changing values in our society that
increased the independence and autonomy of all women, by changes in traditional
gender roles not only within the family but in the workplace as well, and by
more liberal attitudes toward out of wedlock births and single
parenthood.
The problems
of the black family have escalated since the release of the Moynihan
Report. Currently,
65 percent of black families have absent fathers (these rates are substantially
higher in poverty neighborhoods), the rate of divorce for blacks is four times
the 1960 level and double that of the general population.
"Structural
racism" has weakened the family structure of African Americans in recent years
by simultaneously decreasing the job opportunities and increasing the rates of
incarceration for black men. In 1950,
for example, 6.4 percent of wage earners were black men and 3.4 percent were
women. By 1990, the proportion of wage earners who were black men had declined
to 5 percent, while the percentages that were black women had increased to 5.4
percent.
Black
working class mothers, who are at the very bottom of the wage scale, have had
difficulty supporting their children without
some reliance of welfare or other governmental benefits such as Medicaid and
food stamps.
With the
federal government's 1996 welfare reform legislation coupled with the high rates
of incarceration for black men, we will probably see even more dramatic changes
in the years ahead. For example, there
are 4,630 black men in prison per 100,000 in the population whereas that figure
for white men is 482. The disparity in the sentencing between crack and
powder-cocaine has contributed to this higher rate of incarceration. A recent
study found that 90 percent of drug offenders in state prisons are black yet
African-Americans constitute only one seventh of all drug
users.
Moynihan was
prescient in his portrayal of the black family more than thirty years ago. What has also persisted over time is the
reluctance of African-Americans to expose the problems that have been occurring
in the family for fear that the blame for these problems would be placed on
them. The challenged experienced by the black family have taken different
forms over time, but they are unique in being created in a vortex resulting from
racism and injustice.
In recent
years, conservatives have been some of the most vociferous advocates for a
return to "family values." Family life, as we have known it, will be out of
reach for many African-Americans without strong leadership in the White House to
create policies to strengthen the black family and the debate on reparations
will need to include this most vital component.
At the The
World Conference in Durban, Nelson Mandela urged delegates at the conference to
emulate South Africa's progress toward reconciliation. "The tragedy is that a cure is within our
reach, yet we have not seized it. To conquer racism, we must administer a
treatment that is comprehensive and holistic." Moynihan understood Mandela's
admonition in the 1960's. What will it take for other Americans to grasp Mandela
and Moynihan's vision?
http://www.ayaed.com/hype/alamin.html
By Donna
Franklin
Guest
Contributor
Donna L.
Franklin teaches at Smith College and is the author of Ensuring Inequality: The Structural
Transformation of the African American Family and What's Love Got to Do With It?
Understanding and Healing the Rift Between Men and
Women.
Submitted by
"wautella" <wautella@aol.com
*********
…let's work together to heighten this righteous call for justice.
Peace and Power,
Ukali
*********
QUOTATION:
"If a white man hates me,
that's his problem.
If he has the power to
implement his hateful thinking,
that's my problem"
AHREF="http://members.aol.com/GhanaUnion/afrohero.html"Ancestor KwameToure (1941 - 1998)
*********
WHY THE-POWERS-THAT-BE OWE BLACKS…BIG TIME!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J
| K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A
Aaron ..age.. 24, 5ft 10 in, dark complexion, ..slave #.. 0459 Co. Bibb ..Date of Record.. 12-26-1854 ..Seller.. Harry E. Moore ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Court Order ..Identification: File: Slavery Documents/MSS; Folder AU-4-C; Item i ..Institution: GAU ..Collection: Henry P. Slaughter ..Remarks: Court order that above slaves be recovered and rendered to William B. Parker
Abe ..age.. ..slave #.. 0165 Co. Baldwin ..Date of Record.. 1863 ..Seller.. ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Ledger Book ..Identification: LOC: 2174-10; AC: 73-251 Form: Original ..Institution: GDA ..Collection: C. P. Crawford ..Remarks: Slaves appear in the diary and ledger book of C. P. Crawford: owners of slaves are not indicated. Although ledger is dated January 1863, some entries of slave births/deaths were entered after January 1863
Abraham ..age.. 5 ..slave #.. 0195 Co. Baldwin ..Date of Record.. 03-08-1816 ..Seller.. George F. Putnam ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: Zachariah Lamar ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. 6 slaves for 1950 ..Witness(es).. John Rivers & James Lamkin ..Document: Bill of Sale Form: Original ..Identification: MS # 86; File Letters, 1816-1817 ..Institution: UGA ..Collection: Cobb-Erwin-Lamar ..Remarks:
Abraham ..age.. ..slave #.. 0358 Co. Milledgeville ..Date of Record.. 05-14-1853 ..Seller.. State of Georgia (Owner) ..Co. of Seller.. X ..Buyer: X ..Co. of Buyer.. X ..Price of Slave(s).. X ..Witness(es).. X ..Document: Record Book Form: Copy ..Identification AC: 00-165; PES File; Folder 7 ..Institution.. GDA ..Collection: Black Studies Papers ..Remarks:Macon Company- 22 Hands Now on the road from Forsyth to Fayetteville
Abram ..age.. ..slave #.. 0358 Co. Milledgeville ..Date of Record.. 05-14-1853 ..Seller.. State of Georgia (Owner) ..Co. of Seller.. X ..Buyer: X ..Co. of Buyer.. X ..Price of Slave(s).. X ..Witness(es).. X ..Document: Record Book Form: Copy ..Identification AC: 00-165; PES File; Folder 7 ..Institution.. GDA ..Collection: Black Studies Papers ..Remarks:Public Hands Stationed at Macon (second listing)
Adaline ..born.. Oct 1848 ..slave #.. 0348 Co. Muscogee & Putnam ..Date of Record.. 1824-1865 ..Seller.. X ..Co. of Seller.. X ..Buyer: X ..Co. of Buyer.. X ..Price of Slave(s).. X ..Witness(es).. X ..Document: Birth Records Form: Copy ..Identification AC: 77-188; MF 488 ..Institution.. GDA ..Collection: Cunningham ..Remarks: Child of Diller No. 0348
Adam ..age.. ..slave #.. 0165 Co. Baldwin ..Date of Record.. 1863 ..Seller.. ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Ledger Book ..Identification: LOC: 2174-10; AC: 73-251 Form: Original ..Institution: GDA ..Collection: C. P. Crawford ..Remarks: Slaves appear in the diary and ledger book of C. P. Crawford: owners of slaves are not indicated. Although ledger is dated January 1863, some entries of slave births/deaths were entered after January 1863
Adam ..age.. 45 ..slave #.. 0458 Co. Bibb ..Date of Record.. 10-10-1859 ..Seller.. Peter Solomon ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Bill of Injunction ..Identification: File: Equity Cases ..Institution: GAU ..Collection: Henry P. Slaughter ..Remarks: Legal dispute regarding ownership of slaves
Adam ..age.. ..recorded from land lot # 1 ..slave #.. 0497 Co. Bryan ..Date of Record.. 1812 ..Seller.. ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Inventory Form: Copy ..Identification: AC: 0-049; 80-015 ..Institution: GDA ..Collection: Ossabaw Island ..Remarks: Names cited in Inventory: Charles Odingsills, John Cuthbert, John Habersham, Joseph Habersham, Peter Deveaux, John Jenkins, Thomas Nethercliff, James Habersham, Peter Henry Morel, John Morel, & Bryan Morel.
