Would Reparations Fare Better With An International Movement?

Recently, there was a conference held on race and reparations at the United Nations. It was painfully obvious to observe the nations that were NOT present. The United Kingdom, Canada, United States and several other European countries did not attend out of protest. According to Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the UN, said it (The meeting birth out of the  Durban Conference from 2001) “remains opposed to the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic underpinnings of the Durban process, and has longstanding freedom of expression concerns with the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action/ DDPA.” According to CNN.com’s article The United Nations held a major meeting on race. Why the US and UK skipped it, The original Durban Conference in 2001 started with lofty aims but ended in an ugly uproar in the wake of negotiations on how and whether to include Israel-Palestinian issues under the rubric of discrimination. The US and Israel ultimately walked out in protest of one draft of the conference’s final declaration that denounced “racial discrimination against the Palestinians” and others by Israel and equated Zionism with racism.

Even though it was later stated that said countries were still making “fighting racism” a “top priority”, it remains quite spellbinding how an international stage set to speak on this very topic was protested by several powers who profited greatly off of Slavery citing the “Underpinnings” of Antisemitism. Please note, this author does not support Antisemitism or hate of any other group of people whatsoever. I do however see this more as a red herring (a way to mislead or distract from a relevant or important question) used by powerful nations to not have an important discussion on race, let alone redress and repair for those who descend from the enslaved.

This led me to re-release a slightly updated article I originally wrote for www.actifypress.com. This raises the question even further if we can really achieve reparations with an international movement.

Recently Dr. Ray Winbush, a professor at Morgan State University and author of several books on reparations, was on Black Power Media being interviewed by Dr. Jared Ball, professor, and author of the “Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power”, stating that reparations need to have an international push or movement instead of a single-minded focus only on the United States. This particular statement made me reflect on his words and ask myself if his viewpoint is either proper or even practical. As Reparationists continue to fight to achieve the justice claim for the Descendants of Freedmen, it would be proper to start exploring different strategies to make a 155-year-old topic a reality. Is one of those ways to unite with the Diaspora to make Native Black American reparations an international movement? 

Lately, there has been much talk about reparations for chattel slavery in many mediums. We have seen reparations talks being organized on several Zoom platforms by organizations who support such a measure. We’ve seen the subject explored on TED Talks, the DNC debate stage, and even had two hearings in June 2019 and February 2021 in the House Judiciary Subcommittee of Congress. HR40, the bill to study reparations first introduced in the late 1980s, has 173 co-sponsors in the House and has a companion bill in the Senate. With the onset of the Black Lives Matter, ADOS/FBA/B1, and Freedmen Movements, and the highlighting of extreme actions of vigilantes and police that led to the deaths of, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd – there is an outpouring from various voices that reparations can wait no longer. 

Reparations for Slavery is not a new topic. There has been a discussion of reparations since before the Emancipation Proclamation. The first concrete action for reparations was Special Field Order No. 15. This was a military order issued during the American Civil War, on January 16, 1865, by General William Tecumseh Sherman, commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi United States Army. 

They provided for the confiscation of 5.3 million acres of land to the formerly enslaved. However, only 400,000 acres were settled by 40,000 freedmen before Andrew Johnson reversed the policy. General Sherman issued his orders four days after meeting with twenty local Black ministers and lay leaders and with the U.S. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton in Savannah, Georgia. Brigadier General Rufus Saxton, an abolitionist from Massachusetts who had previously organized the recruitment of Black soldiers for the Union Army, was put in charge of implementing the orders.

After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, the order had little-to-no concrete effect. As stated previously, President Andrew Johnson issued a proclamation that returned the lands to Southern owners who took a loyalty oath. Johnson granted amnesty to most former Confederates and allowed the rebel states to elect new governments. These governments, which often included ex-Confederate officials, soon enacted Black Codes, measures designed to control and repress the recently freed slave population. General Saxton and his staff at the Charleston South Carolina Freedmen’s Bureau’s Office refused to carry out President Johnson’s wishes and denied all applications to have lands returned. In the end, Johnson and his allies removed General Saxton and his staff, but not before Congress was able to provide legislation to assist some families in keeping their lands. 

Since the rescinding of Special Field Order No. 15, other reparations activists emerged. Examples are Callie House and Isaiah Dickerson, who chartered the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association in 1898, to Queen Mother Moore who was a civil rights leader, Black Nationalist, and founder of the “Republic of New Afrika”. Moore was also the founder and president of the Universal Association of Ethiopian Women as well as the founder of the Committee for Reparations for Descendants of U.S. Slaves. Moore actively promoted reparations from 1950 until her death in 1997. 

Other organizations also emerged to help continue the work of achieving reparations such as The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA), National African-American Reparations Commission (NAARC), and The Caribbean Community (CARICOM). The aforementioned organizations share a “Pan African” (a global cultural and political movement aiming at strengthening bonds of solidarity between all indigenous and diasporic ethnic groups of African origin) ideology and objective. They also coalition in some respects with one another, however, CARICOM is specific concerning the community they are advocating for when it comes to reparations. Fifteen countries are included in the advocacy pool within CARICOM’s community, but the United States is not one of them. CARICOM states on their website they promote and support a unified Caribbean community that is inclusive, resilient, and competitive; sharing in economic, social, and cultural prosperity. 

