Rallying for Reparations

By Karen Juanita Carrillo
SeeingBlack.com Contributing Writer

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"This," New York City Councilman Charles Barron informed the crowd gathered at a Brooklyn intermediate school, "is the defining cause for the 21st century.

"Just as the color line was the defining issue for the 20th century—reparations is the issue for the 21st!"

Barron was one of four featured speakers at a "Millions for Reparations" forum, which took place in June in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, one of many such forums being held around the United States designed to educate about the call for reparations and the upcoming Aug. 17 "Millions for Reparations" rally in Washington, D.C.

Also on the program was Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, an attorney and declared plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against Aetna Inc., CSX Corp. and Fleet Boston Financial Corp., which seeks damages for the profits they made while investing in African slavery; Roger Wareham, one of Farmer-Paellmann's attorneys and a lead member of the December 12th Movement (D-12) and Kevin Muhammad, the Nation of Islam's minister for Harlem's Mosque No. 7. Since returning from the United Nations World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) in South Africa last September, activists working to support reparations for African descendants have held numerous such meetings around the country, explained Colette Péan, a member of Operation P.O.W.E.R. (People Organizing and Working for Empowerment and Respect). In the New York City area alone, meetings and forums have been held in the Rockaways, Long Island City, Harlem, Co-Op City, Jamaica and Bedford Stuyvesant.

There was even a resolution about reparations presented in the New York City Council. Councilman Barron explained that that his "Commission on Queen Mother Moore Reparations for Descendants of Africans of New York City" resolution promotes the establishment of a city funded commission on reparations. "We're not setting up this commission to find out about slavery—about what happened during slavery," Barron explained. "We already know about slavery; we've had Roots and all that other stuff."

The councilman said that this commission would take one year to study what is owed as reparations in New York City, where enslavement of Black people was legal from 1625 through 1827, and who is owed for the forced labor that "built the wall they called Wall Street, cleared Brooklyn and cleared Queens… Evidence of this is right downtown in Manhattan," he noted, "at the African Burial Ground." The commission would determine if reparations would be paid in the form of health care, education assistance, or through some other means.

Operation P.O.W.E.R., which sponsored the evening's forum, is the near two-year old Brownsville/East New York-based political organization that helped get Councilman Barron elected. But others in attendance for the forum included tenant organization presidents and Brownsville-area union and housing representatives—along with curious community residents. Who is coordinating this rally?" one woman in the audience wanted to know.

The National Black United Front, D-12, and Durban 400 are the national organizers of the "Millions for Reparations" rally, D-12 co-chair Viola Plummer came to a microphone to explain. The rally has also won the support of Detroit Democratic Party Rep. John Conyers (who has, every year since 1989, introduced H.R. 40—named for the once-promised "40 acres and a mule"—a bill to set up "The Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act"), New York City Councilwomen Helen Foster and Yvette Clarke, and the Nation of Islam.

The rally itself will be an extension of the fight for reparations, D-12's Wareham said. The reparations campaign has been operating on an international level for decades. Previous U.N. World Conferences Against Racism in 1978 and 1983 were not even attended by United States government officials, because of references to Jewish Zionism as a form of racism. There had been little reference to the past and present plight of Africa's descendents during those conferences, Wareham insisted. So even getting the subject on the table was a major accomplishment for last year's WCAR.

"The WCAR was just another step toward achieving what we've set out to do," Wareham explained. Reparations activists wanted to come away from the WCAR with an acknowledged declaration that the African slave trade and Black slavery in the Americas were 'crimes against humanity'—crimes for which there is no statute of limitations. They wanted it made plain that the very definition of 'crime against humanity,' which references acts of systematic murder, rape, and forced pregnancy among other atrocities, categorized what happened to Black people in the Western hemisphere. WCAR activists wanted to demonstrate the economic basis of racism and show that it leads to a necessity of reparations for African people in each of the varied nations they now find themselves.

"This is going to be the benchmark of the 21st century," Wareham told those in attendance. "That's why we're asking you to get on the bus," he added, referring to the hundreds of buses contracted to leave New York City at 6 a.m. for the trip to D.C. on Aug. 17—a date which will also mark the 115th birthday of Marcus Garvey.

Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, who in March announced a class action lawsuit set to benefit all of the United States' 35 million African-Americans, spoke of how she'd turned to the idea of suing corporations who profited from African enslavement. She said she thought to sue corporations rather than the U.S. government after realizing that "companies are a little more vulnerable than the federal government. And we all know the federal government will do anything to protect corporations—so this lawsuit will move the federal government to act." The first hearings on Farmer-Paellmann's lawsuit are not scheduled until August, but in the meantime she says that letter writing campaigns to the major stock investors in Fleet Boston Financial Corp, Aetna Inc., and CSX Corp., which she's heard about from supporters, have caught her interest. These are "ways that others can help with the lawsuits," she explained, "to contact tainted companies and their institutional investors and ask that they pay reparations".

But urging investors to divest from slavery-funded companies will be but one of the goals of the "Millions for Reparations" rally. The main effort is to get the U.S. government to acknowledge its role in slavery, slavery's detrimental effects, and the need for reparations.

"You say this is your government?" the NOI's Min. Kevin Muhammad asked. "Then make it your government! This is not about a paycheck, this is about our government making atonement for the greatest crime in the world. I'm a Muslim, true to God, but I've got to be true to my skin and what it stands for. It had stood for death, oppression and suffering under others.

"We're not going there to act crazy and out of our minds," the minister assured those listening. "But we are going there to overthrow the government of our minds. Washington, D.C. is our Washington, D.C. and we're going there, we're going to take some money out of our pockets - you're going to get on a bus, on a plane, in your car: all roads lead to Washington, D.C.!"

To find out about the Aug. 17 "Millions for Reparations" rally, call 718-398-1766 or E-mail: millions4reparations@hotmail.com.

-- July 12, 2002

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