Agge(?) ..born.. Oct 1833 sold ..slave #.. 0348 Co. Muscogee & Putnam ..Date of Record.. 1824-1865 ..Seller.. X ..Co. of Seller.. X ..Buyer: X ..Co. of Buyer.. X ..Price of Slave(s).. X ..Witness(es).. X ..Document: Birth Records Form: Copy ..Identification AC: 77-188; MF 488 ..Institution.. GDA ..Collection: Cunningham ..Remarks: Child of Betsy
Aggy ..age.. ..recorded from land lot # 4 ..slave #.. 0497 Co. Bryan ..Date of Record.. 1812 ..Seller.. ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Inventory Form: Copy ..Identification: AC: 0-049; 80-015 ..Institution: GDA ..Collection: Ossabaw Island ..Remarks: Names cited in Inventory: Charles Odingsills, John Cuthbert, John Habersham, Joseph Habersham, Peter Deveaux, John Jenkins, Thomas Nethercliff, James Habersham, Peter Henry Morel, John Morel, & Bryan Morel.
Agrippa or Agrissa ..age.. ..recorded from land lot # 2 ..slave #.. 0497 Co. Bryan ..Date of Record.. 1812 ..Seller.. ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Inventory Form: Copy ..Identification: AC: 0-049; 80-015 ..Institution: GDA ..Collection: Ossabaw Island ..Remarks: Names cited in Inventory: Charles Odingsills, John Cuthbert, John Habersham, Joseph Habersham, Peter Deveaux, John Jenkins, Thomas Nethercliff, James Habersham, Peter Henry Morel, John Morel, & Bryan Morel.
Alexander ..age.. ..recorded from land lot # 1 ..slave #.. 0497 Co. Bryan ..Date of Record.. 1812 ..Seller.. ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Inventory Form: Copy ..Identification: AC: 0-049; 80-015 ..Institution: GDA ..Collection: Ossabaw Island ..Remarks:Names cited in Inventory: Charles Odingsills, John Cuthbert, John Habersham, Joseph Habersham, Peter Deveaux, John Jenkins, Thomas Nethercliff, James Habersham, Peter Henry Morel, John Morel, & Bryan Morel.
Alexander ..born.. Nov 1856 ..slave #.. 0348 Co. Muscogee & Putnam ..Date of Record.. 1824-1865 ..Seller.. X ..Co. of Seller.. X ..Buyer: X ..Co. of Buyer.. X ..Price of Slave(s).. X ..Witness(es).. X ..Document: Birth Records Form: Copy ..Identification AC: 77-188; MF 488 ..Institution.. GDA ..Collection: Cunningham ..Remarks: Child of Susan
Alford ..born.. Jan 22 1839 dead ..slave #.. 0348 Co. Muscogee & Putnam ..Date of Record.. 1824-1865 ..Seller.. X ..Co. of Seller.. X ..Buyer: X ..Co. of Buyer.. X ..Price of Slave(s).. X ..Witness(es).. X ..Document: Birth Records Form: Copy ..Identification AC: 77-188; MF 488 ..Institution.. GDA ..Collection: Cunningham ..Remarks: Child of Mariah
Alfred ..age.. 14 ..slave #.. 0463 Co. Bibb ..Date of Record.. 04-16-1846 ..Seller.. Thomas Brewer ..Co. of Seller.. Bibb ..Buyer: Richard A. Benson ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. 12 slaves for 3475 ..Witness(es).. Edward Smith ..Document: Bill of Sale Form: Original ..Identification: File: Slavery Documents/ Folder AU-4-S ..Institution: GAU ..Collection: Henry P. Slaughter ..Remarks:
Allen ..born.. Sep 25 1836 ..slave #.. 0348 Co. Muscogee & Putnam ..Date of Record.. 1824-1865 ..Seller.. X ..Co. of Seller.. X ..Buyer: X ..Co. of Buyer.. X ..Price of Slave(s).. X ..Witness(es).. X ..Document: Birth Records Form: Copy ..Identification AC: 77-188; MF 488 ..Institution.. GDA ..Collection: Cunningham ..Remarks: Child of Mariah
Alsey ..age.. 24 ..slave #.. 0172 Co. X ..Date of Record.. 10-07-1828 ..Seller.. Jonathan William ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: Zachariah Lamar ..Co. of Buyer.. Baldwin ..Price of Slave(s).. 303 ..Witness(es).. B. Trapp ..Document: Bill of Sale Form: Original ..Identification: MS # 86; File: Letters, 1821-1829 ..Institution: UGA ..Collection: Cobb-Erwin-Lamar ..Remarks: Sold by Sheriff Livingston
Amanda ..age.. ..slave #.. 0165 Co. Baldwin ..Date of Record.. 1863 ..Seller.. ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Ledger Book ..Identification: LOC: 2174-10; AC: 73-251 Form: Original ..Institution: GDA ..Collection: C. P. Crawford ..Remarks: Slaves appear in the diary and ledger book of C. P. Crawford: owners of slaves are not indicated. Although ledger is dated January 1863, some entries of slave births/deaths were entered after January 1863
Amnica ..age.. 4 ..slave #.. 0165 Co. Baldwin ..Date of Record.. 1863 ..Seller.. ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Ledger Book ..Identification: LOC: 2174-10; AC: 73-251 Form: Original ..Institution: GDA ..Collection: C. P. Crawford ..Remarks: Slaves appear in the diary and ledger book of C. P. Crawford: owners of slaves are not indicated. Although ledger is dated January 1863, some entries of slave births/deaths were entered after January 1863
Amy ..age.. ..slave #.. 0165 Co. Baldwin ..Date of Record.. 1863 ..Seller.. ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Ledger Book ..Identification: LOC: 2174-10; AC: 73-251 Form: Original ..Institution: GDA ..Collection: C. P. Crawford ..Remarks: Slaves appear in the diary and ledger book of C. P. Crawford: owners of slaves are not indicated. Although ledger is dated January 1863, some entries of slave births/deaths were entered after January 1863
Amy ..age.. ..recorded from land lot # 1 ..slave #.. 0497 Co. Bryan ..Date of Record.. 1812 ..Seller.. ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Inventory Form: Copy ..Identification: AC: 0-049; 80-015 ..Institution: GDA ..Collection: Ossabaw Island ..Remarks: Names cited in Inventory: Charles Odingsills, John Cuthbert, John Habersham, Joseph Habersham, Peter Deveaux, John Jenkins, Thomas Nethercliff, James Habersham, Peter Henry Morel, John Morel, & Bryan Morel.
