|
|
|
|
TITLE: Convention Seeks Plan for U.S. Slavery Reparations |
AUTHOR: |
PUB: Reuters |
DATE: February 3, 2001 |
|
The African-American community must develop a unified plan to push for reparations from the United States for the descendants of African-American slaves, leaders meeting in Chicago said on Saturday. "We are going to put together a plan for a direction that we should be moving in as a unified group," said Chicago Ald. Dorothy Tillman, an organizer of the National Reparations Convention. "America would not be the America it is today without slavery. I think America can deal with the shame." Advocates of reparations believe that compensation is owed for the unpaid labor of slaves as well as other forms of institutional racism. Various groups have put the cost of reparations at anywhere from $1 trillion to $10 trillion or more. But reparations go beyond monetary issues with the legacy of slavery extending beyond the U.S. Civil War, organizers said. The idea of reparations for slavery has existed practically since post-Civil War days when freed blacks were promised "40 acres and a mule," a promise proponents argue was never kept. The drive has also been fueled by compensation provided Holocaust survivors and Japanese Americans who were interned during World War II. Opponents to reparations note that no former slaves or slave owners remain alive today. The cost of the Civil War and civil rights legislation should be deducted from reparations, as that "so-called debt has long since been paid," wrote Tom DeWeese, president of the American Policy Center, in a commentary. "There are no living victims and no living perpetrators of American slavery," DeWeese wrote. Tillman sponsored a resolution the Chicago City Council approved in May that urged Congress to consider reparations. She said she hopes that convention attendees will return to their communities and get resolutions passed as well. Claud Anderson, an author and president of the Harvest Institute, urged building African-American communities by concentrating within business sectors. "Reparations must be promoted as a necessity, not as a luxury," Anderson said. Anthony Young, president of the Association of Black Psychologists, said reparations should be considered from a monetary standpoint, but said there were other considerations. "We are still reverberating from the pain that was caused our ancestors," Young said. "There is a blood debt. I am not advocating violence, but there is a debt owed to our people." Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers has unsuccessfully pushed a bill on reparations in Congress for years. But the issue was not on former President Clinton's agenda for his commission on race in America. Clinton did apologize for slavery during a trip to Africa, but never came out in favor of reparations. The three-day convention wraps up on Sunday. END |