Reparation Idea Gains Support Among Blacks

CHICAGO — Brother Howshua is certain. The burly black man in the black suit, black leather hat, black boots and spirit to match knows he has the prescription for his people’s psychic and financial ills on the piece of paper suffocating in his weathered hands.

Now to get the rest of the world on board.

“For those blacks who wish to remain in America, they should receive reparations in the form of free education, free medical, free legal and free financial aid for 50 years with no taxes levied,” booms the Chicago social activist.

“For those desiring to leave America, every black person would receive a million dollars or more, backed by gold, in reparation.”

A solemn Howshua slowly lays the paper down. Listeners offer approving nods around the table.

“I’m glad you thought about us who will want to leave this country,” said Omari Tahir, a Seattle civil rights activist. “Because as soon as I get my money, I’m going home to Africa. We will get paid!”

Others in the McCormick Convention Center conference room for the first National Reparations Convention are chewing over buffet-line turkey and the only real question of the weekend’s events: Will black America ever get its long-sought “40 acres and a mule”?

“Our reason for being here is to get people interested in wanting their money,” said the Rev. Al Dixon, who heads a group called the Black Economic Alliance for Reparations in Montgomery, Ala.

“The Japanese got theirs, the Jews are getting theirs,” he said, referring to payments for internment and slave labor during World War II.

“The Indians can build casinos,” he went on. “And the people who made it all possible by building this country for no pay are left out.”

The 100 reparation convention participants who gathered in Chicago this month aren’t alone. They join a growing group of academics, activists and government officials who say that repaying blacks for the 246 years of unpaid labor of their ancestors could relieve poverty and hopelessness among modern-day blacks.

For years, the thought of compensating blacks for slavery and legal discrimination occupied the fringes of the black political agenda. But now, more than 10 cities have adopted resolutions pushing for a federal inquiry into the effects of slavery.

And a high-powered group of attorneys, led by Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree, announced intentions to file national class-action lawsuits in pursuit of reparations for black Americans.

At the Chicago convention, participants were eager to be part of the reassessment of America’s “peculiar institution,” as slavery has been dubbed, and its effects on society.

When Rep. John Conyers Jr. first raised the notion in Congress 12 years ago to study the merits of paying American blacks for the labor of their ancestors, the silence was deafening.

“It’s an idea that was ahead of its time,” said the Michigan Democrat. “But it’s easy to understand. Race isn’t a subject people rush in to discuss. They figure if you just keep quiet, it might go away.”

It hasn’t.

In fact, the rising interest in reparations matches a greater awareness among blacks of the enslavement of Africans that began in 1619 and was abolished when the 13th Amendment was ratified in 1865.

And in small ways, American society is directly addressing this brutal history.

Last year, Aetna Inc. apologized for selling insurance policies in the 1850s that reimbursed slave owners for financial losses when their slaves died.

On Jan. 1, a California law went into effect requiring insurance companies to make public any slave insurance policies they issued.

Thus far, no insurance company has come forward to inform state regulators, said Leslie Tick, an attorney for the California insurance department.

“Some of the insurance companies said they thought it was a joke,” Tick said. “Some others wanted to know if we didn’t have anything better to do with our time.”

The ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Conyers said he believes his long-offered bill--which would establish a commission to examine slavery, its lasting effects and their possible remedies--could come up for a hearing in the current congressional session.

Jeff Lungen, a spokesman for the new House Judiciary Committee chairman, F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, said it is too early to determine if Conyers’ proposal will be on the agenda.

“The new chair hasn’t said publicly what his priorities will be for this Congress,” Lungren said. “In a few months from now, we will have some better answers.”