Ancoinette ..age.. 14 ..slave #.. 0456 Co. Bibb ..Date of Record.. 07-25-1857 ..Seller.. Mary A. Alexander ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Petition Form: Original ..Identification:File: Guardianship Papers; Folder: AU-4-G ..Institution: GAU ..Collection: Henry P. Slaughter ..Remarks:E. A. Alexander, Trustee of Mary Alexander, petitioned court for permission to sell slave
Anderson ..born.. Jul 23 1830 ..slave #.. 0341 Co. Morgan ..Date of Record.. X ..Seller.. William S. Stokes (possible owner) ..Co. of Seller.. X ..Buyer: X ..Co. of Buyer.. X ..Price of Slave(s).. X ..Witness(es).. X ..Document:Memorandum Book Form Microfilm ..Identification Drawer 251; Box 63; Folder 8 ..Institution.. GDA ..Collection: Stokes Family ..Remarks: Minerva's child
Anderson ..born.. Apr 27 1856 ..slave #.. 0348 Co. Muscogee & Putnam ..Date of Record.. 1824-1865 ..Seller.. X ..Co. of Seller.. X ..Buyer: X ..Co. of Buyer.. X ..Price of Slave(s).. X ..Witness(es).. X ..Document: Birth Records Form: Copy ..Identification AC: 77-188; MF 488 ..Institution.. GDA ..Collection: Cunningham ..Remarks: Child of Mahaly
Andrew ..age.. 14 ..slave #.. 0170 Co. X ..Date of Record.. 10-07-1828 ..Seller.. Jesse N. Juns, Bill Bailey, Thomas Livingston ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: Zachariah Lamar ..Co. of Buyer.. Baldwin ..Price of Slave(s).. 261 ..Witness(es).. Janey Gray ..Document: Bill of Sale Form: Original ..Identification: MS # 86; File: Letters, 1821-1829 ..Institution: UGA ..Collection: Cobb-Erwin-Lamar ..Remarks:
Anica ..age.. 20 ..slave #.. 0171 Co. X ..Date of Record.. 10-07-1828 ..Seller.. William Gray ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: Zachariah Lamar ..Co. of Buyer.. Baldwin ..Price of Slave(s).. 250 ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Bill of Sale Form: Original ..Identification: MS # 86; File: Letters, 1821-1829 ..Institution: UGA ..Collection: Cobb-Erwin-Lamar ..Remarks: Sold by Sheriff Livingston
Ann ..age.. ..slave #.. 0165 Co. Baldwin ..Date of Record.. 1863 ..Seller.. ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Ledger Book ..Identification: LOC: 2174-10; AC: 73-251 Form: Original ..Institution: GDA ..Collection: C. P. Crawford ..Remarks: Slaves appear in the diary and ledger book of C. P. Crawford: owners of slaves are not indicated. Although ledger is dated January 1863, some entries of slave births/deaths were entered after January 1863
Ann ..age.. 40 ..slave #.. 0463 Co. Bibb ..Date of Record.. 04-16-1846 ..Seller.. Thomas Brewer ..Co. of Seller.. Bibb ..Buyer: Richard A. Benson ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. 12 slaves for 3475 ..Witness(es).. Edward Smith ..Document: Bill of Sale Form: Original ..Identification: File: Slavery Documents/ Folder AU-4-S ..Institution: GAU ..Collection: Henry P. Slaughter ..Remarks:
Ann ..born.. July (?) 12 1841 ..slave #.. 0341 Co. Morgan ..Date of Record.. X ..Seller.. William S. Stokes (possible owner) ..Co. of Seller.. X ..Buyer: X ..Co. of Buyer.. X ..Price of Slave(s).. X ..Witness(es).. X ..Document:Memorandum Book Form Microfilm ..Identification Drawer 251; Box 63; Folder 8 ..Institution.. GDA ..Collection: Stokes Family ..Remarks: Minerva's child
Ann ..born.. Jun 1842 ..slave #.. 0348 Co. Muscogee & Putnam ..Date of Record.. 1824-1865 ..Seller.. X ..Co. of Seller.. X ..Buyer: X ..Co. of Buyer.. X ..Price of Slave(s).. X ..Witness(es).. X ..Document: Birth Records Form: Copy ..Identification AC: 77-188; MF 488 ..Institution.. GDA ..Collection: Cunningham ..Remarks: Child of Betsy
Ann ..born.. ..slave #.. 0348 Co. Muscogee & Putnam ..Date of Record.. 1824-1865 ..Seller.. X ..Co. of Seller.. X ..Buyer: X ..Co. of Buyer.. X ..Price of Slave(s).. X ..Witness(es).. X ..Document: Birth Records Form: Copy ..IdentificationAC: 77-188; MF 488 ..Institution.. GDA ..Collection: Cunningham ..Remarks:
Anna ..age.. ..recorded from land lot # 1 ..slave #.. 0497 Co. Bryan ..Date of Record.. 1812 ..Seller.. ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Inventory Form: Copy ..Identification: AC: 0-049; 80-015 ..Institution: GDA ..Collection: Ossabaw Island ..Remarks: Names cited in Inventory: Charles Odingsills, John Cuthbert, John Habersham, Joseph Habersham, Peter Deveaux, John Jenkins, Thomas Nethercliff, James Habersham, Peter Henry Morel, John Morel, & Bryan Morel.
Anna ..age.. ..slave #.. 0341 Co. Morgan ..Date of Record.. X ..Seller.. William S. Stokes (possible owner) ..Co. of Seller.. X ..Buyer: X ..Co. of Buyer.. X ..Price of Slave(s).. X ..Witness(es).. X ..Document: Memorandum Book Form Microfilm ..Identification Drawer 251; Box 63; Folder 8 ..Institution.. GDA ..Collection: Stokes Family ..Remarks:
Anthonette ..age.. died Jan 1864 ..slave #.. 0165 Co. Baldwin ..Date of Record.. 1863 ..Seller.. ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Ledger Book ..Identification:LOC: 2174-10; AC: 73-251 Form: Original ..Institution: GDA ..Collection: C. P. Crawford ..Remarks: Slaves appear in the diary and ledger book of C. P. Crawford: owners of slaves are not indicated. Although ledger is dated January 1863, some entries of slave births/deaths were entered after January 1863
Antonette ..born.. Apr 1855 ..slave #.. 0348 Co. Muscogee & Putnam ..Date of Record.. 1824-1865 ..Seller.. X ..Co. of Seller.. X ..Buyer: X ..Co. of Buyer.. X ..Price of Slave(s).. X ..Witness(es).. X ..Document: Birth Records Form: Copy ..Identification AC: 77-188; MF 488 ..Institution.. GDA ..Collection: Cunningham ..Remarks: Child of Susan
Anvava or Annana ..age.. ..slave #.. 0165 Co. Baldwin ..Date of Record.. 1863 ..Seller.. ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Ledger Book ..Identification: LOC: 2174-10; AC: 73-251 Form: Original ..Institution: GDA ..Collection: C. P. Crawford ..Remarks:Slaves appear in the diary and ledger book of C. P. Crawford: owners of slaves are not indicated. Although ledger is dated January 1863, some entries of slave births/deaths were entered after January 1863
Apollo ..age.. ..recorded from land lot # 3 ..slave #.. 0497 Co. Bryan ..Date of Record.. 1812 ..Seller.. ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Inventory Form: Copy ..Identification: AC: 0-049; 80-015 ..Institution: GDA ..Collection: Ossabaw Island ..Remarks:Names cited in Inventory: Charles Odingsills, John Cuthbert, John Habersham, Joseph Habersham, Peter Deveaux, John Jenkins, Thomas Nethercliff, James Habersham, Peter Henry Morel, John Morel, & Bryan Morel.
