Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Against Reparations For Slavery
Against Reparations For Slavery
About NLPC
Founded in 1991, NLPC promotes ethics in public life through research, education and legal action. Through the
Corporate Integrity Project, NLPC promotes integrity in corporate governance, including honesty and fair play in
relationships with shareholders, employees, business partners and customers.
Pro-reparations activists have targeted corporate America. This monograph gives corporate executives, directors and
shareholders the information necessary for an effective and credible response. It is also a useful guide for government
officials, teachers, students and members of the public.
This monograph was published in October 2004, and may be downloaded as a pdf file free of charge from www.nlpc.org.
Updates will be made on a regular basis to the pdf version.
INTRODUCTION
Imagine that, years in the future, thousands of special slavery reparations courts are set up throughout America,
charged with the task of trying to sort out who gets compensation for the wrongs of slavery, and who pays. People are
demanding government money based on some claim to African American ancestry, even light-skinned people with
a trace of African American blood. Others are there to challenge having to pay for the reparations, such as recent
immigrants, Latinos, Asian Americans and Caucasian Americans whose ancestors arrived in America long after slavery
ended.
Sound far-fetched? It is not. The issue of slave reparations has gone from being on the fringes of American politics to
the front and center today. Political momentum for it is strong within the black community, and many whites embrace
the issue as well. A growing number of local, state and national politicians support creating a massive government
program that would pay billions of taxpayer dollars to slave descendants. In addition, the reparations coalition is
orchestrating aggressive media and litigation campaigns to force corporations that allegedly profited from slavery to
make huge payouts.
One has to ask why this is happening now, more than 140 years after slavery ended. A critical dynamic fueling
the slave reparations movement is a phenomenon common to advocacy groups: once they reach their goal, their
original reason for being is no more, but they do not want to disband so they seek another issue. This is the dilemma
confronting the civil rights movement. In the 1960s, civil rights activists achieved the worthy goal of ending statesponsored discrimination. Then they moved on to more dubious things such as racial quotas. Having succeeded, they
are now embracing the cause of slave reparations.
It goes hand-in-hand with the current political and legal climate in America. People increasingly see themselves as
victims of some alleged wrong, and politicians and juries are taking their side. In the wake of the litigation explosion
in America, moreover, trial lawyers keep pushing the envelope as to how much they can get away with, and they are
succeeding.
However surreal or absurd the issue of slave reparations sounds, it is vital that Americans start taking the issue
seriously. Though the issue of slave reparations seems frivolous, the political movement coalescing behind it is not.
AN OVERVIEW
OF THE SLAVE
REPARATIONS
MOVEMENT
Once an issue pushed only by
radicals, compensating blacks for
the slavery and discrimination of
centuries past is now championed
by the civil rights establishment.
Such groups include the National
Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP), the
Southern Christian Leadership
Conference and the National Urban
League. Congressmen regularly
raise the issue, most notably Rep.
John Conyers (D-MI). Since 1989,
Conyers has been pushing a bill
asking Congress to establish a
commission to study reparations
proposals for African Americans.
To date, Congress has not acted
on it. But the Democratic Party,
while not explicitly endorsing
reparations, appears to be gradually
accepting the idea. During the 2000
presidential race, the Democratic
Partys Platform Statement officially
adopted a plank supporting
the establishment of a federal
commission to examine the history
of slavery and to make appropriate
recommendations on behalf of the
American people.1 In addition, a
growing number of books, lectures,
websites, rallies and grassroots groups
press the reparations issue.
Demands for reparations reach
into the trillions of dollars. Some
advocates favor direct cash payments
by the U.S. government to blacks,
while others favor support for
organizations and other initiatives
aimed at assisting blacks. Activist
Randall Robinson, former president of TransAfrica Forum, is one of the leading proponents of
slavery reparations. To his left is actor Danny Glover, chairman of TransAfrica.
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Prominent Advocates of
Slave Reparations
Charles Ogletree is a professor
of law at Harvard University and
co-chairman of the Reparations
Coordinating Committee (RCC).
The RCC was established to obtain
reparations through litigation, and is
currently suing the U.S. government.
Ogletree, who writes extensively on
the issue, is one of the key figures
in helping to galvanize the modern
movement for reparations.
Randall Robinson is co-chairman
of the RCC and former president of
TransAfrica Forum, which lobbies on
U.S. foreign policy issues affecting
Africa and the Caribbean. He authored
the 2000 bestseller The Debt: What
America Owes to Blacks, which helped
to further galvanize the movement.
