Reparations
Is it NOW OR NEVER for Black in America?

by Ron Daniels
-Guest Columnist-

As we celebrate the first Black History Month of a new century and millennium, I can think of no topic for discussion more urgent than the issue of reparations for the sons and daughters of Africa in America. In this regard, a remarkable new book "The Debt" by Randall Robinson, the executive director of TransAfrica, is sparking a wave of interest in this crucial subject. And, despite concerns expressed about the motives of the author by veteran activists like Dr. Conrad Worrill, chairman of the National Black United Front, the book is provoking interest among a broader audience inside and outside of the Black community. From my vantage point this is a positive development.

Reparations, the demand that the United States government repair the damages done to Africans during the holocaust of enslavement, is a long overdue piece of unfinished business on the agenda of Black America. For all of the destruction caused to African people during the holocaust of enslavement, the horrendous loss of life, devastating assault on the culture, identity and peopleness of Africans and the centuries of enforced free labor, the U.S. government has never apologized and offered compensation for one of the greatest crimes against humanity in history. This criminal omission is due to a state of denial in white America about the impact of slavery on Black people and outright resistance to the idea of compensating Black people for the horrors of enslavement.

Another reason compensation for Blacks in America has not been forthcoming is the lack of a broad-based, massive and sustained movement for reparations among Black people in this country. Many Blacks have been so concerned with integrating or assimilating into the system that reparations has not been viewed as a major objective. Others may agree that Black people are entitled to reparations, but view the struggle to achieve this goal as a pipe dream that will never be realized.

For several years now a dedicated core of organizations, activists and leaders under the umbrella of the National Coalition for Reparations for Blacks in America (N�COBRA) have been consistently and persistently articulating the rationale and necessity for winning compensation for Blacks for the holocaust of enslavement. No organization more than N�COBRA has kept the movement for reparations alive.

As a result there are more Black people in this country today who are aware of and agree with the struggle to win reparations than at any time in recent history. On the electoral political front, Congressman John Conyers has been an unflinching proponent for reparations. Every year without fail, Congressman Conyers introduces H.R. 40, a bill that would create a national commission to study the impact of slavery and recommend measures to remedy the damages done to Black people as a consequence of slavery.

Though this bill has never garnered enough support to be voted on by the full House of Representatives, it has nonetheless provided a focal point for discussion and organizing. To date, however, neither the valiant efforts of N�COBRA or Congressman Conyers has been sufficient to mobilize a massive movement to compel this nation to do the right thing on the issue of reparations.

My fear is that it may be now or never for Black people to win reparations. Not only are Black Americans faced with a racist and reactionary national climate which has resulted in assaults on the gains that Black people have made in the last half century, and the changing demographics of the U.S. do not portend well for the struggle to win reparations.

According to a recent article in USA Today, Hispanics will surpass Blacks as the largest minority group in the next few decades, eventually comprising 33 percent of the U.S. population. Asians are projected to rise to 13 percent of the population while the Black population is forecast to remain static at 13 percent. As other people of color become larger and even dominant sectors of the overall U.S. population, the issues and concerns of Blacks, past and present, are likely to receive less prominence. This is in part because, as Dr. Claude Anderson has proclaimed, Blacks are the "less preferred" minority in the U.S. in terms of how racism and white supremacy functions� "If you�re white you�re alright, yellow mellow, brown stick around, but Black get back." Absent a thoroughgoing national commitment to incorporate the authentic Black experience into the educational process, there is a high probability that other people of color, as they seek to fulfill their own destinies, are likely to join with whites in becoming less and less sympathetic to the historic concerns of Black people.

What this suggests to me is not that Black people should become anti-immigrant or that we should shy away from forging coalitions with other people of color. It suggests an urgent need to flex our economic and political muscle right now in the quest to achieve reparations. We need to broaden the base for the reparations movement in the Black community and make reparations a top priority on the agenda as we engage in coalition-building, electoral politics and other methods of promoting and defending the interest and aspirations of Blacks. From the forthcoming Black Radical Congress, Million Family March and International State of the Black World Conference, Blacks must use "any means necessary" to demand and achieve reparations�it may be now or never.

(Ron Daniels, a former presidential candidate, is executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York.)