Archey ..age.. ..slave #.. 0358 Co. Milledgeville ..Date of Record.. 05-14-1853 ..Seller.. State of Georgia (Owner) ..Co. of Seller.. X ..Buyer: X ..Co. of Buyer.. X ..Price of Slave(s).. X ..Witness(es).. X ..Document: Record Book Form: Copy ..Identification AC: 00-165; PES File; Folder 7 ..Institution.. GDA ..Collection: Black Studies Papers ..Remarks: Public Hands Stationed at Macon
Archey ..age.. ..slave #.. 0358 Co. Milledgeville ..Date of Record.. 05-14-1853 ..Seller.. State of Georgia (Owner) ..Co. of Seller.. X ..Buyer: X ..Co. of Buyer.. X ..Price of Slave(s).. X ..Witness(es).. X ..Document: Record Book Form: Copy ..Identification AC: 00-165; PES File; Folder 7 ..Institution.. GDA ..Collection: Black Studies Papers ..Remarks:Public Hands Stationed at Macon (second listing)
Archy ..age.. ..slave #.. 0358 Co. Milledgeville ..Date of Record.. 05-14-1853 ..Seller.. State of Georgia (Owner) ..Co. of Seller.. X ..Buyer: X ..Co. of Buyer.. X ..Price of Slave(s).. X ..Witness(es).. X ..Document: Record Book Form: Copy ..Identification AC: 00-165; PES File; Folder 7 ..Institution.. GDA ..Collection: Black Studies Papers ..Remarks:Macon Company- 22 Hands Now on the road from Forsyth to Fayetteville
Armstead ..age.. ..recorded from land lot # 2 ..slave #.. 0497 Co. Bryan ..Date of Record.. 1812 ..Seller.. ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Inventory Form: Copy ..Identification: AC: 0-049; 80-015 ..Institution: GDA ..Collection: Ossabaw Island ..Remarks:Names cited in Inventory: Charles Odingsills, John Cuthbert, John Habersham, Joseph Habersham, Peter Deveaux, John Jenkins, Thomas Nethercliff, James Habersham, Peter Henry Morel, John Morel, & Bryan Morel.
Augy ..age.. ..slave #.. 0165 Co. Baldwin ..Date of Record.. 1863 ..Seller.. ..Co. of Seller.. ..Buyer: ..Co. of Buyer.. ..Price of Slave(s).. ..Witness(es).. ..Document: Ledger Book ..Identification: LOC: 2174-10; AC: 73-251 Form: Original ..Institution: GDA ..Collection: C. P. Crawford ..Remarks: Slaves appear in the diary and ledger book of C. P. Crawford: owners of slaves are not indicated. Although ledger is dated January 1863, some entries of slave births/deaths were entered after January 1863
Austin ..age.. 15 ..slave #.. 0471 Co. Bibb ..Date of Record.. 03-01-1839, Date of Sale: (December 3, 1838) ..Seller.. George C. McNeil ..Co. of Seller.. Bibb ..Buyer: James Root & Willard Leonard ..Co. of Buyer.. New York, New York ..Price of Slave(s).. 4 slaves for 2000 ..Witness(es).. John J. Gresham ..Document: Bill of Exchange Form: Original ..Identification: File: Slavery Documents; Box Item 15 ..Institution: GAU ..Collection: Henry P. Slaughter ..Remarks: Child of Nancy, No. 471. McNeil used slaves as collateral for 90 day loan from Root & Leonard. If he defaulted, bill of exchange would become bill of sale
Auston ..age.. ..slave #.. 0358 Co. Milledgeville ..Date of Record.. 05-14-1853 ..Seller.. State of Georgia (Owner) ..Co. of Seller.. X ..Buyer: X ..Co. of Buyer.. X ..Price of Slave(s).. X ..Witness(es).. X ..Document: Record Book Form: Copy ..Identification AC: 00-165; PES File; Folder 7 ..Institution.. GDA ..Collection: Black Studies Papers ..Remarks: Negroes belonging to Flint River Section
Submitted by chawviv@yahoo.com (Chawviv ben Yisrael (Darryl Murphy))
*********
A
Search For Identity
By John
Henrik Clarke (May 1970)
My own
search for an identity began—as I think it begins for all young people—a long
time ago when I looked at the world around me and tried to understand what it
was all about. My first
teacher was my great grandmother whom we called "Mom Mary." She had been a slave
first in Georgia and later in Alabama where I was born in Union Springs. It was
her who told us the stories about our family and about how it had resisted
slavery. More than anything else, she repeatedly told us the story of Buck, her
first husband, and how he had been sold to a man who owned a stud farm in
Virginia. Stud farms are an aspect of slavery that has been omitted from the
record and about which we do not talk any more. We should remember, however,
that there were times in this country when owners used slaves to breed stronger
slaves in the same way that a special breed of horse is used to breed other
horses.
My great
grandmother had three children with Buck—my grandfather Jonah, my grandaunt
Liza, who was a midwife, and another child. With Buck, Mom Mary had as close to
a marriage as a slave can have—marriage with the permission of the respective
masters. Mom Mary had a lifelong love affair with Buck, and years later after
the emancipation she went to Virginia and searched for him for three years. She
never found him, and she came back to Alabama where she spent the last years of
her life.
My
Family
Mom Mary was
the historian of our family. Years later when I went to Africa and listened to
oral historians, I knew that my great grandmother was not very different from
the old men and women who sit around in front of their houses and tell the young
children the stories of their people—how they came from one place to another,
how they searched for safety, and how they tried to resist when the Europeans
came to their lands.
This great
grandmother was so dear to me that I have deified her in almost the same way
that many Africans deify their old people. I think that my search for identity,
my search for what the world was about, and my relationship to the world began
when I listened to the stories of that old woman. I remember that she always
ended the stories in the same way that she said "Good-bye" or "Good morning" to
people. It was always with the reminder, "Run the race, and run it by faith."
She was a deeply religious woman in a highly practical sense. She did not rule
out resistance as a form of obedience to God. She thought that the human being
should not permit himself to be dehumanized. And her concept of God was so pure
and so practical that she could see that resistance to slavery was a form of
obedience to God. She did not think that any of us children should be enslaved,
and she thought that anyone who had enslaved any one of God's children had
violated the very will of God.
I think
Buck's pride in his manhood was the major force that always made her revere her
relationship with him. He was a proud man and he resisted. One of the main
reasons for selling him to a man to use on a stud farm was that he could breed
strong slaves whose wills the master would then break. This dehumanizing process
was a recurring aspect of slavery.
Growing up
in Alabama, my father was a brooding, landless sharecropper, always wanting to
own his own land; but on my father's side of the family there had been no
ownership of land at all. One day after a storm had damaged our farm and
literally blown the roof off our house, he decided to take his family to a mill
city—Columbus, Georgia. He had hoped that one day he would make enough money to
return to Alabama as an independent farmer. He pursued this dream the rest of
his life. Ultimately the pursuit of this dream killed him. Now he has a piece of
land, six feet deep and the length of his body; that is as close as he ever came
to being an independent owner of land.