Robinson often casts Fidel Castro in a
favorable light, and is a sharp critic of
capitalism and the United States. In
The Debt, Robinson writes, I will say
what few of us will say aloud. . . . Many
blacksmost, perhaps, though I cant
be suredont like America.
Dorothy Tillman is a Chicago city
councilman and a leading reparations
activist. Tillman was a field staff
organizer for Dr. Martin Luther
Kings Southern Christian Leadership
Conference. Elected to serve as an
alderman for Chicagos Third Ward in
1985, she has earned a reputation as a
major political figure in city politics.
She frequently gets involved in issues
such as inner-city education, housing
and homelessness. Tillman sponsored
Chicagos slave disclosure law in 2003
which has served as a model for other
municipal disclosure ordinances.
Cornel West is a professor of
Religion and African American
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Banks Cave-In to
Reparations Activists
Reparations activists are targeting
the banking sector in particular for
shakedown campaigns and scoring
notable successes. Since January
2005, four of the nations leading
banksJPMorgan Chase & Co.,
Wachovia, Bank of America and
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Chicagos Unlikely
Reparations Advocates
The purported outrage with
Wachovia came not only from
African-American aldermen
but also from Eddy Burke, the
white Chairman of the Finance
Committee. Burke is a long-time
power broker linked to numerous
corruption scandals. A book
published last year titled When
Corruption Was King, by Robert
Cooley, described Burkes alleged
indifference to the beating death of a
homeless African-American man by
white policemen with mob ties.
Edward Burke
William Daley
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FALSE PRECEDENTS
A commonly heard rationale for slave
reparations is that other groups were
paid compensation for suffering they
endured, and that therefore African
Americans deserve compensation as
well. Reparations advocates often cite
as precedents the payments to Jews
who survived the Holocaust, and to
Japanese Americans placed in U.S.run internment camps during World
War II.
The experience of these groups has
certainly helped provide the slave
reparations movement with much
of its rationale. It follows a common
tradition in American politics: one
group gets a government benefit,
prompting another group to demand
a similar benefit. It is the classic
Comparing Culpabilities
13
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Liberated inmates at the Buchenwald Nazi concentration camp. Reparations activists claim
that blacks are owed compensation because Holocaust survivors received money.
15
Japanese Americans were compensated for their internment during World War II. Slavery
reparations advocates ignore the fact that compensation paid to Japanese Americans and
Holocaust survivors went to the actual victims.
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17
A PANDORAS BOX
The slave reparations movement
is unprecedented in that people
are seeking remuneration for the
hardships endured by their distant
ancestors. Until now, reparations
movements always sought
compensation for the generations
that actually experienced the
hardships. To most observers, it
defies logic to demand payment
for work performed by long-dead
generations. But as indicated earlier,
this demand must be taken seriously.
A notion may be absurd, but if
millions of people support itand
18
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Immigrants having lunch at Ellis Island. The vast majority of Americans are descendants of
immigrants who came to this country after the abolition of slavery.
19
International Repercussions
If the reparations advocates succeed,
there could be international
repercussions as well. Latin
Americans could start demanding
that the governments of Spain and
Portugal compensate them for the
20
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NONVICTIMS
PUNISHING THE
INNOCENT
The notion of paying recompense
for what ones distant ancestor
did a century and a half ago is
nonsensical. Yet that is what
advocates of slave reparations are
demanding. Equally disturbing,
the people who would receive the
money are not the victims, but the
great-great-great grandchildren
of the victims, many of whom are
much more prosperous than those
who would have to pay.
But the absurdity of reparations goes
much beyond that. First, only a tiny
minority of Americans today has
an ancestor who was a slave owner.
Prior to and during the Civil War,
the great majority of the population
was located in the northern states
where slavery was outlawed. In 1860,
the population of the free states
totaled about 19.5 million; the free
population of the slave-owning
states was 7.5 million.58 This means
that among Americans today who
had ancestors living in the United
States during the slavery era, most
of those ancestors lived in the
non-slave owning northern states.
In fact, many of those northerners
were abolitionists and detested the
institution of slavery.
As for the small number of
Americans alive today who had
ancestors living in the antebellum
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Post-Traumatic Slavery
Disorder?
In a testament to the flimsiness of
Robinsons assertions, he makes
no attempt to support them with
evidence or theories of how slavery
allegedly caused the economic
disparities between blacks and whites.
