Barack Obama Accepts the Democratic Nomination for President of the United States

It was very moving to me watching Barack Obama's acceptance speech, him being the first Black American to be nominated by a major party.  What a great historical moment!  

If you missed it, the video of the speech is below:

NYT: AIDS rate in Black America akin to Third World Countries

If Black America were a country it would have one of highest HIV rates in the world according to a New York Times article today. And yet many of the money that has been put aside for fighting AIDS in the world by the Bush Administration will not reach African Americans. In fact, Black America has rates higher than 7 of 15 countries that receive funding through this initiative. To top it off, it appears that the Bush Administration is trying to hide these statistics when it neglected to report America's AIDS rate to the United Nations for inclusion of its biannual report.

NYT: FL Gov. Says He Would Consider Reparations

I think this is the first US governor to go this far to say that he would consider reparations for slavery

New York Times
March 27, 2008

Florida Legislature Apologizes for State’s History of Slavery

By DAMIEN CAVE and CHRISTINE JORDAN SEXTON

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Legislature formally apologized Wednesday for the state’s “shameful” history of slavery, joining five other states that have expressed public regret for what Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, recently called America’s “original sin.”

The two-page resolution passed overwhelmingly in the Senate and then the House, bringing at least one lawmaker to tears. Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican, called it a “significant step” toward reconciliation.

“All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing,” Mr. Crist said in an interview, quoting the philosopher Edmund Burke. “I think we are reminded of that today because it takes courage to do the right thing, and it’s not always easy.”

Several black lawmakers, especially Senator Anthony C. Hill Sr., Democrat of Jacksonville, have been pushing for a public apology since last year. What eventually passed on Wednesday resembled statements issued by North Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey, the last state to apologize for slavery with a resolution in January.

The Florida resolution expressed “profound regret” for the state’s role “in sanctioning and perpetuating involuntary servitude upon generations of African slaves.” It did not use the word apology, but Mr. Hill said the statement’s intent was clear.

“At the end of the day we said three words: ‘I am sorry,’ ” he said. “I think now we can begin the healing process of reconciliation.”

Florida’s history with slavery is unusual. Its roots stretch back to the settlement of St. Augustine in 1565, and slaves here took part in a wide array of industries, including cattle ranching in central Florida and sugar cane harvests in Tampa.

“From 1845 to 1860, it was one of the fastest-growing slave states in the union,” said Larry E. Rivers, author of “Slavery in Florida” and president of Fort Valley State University in Georgia. “When things were slowing down in Virginia and still going in South Carolina and North Carolina, slavery in Florida was growing in leaps and bounds.”

The state’s first slave laws were enacted by the Territorial Legislative Council in 1822. Mirroring the laws of other Southern states, they included such punishments as nailing slaves’ ears to posts if they were caught stealing.

Some of this history was recounted before the Legislature, and was included in the resolution. It was enough to draw clear sobs from Senator Arthenia L. Joyner, Democrat of Tampa.

The governor said such emotions were understandable.

“I don’t think you could listen to some of the punishments that were meted out in the past before Florida became more enlightened without being moved by it,” Mr. Crist said.

Florida has made other efforts to address the consequences of institutional racism; in 1994, the state allocated $2.1 million to surviving victims of the Rosewood massacre, the 1923 attack on a black town in North Florida.

And on Wednesday, Mr. Crist said he was open to evaluating whether broader reparations for slavery would be worth pursuing. He warned, however, that this was not the year, given Florida’s looming $3 billion budget deficit.

Some black leaders said they hoped that the addition of another state’s resolution would lead Congress to offer an apology of its own — if only to document regrets expressed in speeches by President Bush and President Bill Clinton.

At the very least, they said, Florida’s statement is likely to continue the country’s amplified conversation about race, inspired in part by Mr. Obama’s candidacy.

“It’s a good time for the whole nation to address race in a different way,” said Carol M. Swain, a professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University who supports a national apology for slavery. “We do need to have the conversation. And it’s a much broader conversation than Barack Obama was able to introduce in his speech.”

Damien Cave reported from Miami, and Christine Jordan Sexton from Tallahassee.

Shame on you, Pat Buchanan

... for arguing that Black Americans should be thankful for being brought in chains to this country by listing the "benefits" we have received. He seems to have some kind of historical amnesia about the what the American system of slavery was all about. Africans were brought to this country. Stripped (not given) of their freedom, status and property. And then forced to work (and their children) for the rest of their lives for no money. Where are the "benefits" in that, Pat? And to say Section 8 and Christianity are the benefits of being forced into slavery? Shame on you, Pat!