In Columbus
I went to county schools, and I was the first member of the family of nine
children to learn to read. I did so by picking up signs, grocery handbills, and
many other things that people threw away into the street, and by studying the
signboards. I knew more about the different brands of cigarettes and what they
contained than I knew about the history of the country. I would read the labels
on tin cans to see where the products were made, and these scattered things were
my first books. I remember one day picking up a leaflet advertising that the Ku
Klux Klan was riding again.
Because I
had learned to read early, great things were expected of me. I was a Sunday
school teacher of the junior class before I was ten years old, and I was the one
person who would stop at the different homes in the community to read the Bible
to the old ladies. In spite of growing up in such abject poverty, I grew up in a
very rich cultural environment that had its oral history and with people who not
only cared for me but also pampered me in many ways. I know that this kind of
upbringing negates all the modern sociological explanations of black people that
assume that everybody who was poor was without love. I had love aplenty and
appreciation aplenty, all of which gave me a sense of self-worth that many young
black children never develop.
I began my
search for my people first in the Bible. I wondered why all the characters—even
those who, like Moses, were born in Africa—were white. Reading the description
of Christ as swarthy and with hair like sheep's wool, I wondered why the church
depicted him as blond and blue-eyed. Where was the hair like sheep's wool? Where
was the swarthy complexion? I looked at the map of Africa and I knew Moses had
been born in Africa. How did Moses become so white? If he went down to Ethiopia
to marry Zeporah, why was Zeporah so white? Who painted the world white? Then I
began to search for the definition of myself and my people in relationship to
world history, and I began to wonder how we had become lost from the commentary
of world history.
My
Teachers
In my first
years in city schools in Columbus, Georgia, my favorite teacher and the one I
best remember was Evelena Taylor, who first taught me to believe in myself. She
took my face between her two hands and looking at me straight in the eyes, said,
"I believe in you." It meant something for her to tell me that she believed in
me, that the color of my skin was not supposed to be a barrier to my
aspirations, what education is, and what it is supposed to do for
me.
These were
lonely years for me. These were the years after the death of my mother—a
beautiful woman, a washerwoman—who had been saving fifty cents a week for my
education, hoping that eventually she would be able to send her oldest son to
college. Her hopes did not materialize; she died long before I was ten. I did,
however, go to school earlier than some of the other children. We lived just
outside of the city limits. Children living beyond the city limits were supposed
to go to county schools because the city schools charged county residents $3.75
each semester for the use of books. This was a monumental sum of money for us
because my father made from $10.00 to $14.00 a week as a combination farmer and
fire tender at brickyards.
In order to
get the $3.75 required each semester, my father made a contribution and my
various uncles made contributions. It was a collective thing to raise what was
for us a large some of money not only to send a child to a city school instead
of to a county school but also to make certain that the one child in the family
attending the city school had slightly better clothing that the other children.
So I had a coat that was fairly warm and a pair of shoes that was supposed to be
warm but really was not. As I think about the shoes, my feet sometimes get cold
even now, but I did not tell my benefactors that the shoes were not keeping me
warm.
I grew up in
a religious environment after we came to Columbus, Georgia, and after the
passing of my mother. The local church became my community center and the place
where most of the community activities occurred. It was here that I wondered
about my place in history and why I could not find any of my people in any of
the books that I read, and my concern began to change to irritation. Where were
we in history? Did we just spring as a people from nothing? What were our old
roots?
As I
approached the end of my last year in grammar school, Evelena Taylor told me
that she would not let me use the color of my skin as an excuse for not
preparing lessons or an excuse for not aspiring to be true to myself and my
greatest potential. She taught me that I must always prepare.
I think my
value to the whole field of teaching history is that I have prepared during my
lifetime, and I have prepared in the years when no one was thinking anything
about black studies, but I kept on preparing until
ultimately the door opened. I had to search, however, for some
definitions of myself, and during that last year in grammar school, I began to
receive some of the privileges in the school that generally went to the
light-complected youngsters whom we called "The Light Brigade." They were sons
and daughters of the professional blacks—the doctors and the teachers who were
usually of light complexion. I was the leader of the group called "The Dark
Brigade," the poorest of the children who came from the other side of the
railroad tracks. I received that privilege in the school, not just as the leader
of the contingent of young people who came form my neighborhood, but because for
once the teachers could nominate the best student to ring the bell. Mrs. Taylor,
who played no favorites, nominated me.
This
privilege gave me my first sense of power—the feeling that I could stand in a
window and ring a bell and five hundred children would march out, or I could
ring it earlier or later, but they were simply immobile until I rang that bell.
After handling my responsibility a little recklessly for a few days by ringing
the bell a little early or a little late just to prove my prerogative to do it,
I realized that I was not living up to my best potential as Mrs. Taylor meant
it. Then I began to exercise this responsibility in the exact manner in which it
was supposed do be exercised: to ring the bell for the first recess at exactly
10:15 A.M., to ring the bell for the second recess at noon, to ring for the
return of the children into the school at exactly 12:45 P.M., and to ring for
dismissal at exactly 3:00 P.M. Thereby, I learned something about the proper use
of authority and responsibility.
I wanted to
advance the status of my particular little group, the poorest students in the
school. They were not the poorest in the way they learned their lessons because
they could readily compete with students who came from homes where they had
books and some degree of comfort and who wore shoes even in the summertime
(which was unthinkable to us because generally we had one pair of shoes and that
pair had to last the entire year). I wanted, however, to do something to make my
group look exceptionally good. I had been the leader of the current events forum
in my school, and because I worked before and after school mostly for white
people who had good libraries and children who never read the books, I began to
borrow books from their libraries and bring them home. In Columbus, Georgia,
where they had Jim Crow libraries and black people could not use the public
library, I began to forge the names of well-known white people on notes that
instructed the librarian to give me a certain book. I accumulated a great many
books that way. This illegitimate book borrowing went on for quite some time
until one day the white person whose name I had forged appeared in the library
at the same time I did. That put an end to my illegitimate use of the public
library of Columbus.
One Friday
evening when the teachers let us do whatever we wanted to do, I planned to do
something extraordinary in the leadership of the current events forum. My group
had always done a few exceptional things because I would take the magazines and
newspapers from the homes of the whites, and, rather than throw them into the
garbage can, I would distribute them among our group. I also brought copies of
the World Almanac once a year. My group, therefore, always had news from
Atlanta, news about the Japanese navy, and news about many different things.
When they spoke in school about current events, they were able to speak with
authority about international news because they had authoritative
sources.
I have
always had a phenomenal memory. When I was a youngster, I could quote verbatim
much of what I had read in almanacs and in small encyclopedias. In trying
literally to outdo "The Light Brigade," I decided to prepare something on the
role of the black man in ancient history. I went to a lawyer for whom I worked.
He was a kind man whose library I had used quite extensively. I asked him for a
book on the role that black people had played in ancient history. In a kindly
was he told me that I came from a people who had no history but, that if I
persevered and obeyed the laws, my people might one day make history. Then he
paid me the highest complement that a white man could pay a black man in the
period when I was growing up. He told me that one day I might grow up to be a
great Negro like Booker T. Washington.