Reparations Would
Exacerbate Race Relations
The few prevailing theories include
that of Thomas Shapiro, professor of
sociology at Northeastern University
and co-author of Black Wealth, White
Wealth. Shapiro attempts to provide
an economic explanation for the
gap, saying that because blacks could
not own property under slavery, they
could not accumulate assets to pass
on from generation to generation.63
Dr. Anthony Sutton, a
Minneapolis-based psychologist
and author of Breaking Chains:
Hope for Adult Children of
Recovering Slaves, attempts
to provide a psychological/
sociological explanation. He says
that African Americans have
internalized the behaviors
and attitudes of their enslaved
ancestors, creating an inferiority
complex. This inferiority complex,
he says, prevents many of them
from demanding their rights and
being more assertive. Sutton also
says that slavery is responsible for
the contemporary breakdown of
the black familyleading to crime,
teenage pregnancy, etc.because
under slavery, black men could not
act as providers and caretakers of
their families.64
Others point out that todays lack of
educational attainment among many
blacks can be traced to the practice of
punishing slaves for learning how to
read, and that widespread promiscuity
and out-of-wedlock births can be
attributed to male slaves not being
allowed to stay with their families.65
Those promoting this thesis have
even come up with a name for
this alleged phenomenon: PTSD,
which stands for Post-Traumatic
Slavery Disorder. Sekou Mims,
23
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AMERICAN WEALTH
IS NOT BASED ON
SLAVERY
It is often claimed by reparations
advocates that the prosperity of the
United States is largely derived from
the free labor coerced from enslaved
blacks between 1619 and 1865, and
that non-blacks must now compensate
blacks. For example Conrad W.
Worrill, national chairman of the
National Black United Front, says
present generations should be held
responsible for the wrongdoings
of their ancestors because certain
sections of the present generation
have gained economically, politically
The Souths plantation-based economy hindered industrialization. In 1850, the South produced
only 10 to 11 percent of the nations industrial output.
Southern Underdevelopment
Well into the 20th century, the
South was economically less
advanced than the rest of the nation.
The reason for this can be traced to
the pre-Civil War era, when slavery
was the dominant system. The
Souths dependence on agriculture
and on a forced-labor system severely
hindered its economic development
compared with the North.72
In the mid-1800s, the Industrial
Revolution was radically
transforming the northern United
States and Europe. But the Industrial
Revolution bypassed the American
South. In 1850, the South produced
only 10 to 11 percent of the nations
industrial output. The South
produced less than New Hampshire
and only about one-third as much as
Massachusetts. In fact, the tiny state
of Rhode Island produced about as
much as the entire southern United
States. In 1860, output per person
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25
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27
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AFRICAS
COMPLICITY IN THE
SLAVE TRADE
Slave reparations advocates promote
the myth that only Americans or
Europeans were responsible for
slavery, and ignore or downplay
Africans role. Randall Robinson,
for example, suggests that African
slavery was less brutal than
European/American slavery, and that
some of those who were enslaved
deserved their fate. Robinson writes,
While King Affonso [of Kongo] was
no stranger to slavery, which was
practiced throughout most of the
known world, he had understood
slavery as a condition befalling
prisoners of war, criminals, and
debtors, out of which slaves could
earn, or even marry, their way. This
was nothing like seeing this wholly
new and brutal commercial practice
of slavery where tens of thousands
of his subjects were dragged off in
chains.90
Dorothy Benton-Lewis, head of
NCOBRA, echoes this claim. She
writes, It is American slavery that
put a color on slavery. And American
slavery is not like the slavery of
Africa or ancient times. This was
dehumanizing, brutal and barbaric
slavery that subjugated people and
turned them into a profit.91
The reality, however, is that slavery
was just as brutal in Africa as it was in
America. According to historian Paul
Lovejoy, enslaved people in Africa
suffered forced marches, inadequate
food, sexual abuse and death.92
Slavery persists in Africa today. Christian Solidarity International paid $13,200 to free these
Sudanese slaves from their Arab masters.
29
The anti-slavery Republican Party distributed this handout in 1856 which showed that
Southern newspapers also defended the enslavement of whites.
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Slavery Facts
During most of the time that slavery
existed in North America, England
was the reigning government.
Slavery only existed for 82 years
(17831865) under the U.S.
government.
White slavers typically did not
capture slaves in Africa. In the
vast majority of cases, they simply
bought them from local African
dealers. Most slaves had been
originally captured by other
Africans in tribal wars.