A Brief for Whitey

by Patrick J. Buchanan (more by this author)

Posted 03/21/2008 ET
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=25634

How would he pull it off? I wondered.

How would Barack explain to his press groupies why he sat silent in a pew for 20 years as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright delivered racist rants against white America for our maligning of Fidel and Gadhafi, and inventing AIDS to infect and kill black people?

How would he justify not walking out as Wright spewed his venom about "the U.S. of K.K.K. America," and howled, "God damn America!"

My hunch was right. Barack would turn the tables.

Yes, Barack agreed, Wright's statements were "controversial," and "divisive," and "racially charged," reflecting a "distorted view of America."

But we must understand the man in full and the black experience out of which the Rev. Wright came: 350 years of slavery and segregation.

Barack then listed black grievances and informed us what white America must do to close the racial divide and heal the country.

The "white community," said Barack, must start "acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination -- and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past -- are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds ... ."

And what deeds must we perform to heal ourselves and our country?

The "white community" must invest more money in black schools and communities, enforce civil rights laws, ensure fairness in the criminal justice system and provide this generation of blacks with "ladders of opportunity" that were "unavailable" to Barack's and the Rev. Wright's generations.

What is wrong with Barack's prognosis and Barack's cure?

Only this. It is the same old con, the same old shakedown that black hustlers have been running since the Kerner Commission blamed the riots in Harlem, Watts, Newark, Detroit and a hundred other cities on, as Nixon put it, "everybody but the rioters themselves."

Was "white racism" really responsible for those black men looting auto dealerships and liquor stories, and burning down their own communities, as Otto Kerner said -- that liberal icon until the feds put him away for bribery.

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.

Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.

This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the '60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks -- with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas -- to advance black applicants over white applicants.

Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?

Barack talks about new "ladders of opportunity" for blacks.

Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for "deserving" white kids.

Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America? Is it really white America's fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?

Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?

As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?

Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?

We have all heard ad nauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena. And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.

Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago.

Florida apologizes for slavery

Published Wednesday, March 26, 2008 at 7 a.m.

Following an emotional recounting of its enslavement of African Americans, Florida became the sixth state in the nation Wednesday to apologize for its role in slavery.

A Captiol historian read aloud in the House and Senate a 15-minute summary of the brutality of Florida's slavery-era laws and the ways the state's elected leaders at the time perpetutated the mistreatment of African Americans.

Legislators then approved a resolution expressing "profound regret" for "the shameful chapter in this state’s history." Gov. Charlie Crist commended lawmakers "for doing the right thing" and did not rule out considering reparations for Floridians whose ancestors were slaves.

Florida's black lawmakers said an apology is just the first step toward confronting the state’s racial disparities in health, education and the criminal justice system.

"An expression is just empty words without action," said Rep. Joe Gibbons, a Broward County and chairman of the legislative Black Caucus. "Yes, this is a historical step for the Florida Legislature, but the real test is what happens next."

A few black legislators wept as the curator of the Historic Capitol, John Phelps, read excerpts of a letter Florida’s governor wrote in 1861, where he described African Americans as "barbarians" that could only be "tamed and civilized by the discipline of slavery."

Lawmakers sat silent as Phelps described a slavery-era Florida law that said "any negro or other slave" convicted of robbery would have "his or her ears nailed to posts and there stand for one hour and receive 30 lashes on his or her bare back."

"Just listening to those words, let alone imagining an actual event of that horrific nature, it’s hard to fathom," said Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, who was moved to tears.

The other five states that have apologized for slavery – all since January 2007 – include Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Alabama and New Jersey.

-- Carol Lee

Talking Points Memo Cafe: Apology to Native Americans

Republican Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback Apologizes to Native Americans

By - March 2, 2008, 12:47PM

Recently, the Senate passed the "Native American Apology Amendment" led by Republican Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback. The Amendment was attached to the reauthorization of the "Indian Health Care Improvement Act" and it offered an official apology from the Federal Government to Native Americans. The measure measure passed successfully according to a press release issued by Brownback's office on Tuesday.

In an earlier press release, Brownback said:

Our nation's relationship with the Native peoples of this land is an issue that is very important to the health of the United States. For too much of our history, Federal-Tribal relations have been marked by broken treaties, mistreatment, and dishonorable dealings. We can acknowledge our past failures, express sincere regrets, and establish a brighter future for all Americans.