At that time
white people considered that the greatest achievement to which a black man could
aspire was to reach the status of the great educator, Booker T. Washington. He
had been a great educator and he did build up Tuskegee Institute, but he
consistently cautioned his people to be patient with the Jim Crow system and to
learn to be good servants and artisans. He said it was more important to earn a
dollar a day (at the turn of the century that was considered good pay for a
black man) than to hope or work to sit next to white people in the opera. He was
actually telling his people never to seek social equality, and later on he was
challenged by W.E.B. DuBois, who created a whole new school of thought based on
the belief that blacks should aspire to anything they wanted, be it
streetcleaner or president
At the time
of my conversation with the lawyer I had nothing for or against Booker T.
Washington. I really didn't know much about the lawyer, and his philosophy of
racial equality didn't mean a great deal to me. What insulted every part of me
to the very depth of my being was his assumption that I came from a people
without any history. At that point of my life I began a systematic search for my
people's role in history.
Other
Influences
During my
first year in high school I was doing chores and, because the new high school
did not even have a cloakroom, I had to hold the books and papers of a guest
lecturer. The speaker had a copy of a book called The New Negro. Fortunately I turned to
an essay written by a Puerto Rican of African descent with a German-sounding
name. It was called "The Negro Digs Up His Past," by Arthur A. Schomburg (edited
by Alan Locke. New York: Albert and Charles Bone, 1925, pp. 231–37). I knew then
that I came from a people with a history older even than that of Europe. It was
a most profound and overwhelming feeling—this great discovery that my people did
have a place in history and that, indeed, their history is older than that of
their oppressors.
The essay,
"The Negro Digs Up His Past," was my introduction to the ancient history of the
black people. Years later when I came to New York, I started to search for
Arthur A. Schomburg. Finally, one day I went to the 135th Street
library and asked a short-tempered clerk to give me a letter to Arthur A.
Schomburg. In an abrupt manner she said, "You will have to walk up three
flights." I did so, and there I saw Arthur Schomburg taking charge of the office
containing the Schomburg collection of books relating to African people the
world over, while the other staff members were out to lunch. I told him
impatiently that I wanted to know the history of my people, and I wanted to know
it right now and in the quickest possible way. His patience more than matched my
impatience. He said, "Sit down, son. What you are calling African history and
Negro history is nothing but the missing pages of world history. You will have
to know general history to understand these specific aspects of history." He
continued patiently, "You have to study your oppressor. That's where your
history got lost." Then I began to think that at last I will find out how an
entire people—my people—disappeared from the respected commentary of human
history.
It took time
for me to learn that there is no easy way to study history. (There is in fact,
no easy way to study anything.) It is necessary to understand all the components
of history in order to recognize its totality. It is similar to knowing where
the tributaries of a river are in order to understand the nature of what made
the river so big. Mr. Schomburg, therefore, told me to study general history. He
said repeatedly, "Study the history of your oppressor."
I began to
study the general history of Europe, and I discovered that the first rise of
Europe—the Greco-Roman period—was a period when Europe "borrowed" very heavily
from Africa. This early civilization depended for its very existence on what was
taken from African civilization. At that time I studied Europe more that I
studied Africa because I was following Mr. Schomburg's advice, and I found out
how and why the slave trade started.
When I
returned to Mr. Schomburg, I was ready to start a systematic study of the
history of Africa. It was he who is really responsible for what I am and what
value I have for the field of African history and the history of black people
the world over.
I grew up in
Harlem during the depression, having come to New York at the age of seventeen. I
was a young depression radical—always studying, always reading, taking advantage
of the fact that in New York City I could go into a public library and take out
books, read them, bring them back, get some more, and even renew them after six
weeks if I hadn’t finished them. It was a joyous experience to be exposed to
books. Actually, I went through a period of adjustment because my illegitimate
borrowing of books from the Jim Crow library of Columbus, Georgia, had not
prepared me to walk freely out of a library with a book without feeling like a
thief. It took several years before I really felt that I had every right to go
there.
During my
period of growing up in Harlem, many black teachers were begging for black
students, but they did not have to beg me. Men like Willis N. Huggins, Charles
C. Serfait, and Mr. Schomburg literally trained me not only to study African
history and black people the world over but to teach this
history.
My
Teaching
All the
training I received from my teachers was really set in motion by my great
grandmother telling me the stories of my family and my early attempts to search
first for my identity as a person, then for the definition of my family, and
finally for the role of my people in the in the whole flow of human
history.
One thing
that I learned very early was that knowing history and teaching it are two
different things, and the first does not necessarily prepare one for the second.
At first I was an exceptionally poor teacher because I crowded too many of my
facts together and they were poorly organized. I was nervous, overanxious, and
impatient with my students. I began my teaching career in community centers in
Harlem. However, I learned that before I could become an effective teacher, I
had to gain better control of myself as a human being. I had to acquire patience
with young people who giggled when they were told about African kings. I had to
understand that these young people had been so brainwashed by our society that
they could see themselves only as depressed beings. I had to realized that they
had in many ways adjusted to their oppression and that I needed considerable
patience, many teaching skills, and great love for them in order to change their
attitudes. I had to learn to be a more patient and understand human being. I had
to take command of myself and understand why I was blaming people for not being
so well versed in history. In effect, I was saying to them, "How dare you not
know this?"
After
learning what I would have to do with myself and my subject matter in order to
make it more understandable to people with no prior knowledge, I began to become
an effective teacher. I learned that teaching history requires not only patience
and love but also the ability to make history interesting to the students. I
learned that the good teacher is partly an entertainer, and if he lost the
attention of his class, he has lost his lesson. A good teacher, like a good
entertainer, first must hold his audience's attention. Then he can teach his
lesson.
I taught
African history in community centers in the Harlem neighborhood for over twenty
years before I had any regular school assignment. My first regular assignment
was as director of the Heritage Teaching Program at Haryou-Act, an antipoverty
agency in Harlem. Here I had the opportunity after school to train young black
persons in how to approach history and how to use history as an instrument of
personal liberation. I taught them that taking away a people's history is a way
to enslave them. I taught them that history is a two-edged sword to be used for
oppression or liberation. The major point that I tried, sometimes successfully,
to get across to them is that history is supposed to make one self-assured but
not arrogant. It is not supposed to give one any privileges over other people,
but it should make one see oneself in a new way in relation to other
people.
After five
years in the Haryou-Act project, I accepted my first regular assignment at the
college at which I still teach. I serve also as visiting professor at another
university and as an instructor in black heritage during the summer program
conducted for teachers by the history department of a third major university. I
also travel to the extent that my classes will permit, training teachers how to
teach about black heritage. The black power explosion and the black studies
explosion have pushed men like me to the forefront in developing approaches to
creative and well-documented black curricula. Forced to be in the center of this
arena, I have had to take another inventory of myself and my responsibilities. I
have found young black students eager for this history and have found many of
them having doubts about whether they really had a history in spite of the fact
that they had demanded it. I have had to learn patience all over again with
young people on another lever.
On the
college level I have encountered another kind of young black student—much older
than those who giggle—the kind who does not believe in himself, does not believe
in history, and who consequently is in revolt. This student says in effect,
"Man, you're turning me on. You know that we didn't rule ancient Egypt." I have
had to learn patience all over again as I learned to teach on a level where
students come from a variety of cultural backgrounds.
