My case for reparations. An urgent discussion. I say discussion because I refuse to debate a debt clearly owed. I will gladly discuss how the United States will pay the lineage of Chattel Slaves.
As I begin, I bring up how I constantly hear the following:.
I keep hearing Black America stop asking for handouts. I hear you pull yourself up by your "bootstraps"!
"No one owes you anything!"!
"I was not born!"!
Then I Look At History.
Had the Greenwood District (Black Wall Street) been allowed to continue to flourish as it was? Could their children have left Greenwood with the wealth from their families and created huge successful businesses that would still be flourishing today?
Large-generation Black-owned companies, large and established enough to be able to get some Biden Infrastructure money?
If not Greenwood, what about the other successful Black communities of those times?
Maybe they would have all failed? Been a blight in the history of Black Americans?
We will never know because lies, jealousy, hatred, and white rage destroyed them all.
If You Argue There Is No Proof Those Black Owned Companies Would Have Survived for These Decades?
Due to murderous criminal acts by enraged White folks, we will never know.
We do know the following white-owned companies profited greatly from slavery and black slaves.
These multibillion-dollar companies profited, and America grew with the services these companies provided.
Barclays
Canadian National Railway Company
Brooks Brothers
Brown Brothers Harriman
CSX
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of others.
The profit made from the bodies of Black Slaves benefited America in this way as well. Some insurance companies accepted black slaves as collateral on loans to white American slave owners.
I argue the Black Communities listed below had the potential to create wealth for their current lives. Build "generational wealth" for their children and generations to follow.
The Freedmen Act
The thought of writing about the wrongs of slavery and the protection of newly freed slaves is not a new concept in the American government.
The Representatives and Senators united to create the Freedmen Act.
On March 3, 1865, Congress passed “An Act to establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees” to provide food, shelter, clothing, medical services, and land to displaced Southerners, including newly freed African Americans.
Those leaders, after a series of arguments, debate, and discussion, sent the Freedmen Bill to President Andrew Johnson on February 13. Supporters of the legislation, including Lyman Trumbull, believed President Andrew Johnson would sign the bill, so they were shocked when he sent the bill back to the Senate on February 19 with a veto message.
Even with the President's Veto. The Congress knew wrongs done to Black Slaves needed to be righted and protections extended and created.
Reparations Paid By The United States of America
The fact is, the United States of America has paid numerous groups reparations for harm caused by the United States of America.
I was going to list just a few of the groups that paid reparations. As I was performing my research, I read one group paid reparations, and I knew it made my point.
Slavery was brutal, evil, demonstrative, and profitable for thousands and an entire nation.
Some saw slavery as abhorrent and evil. So evil a nation went to war over it.
Human souls were beaten, raped, and greatly harmed.
Through all this evil. At the end of the Civil War, the white slave owners were compensated for the loss of their black slaves. Again an insult to Black Souls, as they were paid for as again a common commodity.
Celebration of the abolition of slavery in Washington, D.C., April 19, 1866. Source: Library of Congress.
On April 16, 1862, the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act became law.
Pause for a minute to consider how much compensation would have been offered to the people who suffered torture and other human rights abuses and whose labor and families were stolen for generations. The answer is zero.
The federal government compensated the “owners” of enslaved people for their “loss of property.” The people who were freed were not compensated or given any assistance for the transition to their freedom.
Black Owned Towns Destroyed By White Rage
Elaine, Arkansas, Massacre
(1919)
Wilmington Massacre
(1898)
Rosewood, Florida, Massacre (1923)
Elaine, Arkansas, Massacre (1919)
Atlanta Massacre (1906)
Wilmington, North Carolina, Massacre (1898)
A Plan Once Reparations Are Paid
Reparation payments Slavery Descendants receive are their own to do with as they choose.
The reality is that payments may be more money than some people may have had in their lives.
Realizing this at the expense of the American government, the following must be put in place for those who choose to access.
10 years of government-approved financial planning.
10 years of credit counseling.
Lifetime financial literacy classes.
The United States will acknowledge the harms of policies such as "Jim Crow" have done and continue to do to harm all Black Americans.
I will create a series of policies to address and repair these inequalities.
Reparations are mandatory and justice.
The payments must be lineage-based.
All Payments Cash Based.
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