At the height of the slave trade,
there were nearly as many slaves
within Africa as there were in the
Americas. Around 1800, roughly
one-tenth of the resident population
in Africa were slaves, about 2.5
million people. By 1850, there were
more slaves in Africa, 10 million,
than in the Americas.
An estimated 9.6 million African
slaves arrived in the Americas
from the 16th through the 19th
centuries. Of these, less than 5
percent came to what is now the
United States. About 4 million
went to Brazil (a Portuguese
colony).
31
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WHITE SLAVERY
It may come as a surprise to many
that during the pre-Civil War period
in America, blacks were not the only
people enslaved or threatened with
enslavement. Whites were enslaved,
too. And this does not simply refer
to voluntary indentured servitude.
From the 1600s until the Civil War,
whites were frequently kidnapped
Indentured Servants
According to historian John Van
Der Zee, from 1609 until well after
the founding of the United States,
half of all the immigrants who came
to America arrived under some form
of involuntary labor.114 The main
difference from blacks circumstance
was that most white slaves were in
this situation for a limited period of
time, typically five to eight years, and
subsequently set free. But this in no way
diminishes the significance of white
slavery. Forced, unpaid labor is slavery
pure and simple, whether it lasts a
lifetime or for many years. Moreover,
many of those white slavesas many
as a quarter of themdied before they
could be set free, so they were in fact
enslaved for life.115
And white slavery often extended
beyond eight years in cases where
runaway slaves were later caught.
Typically, the punishment was an
extra month of slavery for every hour
the white runaway was absent.
Describing white indentured servants,
Van Der Zee writes:
Except for the important
distinctions that their existence
as individuals was acknowledged
by law, and that after their term of
servitude they were to be granted
the full rights of freemen and
women, the status of these people
was essentially the same as that of
slaves. They, the work they did,
and the clothes on their backs
belonged entirely to their masters.
They could be hired out, sold,
or auctioned, even if this meant
separating them from their families.
They could be beaten, whipped,
33
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35
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Union dead at the Gettysburg battlefield. The charge that America never paid for slavery
dishonors the hundreds of thousands of Americans who died in the Civil War.
37
A Capitol of Freedom
Randall Robinson, founder and
president of TransAfrica, published
a book in 2000 called The Debt:
What America Owes to Blacks. It is
a national best-seller, and has been
instrumental in building support
among African Americans for slave
reparations.
In the beginning of the book,
Robinson describes a tour he took
of the U.S. Capitol, pointing out
that it was built with slave labor.
He then launches a vicious attack
on what the Capital stands for,
essentially saying it is based on a
lie. I thought, then, what a fitting
metaphor the Capitol Rotunda
was for Americas racial sorrows.
In the magnificence of its boast,
in the tragedy of its truth, in the
effrontery of its deceit.
Slavery was unfortunately a fact of
life when the Capitol was built, so
it is not surprising that it was built
in part with slave labor. So, too,
were many other buildings. When
slavery was abolished in 1865, what
was America to do? Tear down the
Capitol just because it was partially
constructed with slave labor?
Many of the ancient worlds great
architectural monuments in Rome,
Athens and elsewhere in Europe were
also built with slave labor. Should they
be torn down too?
What is truly remarkableand a
testament to how far this nation has
progressedis that the descendents
of the slaves who helped build the
Capitol can now enjoy such freedom
and prosperity. Robinson is evidently
blind to the irony that slaves
constructed the building within
whose rooms statesmen enacted the
laws that secured freedom for their
descendants.
38
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CONCLUSION
In 1911, Booker T. Washington wrote,
There is a class of colored people
who make a business of keeping
the troubles, the wrongs, and the
hardships of the Negro race before the
public . . . Some of these people do not
want the Negro to lose his grievances,
because they do not want to lose their
jobs. There is a certain class of raceproblem solvers who dont want the
patient to get well.
Reparations certainly would not
make the patient well. Far from
solving racial problems in America,
39
End Notes
www.democrats.org/about/
2000platform.html
www.directblackaction.com/repara_
form.html
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query
Decker
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platform/2000/index.html
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13
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shtml?a=2002/4/25/114836
14
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15
40
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17
18
19
Muhammad, Cedric, Do We
Really Want Class-Action Lawyers
Leading The Movement For
Reparations?, www.blackelectorate.
com/articles.asp?ID=70, February 5,
2001
25
29
30
31
Corporations Challenged by
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February 21, 2002
42
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82
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Majewski, p. 3, 10
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41
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113
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Icemoglu, p. 26
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Klein, p. 57
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