In all my
teaching, I have used as my guide the following definition of heritage, and I
would like to conclude with it.
Heritage, in
essence, is the means by which people have used their talents to create a
history that gives them memories they can respect and that they can use to
command the respect of other people. The ultimate purpose of heritage and
heritage teaching is to use people's talents to develop awareness and pride in
themselves so that they themselves can achieve good relationships with other
people.
Submitted by
T’Zirah Baht Yehudah (JELPO@AOL.COM)
*********
February 14-20, 2002 [Volume 14, Issue7]
Bronx Stroll
Around 1670 the first blacks were brought to the Bronx, as slaves. This handful of slaves had been imported from Barbados, and lived and worked on the farm of a certain Morris family.
That slavery once existed in New York City isn't something whites here like to dwell on. Slavery ended in New York in 1827 -- and besides, it was something those awful Southerners did. But history will testify that white landowners in the Bronx knew how to work a bullwhip across a black's back as well as any cotton-grower in Mississippi. Along with the Morris family's slaves, there were a few free blacks living in the Bronx at that time. The 1698 census listed an "Antone the Neger" and his family as living in Kingsbridge, and a black man named Jeffrey Garrot fought in the French and Indian War. But the black presence in the Bronx was small, which might have been an indication that conditions were no better for blacks in the Bronx than they were anywhere else. Bronx newspapers in the early part of the 19th century were full of wanted posters for runaway slaves.
The Bronx is now closely associated with black culture in people's minds, but when the borough started to urbanize in the early 20th century, it was no more meant to be a home base for blacks than was any other place in this country. White ethnics were wanted, but blacks could stay wherever the hell they were. In 1910 there were a mere 4000 blacks living in the Bronx. The proportion of blacks stayed diminutive until after WWII, when the borough's whites started to leave for the suburbs. By 1960 the black population of the Bronx boomed to 200,000, and by 1990 there were more than 400,000 blacks calling the borough home. But for all of their presence in the Bronx, it is the only borough in New York where there is not one neighborhood that is considered a black stronghold. Manhattan has Harlem, Brooklyn has Bedford-Stuyvesant, Queens has the historic St. Albans district and even Staten Island has St. George.
In his essay "The Language of the Streets," James Baldwin tried to explain why that happened. He wrote: "The life of the city, watching it -- I watched -- well, I grew up in Harlem...when we made a little money, enough to put something aside -- and do not underestimate that effort; it is hard for everybody, but, baby, try it if you're black -- we began to move across the river to the Bronx, all those people who had lately become white fled in terror... The motion of the white people of this country has been – and it is a terrifying thing to say this, but it is time to face it -- a furious attempt to get away from the niggers."
Back in the 1930s one of the largest black presences in the Bronx were the women who would come over from Harlem and lineup on a street corner in the Bronx looking for day work as domestics. It was the Depression, and some of the few jobs available to black women were working as charwomen, cleaning white homes. Most of these women were Southerners recently arrived in New York. One of the most populated corners for the day workers was on 167th St. in the Morrisania section, not far from where the Bronx's original slaves toiled on the Morris farm.
There they would wait, standing around as
white women would walk or drive by and eye them up and down. When they were
chosen they faced a day of hard housework, for what they were told would be
about 30 cents an hour, though sometimes employers reneged and paid only half
that. The black women with the most callused knees would be hired first –
worn knees indicated that the women were accustomed to scrubbing floors. The work was brutal, as the white
mistresses would palm off on their black menials all the nasty jobs they didn't
want to do themselves. Statements made to journalists of that time suggest
that most of the whites doing the hiring
on the corner were Jews, and this may have been the start of the animosity
between those two Bronx tribes that exists to this day. The corner of 167th
St. became so notorious that people started referring to it as the Bronx Slave Market. The NAACP
Crisis, The New York Times and the Amsterdam News all ran lengthy stories about
the situation at the time. WPA workers documented the abuse and made it an issue
-- the Slave Market came to the city government's attention. By 1941 the city stepped in and basically
ended the practice of hiring women off that corner. The Bronx Slave Market had
become an embarrassment.
Mayor La Guardia's response to the situation was to open the Simpson Street Day Work Office in Soundview. This was a domestic employment office where employers and domestic workers could get together free of charge, and through which wages and work conditions could be regulated. But for all of the city's good intentions, black woman wound up getting screwed again, because poor whites in the Bronx got wind of the good jobs to be had and the blacks were squeezed out. White employers preferred having whites clean their homes.
I talked with Ken Middleton, a black man who has lived in the Bronx for more than 35 years, about the history of the domestic workers in the Bronx. He'd heard some of the stories, and had a more optimistic view of the situation:
"My grandmother was living in Harlem in the 1930s and worked Monday to Friday up in Connecticut for a German family named Hess. She and my grandfather worked there as housekeepers. She kept the house and he did the outside. I think they stayed there during the week and only came back to Harlem on the weekends. Anyway, my grandparents started to notice that at night the Hesses started holding these meetings with some strange German men -- I guess they were pro-Nazi meetings, and that made my grandparents nervous. They didn't need to be involved with that, so they left and came back to Harlem. My grandmother knew that Southern Blvd. in the Bronx was a place to go for domestic work and she would line up out there." Southern Blvd. was another, less notorious "market" for black workers. "She got lucky and wound up working for a Jewish dentist and his family for over 30 years. There was no ill feelings on my grandmother's part toward the dentist. She thought she was treated fair and she liked them and looked at them like they were a second family."
I talked with Middleton about why no single neighborhood in the Bronx is known as just a black neighborhood: "I came here [to Bassford Ave.] in 1965 from Harlem, and at first it was a shock at how mixed it was. You had blacks, Puerto Ricans, Jews and Italians. The Bronx was a step up for my family. I think everyone in the Bronx is scattered and mixed, and no one group could say they ran a neighborhood. I felt like I had always been treated well here. That's not to say that there was no racism. But that was more at school. Like from September to December, when you're trying to get used to one another. But then it would cool down. I've been here a long time, so I guess I like it. Overall I have to say the Bronx has been a good experience for me."
I later took a trip up to where the old Bronx Slave Market was. Now it's just a small struggling shopping district that closes up early. On the corner of 167th St. and Gerard Ave. there's a Pioneer Supermarket and a store named Bank of Bargains. The only indication that there's any sort of history attached to the place is found a few feet in on Gerard Ave., and it's a different sort of history altogether. There, two people named Jose and Lupe have graffiti testimonials to their deaths.
http://www.nypress.com/14/7/news&columns/bronx.cfm
By C.J. Sullivan <sullivan@nypress.com>
New York Press
[Admin Note: Additional information on The Bronx Slave Market
can be found at <http://www.columbia.edu/~aje4/bronx.html>.]
Submitted by brc-news@lists.tao.ca
*********
Free The Mind... Free The
People... Free The Land...
Robert Hazard
Board Member
S. E. Regional
Representative
*********
December 30,
2001
If you are still shaken by the horrifying scenes of September 11, please observe a moment of silence for the 5,000 civilian lives lost in the New York, Washington, DC and Pennsylvania attacks.