As of late the issue of SPECIFICITY when it comes to reparations in the United States has been a source of some contention between those who garner a Pan African philosophy versus those who are considered “Freedmen First”. The criteria from Duke University Professor Dr. William “Sandy” Darity and co-author of “From Here to Equality” lays out who should be the group that qualifies for reparations in the United States. His criteria is a person who has identified as “Black” or “African-American” on government documents for at least twelve years before a reparations legislation has been enacted and can trace their lineage through at least one ancestor to US Chattel Slavery. Simple right?

There are those of the Pan African sensibility that have tried to conflate the criteria to a blood quantum rule or the possibility of DNA tests. None of these claims are factual. The claims, however, seem to raise a larger argument that because those who are Black Descendants of US Chattel Slavery, lockout others from the African Diaspora who happen to be in the United States. Arguments such as “White Supremacy is global” or “racism affects all Black people” are often raised and even misconstrued with the aforementioned statements that Dr. Darity’s criteria is xenophobic because it excludes Black people who are not Descendants of American Chattel Slavery. 

The facts are that every reparations program, be it by legislation or lawsuit has always been specific. Some examples include: 

● The Pueblo Lands Act of 1924, Congress authorized the establishment of the Pueblo Lands Board to adjudicate land title disputes, along with a payment of $1,300,000 to the Pueblo for the land they lost. 

● The Shoshones were paid over six million dollars for land illegally seized from them. 

● The Indian Reorganization Act authorized $2 million a year in appropriations for the acquisition of land for Indians (except for the state of Oklahoma and the territory of Alaska until 1936). Congress made appropriations until 1941. In total $5.5 million was appropriated for 400,000 acres of land, and further legislation added 875,000 acres to reservations. One million acres of grazing land and nearly one million acres intended for homesteading were returned to the tribes. 

● The Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act was passed, authorizing an appropriation of $88,570,000 over 10 years for a program benefiting the Navajo and Hopi, including soil conservation, education, business, and industry development on reservations, and assistance in finding employment off-reservation. 

● Civil Liberties Act of 1988: President Ronald Reagan signed a bill providing $1.2 billion ($20,000 a person) and an apology to each of the approximately 60,000 living Japanese-Americans who had been interned during World War II. Additionally, $12,000 and an apology were given to 450 Unangans (Aleuts) for internment during WWII, and a $6.4 million trust fund was created for their communities. 

● In the United States Court of Claims case Tlingit and Haida Indians of Alaska v. United States, the plaintiff tribes won a judgment of $7.5 million as just compensation for land taken by the United States government between 1891 and 1925. 

● A $10 million out-of-court settlement was reached between the U.S. government and Tuskegee victims, Black men who had been unwitting subjects of a study of untreated syphilis, and who did not receive available treatments. 

https://guides.library.umass.edu/reparations

All of these claims have in common the naming of a specific group for a specific injury. There has been no precedent made in the United States where reparations were paid to a blanketed group of people. I, as an African American, cannot stake claim to the Civil Liberties Act that paid Japanese Internment Camp victims from WWII nor would I qualify to receive redress from the Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act since I am not of that lineage, nor a member of those tribes. Makes sense does it not? The injured party from a specific injury is the one who should receive the redress and repair. 

So let us revisit Dr. Winbush’s statement of reparations needing to be an international movement. The other claim that is often made by Pan Africans is that being “specific” concerning United States reparations immediately means that advocacy from and to the Diaspora is immediately cut off. I push back on this claim because African Americans have always advocated for justice for the Diaspora. African American leaders like W.E.B Dubois advocated against exclusionary tactics by the United States to keep Africans out of the country. Also, it has to be mentioned how African Americans advocated ending Apartheid in South Africa calling for American companies to divest from doing business in the country. That and other demonstrations in the United States and in South Africa led to the collapse of that racist separatist system. 

Specificity does not have to be an enemy of international advocacy. In South Africa, The South African government was to pay reparations to thousands of people identified as victims of apartheid by the country’s truth commission. At the time, South African President Thabo Mbeki had said his government would make a payment of 30,000 rand ($3,890) each to more than 19,000 people identified by the commission as victims of gross human rights violations. Those of us in the United States support and applaud that effort. But I would not expect to receive any of that payment because I was not a victim of apartheid. That does not mean as a member of the Diaspora I can’t support South Africa to do right by its citizens that were harmed by the Apartheid policy. The same can be said for Black Descendants of Chattel Slavery or Freedmen. Although all Black people living in the United States would not qualify for reparations if not a Descendant of United States Chattel Slavery, the international community (within and without the United States) can and should support this cause for the Freedmen’s Descendants to get their justice claim. 

I agree with Dr. Winbush’s statement that reparations can and should be an international movement. It is quite apparent that members of the African Diaspora have been harmed by White Supremacy on many levels and deserve justice from oppressive government policies all over the world. Even though this is the case, redress and repair are going to look different based on who and where the injury is exacted. I cannot expect reparations to look the same in Brazil as they would in Jamaica. Although slavery was practiced in both countries, the governments that enacted those institutions are different. Brazil’s claim would be from Portugal and Jamaica’s would come from Great Britain. We can and should implore all from the Diaspora to support one another in our justice claims. But keep in mind that our claims are specific to the countries we are in. Reparations can be supported globally but should be an issue handled domestically. 

Cynthia McDonald – Social Worker, Health and Political Advocate