Given the historical record of holocaust, disenfranchisement, marginalization, and the concentration camp-like apartheid of Native Americans, the apology seems long overdue, but always nonetheless, better late than never. Still, apologies are seen by many as just words and words are not often synonymous with actions. Sam Hananel's story in the Associated Press speaks to this sentiment:

But it's one thing to just apologize and another thing to do something while you're apologizing," said Garcia, who is governor of the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo in northern New Mexico. "You have to put words into action and the action is to improve the problems created by those ill-conceived policies."

Brownback's legislation is a major step toward reparations in the Native American community.

The resolution says the federal government forced Indians off tribal lands, stole tribal assets and is responsible for "official depredations, ill-conceived policies and the breaking of covenants" with tribes.

While apologies from the Federal Government are few and far between, official apologies have been made to groups in the past. In 1988, an apology was issued for the Japanese Internment Camps of World War II and in 1993, the federal government apologized to native Hawaiians for the wrongful and "unlawful overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom." In 2005, the Senate apologized for the lynchings of African-Americans

Some point out however, that absent among these official apologies is an apology to African-Americans for slavery and segregation. Notwithstanding historical broken promises of "40 acres and a mule", the "get over it" undertone that permeates much of the discourse on "racial beyondism" is ever present in the silent but implicit refusal of the Federal Government to issue a formal and official apology to African-Americans. Some would argue that apologizing to Native Americans for a haunting legacy of wrongful doings that date back to the arrival of Columbus (before the U.S. enslavement of African-Americans) means that time is never an excuse nor a validation for withholding apologies and reparation efforts.

Others would argue that the 15th Amendment, The Civil Rights Acts of 1871, 1875, 1957, 1960, and 1964 along with Affirmative Action were all apologies in disguise. A considerable number of Americans believe that it is unfair for them and their government officials to be expected to apologize for historic wrongs they feel they had no part in committing. Opponents of this simply point to the benefits and privileges afforded to generations that are a direct result of these historic wrongs.

The arguments surrounding this issue often prove to be endless. But many point to the apologies of the Federal Government as driving a separatist wedge between historically disadvantaged groups and undermining their respective struggles. Where there is an apology for one group, there is not an apology for another. But one cannot negate the racial and ethnic overlap with regard to experiences of struggle. One would need only to look at African-American Seminoles, Maroons, and even the Cherokee Freedmen to argue that an apology for one group can often mean an apology for another. Nevertheless, the powers of relativity, uniqueness, and specificity applies again and again.

...the Australian government issued a formal apology to Aborigines for decades of racist policies and abuse against that country's original inhabitants.

With what seems to be a new paradigm of race relations emerging, what does it mean for nations who continue to leave stones of inequality unturned in their history? For many African-Americans, an apology from the federal government shouldn't come from the disguise of legislation, the mere passage of policy, or the waning prejudice and changing paradigm of the decades. Like all sincere apologies, it should come from a place of empathy, remorse, and ownership. And while (according to some) apologies mean very little without supported actions, sometimes actions are obscured without supported words.

No one knows whether anymore apologies are in the political forecast of the Federal Government to historically disadvantaged groups, but one thing is for sure, electing an African-American or a woman as president will neither close the lid on this discourse nor rid America of its responsibility to reconcile with those living in its present effected by the wrongs of its past.

Reparations Play in Washington, D.C.

'40 Acres' at Atlas

Playwright Robert Alexander's theatrical debate about the idea of the U.S. government paying reparations to descendants of slaves will receive staged readings Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. Mary Hall Surface will direct. (Call 202-399-7993 or visit http://www.atlasarts.org.)

Alexander has set "40 Acres: The Reparations Play" in a posh Hilton Head, S.C., retirement community, where an elderly African American couple have joined a class-action lawsuit against companies that profited from slavery. Their conservative 50-ish son thinks it is ridiculous; their college-age grandson is attracted to a more radical black nationalism.

"I think slavery is an issue a lot of Americans want to forget about," says Alexander ("The Last Orbit of Billy Mars," "I Ain't Yo' Uncle: The New Jack Revisionist Uncle Tom's Cabin"), who divides his time between the San Francisco area and Washington. He patterned the patriarch, a retired lawyer, in part on his father, a former NAACP attorney.

Alexander doubts reparations will be made: "I can honestly say today we'll probably see a black president before we see payments for reparations."

NYT: "Slavery’s Place in the Capitol"

Slavery’s Place in the Capitol
NY Times Editorial
December 21, 2007

The Capitol’s mammoth new visitors’ center is a work in progress bedeviled by cost overruns and mounting delay. The $621 million project is not expected to be ready for tourists until next fall. But the House and Senate have set an encouraging standard, emphasizing the center’s educational mission by naming the main welcoming chamber Emancipation Hall. This honors long-forgotten African-American slaves forced to help build the original Capitol in the 18th and 19th centuries.