While we're at it, let's have 13 minutes of silence for the 130,000 Iraqi civilians killed in 1991 by order of President Bush Sr. Take another moment to remember how Americans celebrated and cheered in the streets.
Now another 20 minutes of silence for the 200,000 Iranians killed by Iraqi soldiers using weapons and money provided to young Saddam Hussein by the American government before the great eagle turned all its power against Iraq.
Another 15 minutes of silence for the Russians and 150,000 Afghans killed by troups supported and trained by the CIA.
Plus 10 minutes of silence for 300,000 Japanese killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the Atomic bombs dropped by the USA.
We've just kept quiet for one hour: one minute for the Americans killed in NY, DC, and Pennsylvania, 59 minutes for their victims throughout the world.
If you are still in awe, let's have another hour of silence for all those killed in Vietnam, which is not something Americans like to admit.
The US went to another continent thousands of miles away and burnt tens of thousands of Vietnamese peasants with napalm.
Or for the massacre in Panama in 1989, where American troops attacked poor villagers, leaving 20,000 Panamanians homeless and thousands more dead.
Or for the millions of children who have died because of the USA embargoes on Iraq and Cuba.
Or the hundreds of thousands brutally murdered throughout the world by US-sponsored civil wars and coups d'etat (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Guatemala, El Salvador to name a few).
Maybe, and although the memory of Americans claim otherwise, someone may remember the USA attack on Bagdad where 18,000 civilians were killed. Did someone see it on CNN? Was justice ever served? Or was there even any retaliation?
We hope that Americans
finally begin to understand their vulnerability and the attacks and other
tragedies that they have caused around the world.
The dead in other places hurt as much as the dead of the Towers, maybe even more!
What about the 560,000 Iraqi children (as per current UN data) who have died as a direct cause of the US supported sanctions against Iraq? Are these the children of a lesser God?
What about a new generation of nearly one million Iraqi children who are currently having their lives being ruined by improper nutrition, lack of medicine and inferior education because of US supported sanctions.
By Osama Kawwa in Amman,
Jordan
MERL@MiddleEast.Org (Mid-East Realities)
[Hmmm…What about the forced migration, ethnic cleansing, and racism against Blacks out of Africa and Descendants of Slaves? What about the 100 Million deaths resulting from the trade in human beings? What about the lives lost on a daily basis in the Palestinian territory by Israelis with the total support of the United States of America? The sad part about all this is that the World is under US and Israeli control, and the question is who’s next to feel sanctions and devastations at the hands of these two countries? It would appear that ONLY the All-Mighty GOD can help Descendants of Slaves and the oppressed in this World, no? T.Y., Editor]
*********
LAST BUT NOT
LEAST:
A WAKEUP CALL TO
TERRORISM!
September 19, 2001
Where do I begin? Since publishing the last Repnow Newsletter (#21), the entire World has been awakened to many revelations, concerning many issues: the World Conference Against Racism, the Terrorist Attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Why and How it Happened?, Patriotism and the American Flag, A New War, Unity and Togetherness, Israeli Involvement, the U.S. Desire for Justice, Freedom, and Revenge, and the very SAD, SAD State of the Victims and their families.
Probably the hardest part regarding the events of the past week is seeing the family members crying out for help in finding their loved ones and reading the profiles of those who lost their lives in the World Trade Center terrorist attack on 9/11/01. How many times did I break down and cry for those finding a way to grieve for their loss. And watching the child leaning on his mother’s coffin just tore me apart. I never would have been able to endure losing my mother at such a young age, as is this child. And then, I saw replays of Dan Rather breaking down, and that just made me see and feel the pain that much more. I could lie about this or keep it to myself, but I’m telling you the truth.
However, through it all, and because of it all, I am reminded of the documented history of what has happened to my people - Black Peoples who experienced the same terrorism, death, maiming, and tragedy - not in the short time it took to bring down the WTC but that lasted for hundreds of years. However, no one feels our pain, and the powers-that-be could care less. They continue with their plan to sustain racism, discrimination, prejudice, and yes, terror against defenseless Black peoples in the United States and all over the World. Ironically, it’s Blacks who suffer most in the United States, a country that has plenty for everyone on this planet except the Descendants of Slaves in America.
At this very moment, President Bush reaches
out to all Americans, Whites, Blacks, and other people of color to join together
and unite, to be patriotic to America, and prepare to fight and die for freedom
and justice served for the people responsible for the terrorist attacks on
9/11. I have yet to see
people on television demonstrating against his request for togetherness. Perhaps the media is keeping it all
quiet. However, I have heard that
there are indeed rumblings against patriotism, as well as against starting World
War III.
But what about the World Conference Against Racism? Where was U.S. compassion to simply just discuss the racism and the TransAtlantic Slave Trade that were and are the worst terrorist acts against a people ever recorded in history? The Bush Administration and government has made a complete about face from dismissing our desires and walking out of the World Conference Against Racism to asking Blacks and Whites and all peoples who live in the United States to join with them in praying for America. They want us to pray that these racist White Folks stay fit and strong, so that they can continue to sustain racism and injustice against us? Hmmm. They must think we are gluttons for punishment! My prayers are for the All-Mighty GOD to deliver us from this control and relief from the hardships we face. However, it just seems so ironic that the powers-that-wield-the-pain want us to come together now and support them as they go and get our young men killed, as if we don’t experience enough calamity. Given their poignant request, are we supposed to forget all about the racism and injustice that was supposed to have been discussed and possibly resolved at WCAR? Are we supposed to forget about an apology for the enslavement of our forebears and for Reparations for this heinous atrocity? NOT ON YOUR LIFE, MR. SLAVE MASTER! WE WILL NOT REST UNTIL “THE DEBT” HAS BEEN PAID! True enough, the powers-that-be in the United States have their hands full dealing with World War III, but they brought it all upon themselves by meddling and manipulating one country after another. And guess what! Black Folks had nothing to do with it. We’ve always been kept out of their political and economic dealings, especially when it comes to their sharing essential power and wealth.
Right now, we have our own hands full fighting for Reparations, so that we can truly mend from all manner of evils that have kept Blacks divided, uneducated, and ignorant of truth. Resulting from this forced migration and enslavement, whole groups of Blacks out of Africa lost their freedom, cultures, religions, names, pride, human rights, dignity, and right to self determination. And to this date, many of us want it all back, but to us, all the Presidents of these United States including President Bush and his Administration, they have given the deaf ear and denied us these human rights. President Bush recalled his delegation out of the WCAR in Durban, South Africa. How insensitive and uncaring this was in light of peoples all over the World hoping to be rid of racism in order to enjoy better livelihoods. With the U.S. being a most powerful and influential nation, this country could have made a big difference in instituting ways to end racism in all countries and making amends for the Slave Trade, as well as an apology. But this never happened. America walked out of the Conference that was established to help groups that are victims of racism all over the World, and consequently, don’t we just know that there will be business as usual. However, they still want us to pray for America!
Now, the United States wants justice served for the terrorist attacks against the WTC and wants the whole entire World to join an International Coalition to work with Americans and be on their side to help attain this justice as World War III is declared on Osama bin Laden and those who are with him.