JOHN CONYERS, longtime congress-man from Detroit, has a pet project that most people have never heard of: reparations for slavery. Every legislative session since 1989, he has introduced a bill that would establish a commission to "examine the institution of slavery" and "make recommendations on appropriate remedies." The bill -- always numbered H.R. 40, to commemorate the "40 acres and a mule" once promised freedmen -- has never been reported out of committee, but, says Conyers, "our day will come."
It could come soon. If the Democrats take the House this fall, Conyers will become chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and you'll be hearing a lot more about reparations, which have been endorsed by a growing coalition of black activists and politicians. In fact, you'll probably be hearing a lot more even if the Democrats don't assume the majority.
Already in April 2000, Chicago became the first major American city to hold public hearings on the legacy of slavery. "The future of race relations will be determined by reparations for slavery," Illinois congress-man Bobby Rush told a special city council committee. The council agreed. With the strong support of mayor Richard Daley Jr., it passed 46-1 -- a resolution urging Congress to pay reparations to the descendants of slaves. "We're not talking about welfare. We're talking about back pay," testified Lerone Bennett, the executive editor of Ebony magazine and the author of Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America. The lone dissenting vote came from alderman Brian Doherty, the only Republican on the council.
Nor is Chicago the only jurisdiction to take up reparations. In July, the Washington, D.C., city council unanimously approved a resolution almost identical to Chicago's. Willie Lynch, a spokesman for council member Kevin Chavous, who proposed the measure, attributes the growing interest in reparations across the country largely to the efforts of Randall Robinson. A former anti-apartheid activist, Robinson recently published The Debt: What America Owes To Blacks, a breezily written memoir cum manifesto. " You are owed," he exhorts black readers. " They did this to you" (italics in the original). Robinson has been using the promotional campaign for The Debt, which is selling briskly, to evangelize for reparations.
The issue even made an appearance on the popular television drama The West Wing, when the nomination of an assistant attorney general was jeopardized by his support for reparations. And earlier this year, two companies proffered formal apologies for their roles in slavery -- Aetna insurance for indemnifying the lives of slaves, and the Hartford Courant for advertising slaves for sale and rewards for the capture of runaways.
Prominent academics have also gotten into the act. The Boston Globe reported in February that Harvard professors Henry Louis Gates and Charles Ogletree Jr. and a group of supporters including the actor Danny Glover were considering an end run around the legislative process, a lawsuit against the federal government. According to Gates, the goal of reparations is not a "check . . . in the mail [to] buy a new BMW." Instead, Gates calls for debt relief and subsidized AIDS treatments in Africa.
Legal experts consider the case a long shot, not least because of the difficulty of determining who should pay and who should receive compensation. Most living Americans are descended from immigrants who arrived after the abolition of slavery; and many Americans possess some black ancestry without identifying themselves as black. Nevertheless, the reparations movement can already claim results that once seemed improbable. A panel created by the Oklahoma legislature recommended in February that compensation be paid to survivors of Tulsa's 1921 race riot, in which historians believe up to 300 people died. Nine survivors of the 1923 Rosewood massacre in Florida have actually received payments of $ 150,000 each.
Most African Americans have never doubted the justice of restitution. In 1865, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman issued Field Order No. 15 containing the famous promise of land and a draft animal. Bitterness over the government's failure to honor that commitment is a popular theme in black culture, particularly the rebellious films and music of the 1980s and 1990s. Auteur Spike Lee's production company is called 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, while the hip hop group Public Enemy rapped, "40 acres and a mule, Jack, where is it, why'd you try to fool the Black?" on the 1991 album Fear of a Black Planet. Supporters of the Chicago resolution haven't forgotten either. "I want 40 acres and a Lexus," quipped alderman Carrie Austin. "You can keep the mule."
But finite sums paid to a few aged survivors of atrocities are much less troublesome than a massive transfer of wealth to all black Americans. Reparations advocates have puzzled for years over how to calculate what America owes. Many take 40 acres and a mule as their starting point, then reckon what that would be worth today. Estimates range from the eye-opening to the stratospheric.
In 1993, Essence magazine published a short article urging readers to claim as "black taxes" a federal income tax credit of $ 43,209, a sum attributed to an elusive organization called the People's Institute of Economics. Georgetown business school lecturer Richard America has suggested a total transfer in the trillions. State legislator Derrick Hale has introduced a bill in the Michigan House to give black residents of the state (where slavery was never legal) an annual $ 16,500 tax credit for 20 years. With tax coffers overflowing, says Hale, "we're giving businesses tax credits in Michigan. Lots of people are profiting."
As for the legal principle governing the debate, Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, put it this way: "For every wrong there is a remedy, and . . . that remedy is not extinguished by time." The success of suits against tobacco companies suggests some courts would be sympathetic to this argument.
Reparations advocates often cite as precedents Germany's restitution to the state of Israel and the United States's compensation to Japanese-Americans interned during World War II. The Debt asks, "Where is the money? . . . Jews have demanded what was their due and received a fair measure of it."
This whole discussion has been a boon to groups of activists outside the civil rights mainstream. The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA) is often mentioned in reports on reparations and sends delegates to TransAfrica's conferences, but seems to amount to little more than a web-site and an answering machine. The Atlanta-based National Commission for Reparations is the project of Silis Muhammad, leader of the splinter Lost-Found Nation of Islam. Through the allied Caucasians United for Reparations and Equality, the commission has been lobbying the United Nations to declare the United States in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 27 of which protects minority religions, cultures, and languages.
Such groups are confident that, despite what they consider the ignorance and bigotry of their critics, the prospects for success are good. "We have just come of age," exults alderman Dorothy Tillman, sponsor of Chicago's resolution. A national conference bringing together the full range of reparations supporters is being planned for February, Tillman says. That would be perfect timing to put the new president on the spot. When asked about reparations at the Apollo Theater in February, Al Gore said he believed cash payments were politically unfeasible, but "massive investments in education and economic empowerment are what we need."
Meanwhile, another skirmish has focused attention on the U.S. Capitol, which, it turns out, was largely constructed by slaves. Republican representative J. C. Watts is leading efforts to honor their contribution. But no mere memorial will mollify Conyers, Robinson, and their allies. Just wait, The Debt counsels. "This is a struggle we cannot lose."
Sam Goldman is an intern at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.