This is an overdue exercise of historical candor. Researchers found slaves were rented as Capitol labor by the federal government for $5 a month — the proceeds directly pocketed by local slave owners. “Negro hires” was the term used in the construction of what early on was called, no irony recorded, the “Temple of Liberty.” The slaves worked six days a week, 12 hours a day, quarrying stone, sawing timber and hauling supplies.

Until now, all they earned for this back-breaking labor was anonymity.

Emancipation Hall will be the main point of welcome for crowds of constituents in the 580,000-square-foot visitors’ center. It is expected to become a prime Washington destination, designed to handle greater throngs in a more secure, inspiring and informative setting. Amid all the towering patriotism depicted, exhibits are planned about the slaves’ lot of hardship and creativity in realizing the Capitol.

A slave named Philip Reid is credited with helping to cast the Statue of Freedom — the Capitol dome’s crowning decoration — after the original white craftsmen refused without a pay raise. Reid was ultimately made a free man by an act of Congress, the rare special-interest legislation that deserves to be cited in the new Emancipation Hall.

Globe and Mail: Rare John Brown Image Sold at Auction

If I ever get a lot of money, this is what I want to spend it on. It breaks my heart that the descendants had to sell their family heritage to pay for medical bills.

Rare daguerreotype brings $97,750

TERRY KINNEY

Associated Press

December 7, 2007 at 12:46 PM EST

CINCINNATI — A rare daguerreotype of abolitionist John Brown was bought by an unidentified bidder by telephone for $97,750 on Friday, auctioneer Wes Cowan said.

The buyer declined to be identified or to talk about the purchase, Mr. Cowan said.

Experts say probably no more than a half dozen original daguerreotypes exist of the man best known for his ill-fated raid on a federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Va.

Brown was born in 1800 in Connecticut, lived in Ohio for a time and was a free-state activist in Kansas before the October 1859 raid that he hoped would inspire an anti-slavery rebellion.

He was wounded and captured, and was tried and hanged by the state of Virginia for treason two months later.

Although revered by some for his anti-slavery militancy, Abraham Lincoln called him a “misguided fanatic.”

A daguerreotype was an early form of photography popular in the 1840s and 1850s in which an image is formed on a chemically treated metal plate.

The method was named for Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre, the French painter who developed the process.

The photo auctioned Friday remained in Brown's family through five generations until descendants contacted Mr. Cowan, asking him to broker the sale to help them pay medical bills, he said.

“It's the most important photograph we've handled in our 13 years of existence,” said Mr. Cowan, an occasional appraiser on Antiques Roadshow and host of the PBS series History Detectives.

He had estimated a sale price of $60,000 to $80,000.

The previous daguerreotype of Brown that sold at auction went for $115,000 in 1997, Mr. Cowan said. It is displayed at the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery.

“That one shows him holding a flag with one hand, and one hand raised as if taking an oath and has a lot of drama to it,” Kansas historian Karl Gridley said. “This one is more of straight-on shot.”

In it, Brown is wearing a jacket with several buttons – the same one or similar to the jacket in the National Gallery portrait – and has his arms crossed in front of him.

“This extremely rare and riveting portrait is doubly significant not only as one of the earliest daguerreotypes of the revolutionary abolitionist but also because the long-lost image was made by the remarkable African-American photographer Augustus Washington,” said Theresa Leininger-Miller, an art history professor at the University of Cincinnati.

Washington had been a teacher but turned to photography to pay off his college debts. He had one of the most successful daguerreotype studios in Hartford, Conn., before emigrating to Liberia, where he became a planter, politician and newspaper editor.

The auction catalogue described the portrait this way:

“A self-assured and clean-shaven Brown stares intently and directly at the viewer with steely, blue-grey eyes and the hint of a knowing smile as the left side of his mouth upturns slightly and puffs out the cheek near his hawk-like nose.”

Later, better-known portraits show Brown with a long, bushy beard.

Experts believe the National Gallery daguerreotype and the one offered Friday were made during the same sitting at Washington's Hartford studio in 1846 or 1847.

NY Sun: Apartheid Suit Puts Corporations on Notice

Long article but very interesting and very good. Are there lessons to be learned by the reparations movement here?

The New York Sun
Apartheid Suit Puts Corporations on Notice

By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
November 12, 2007

In giving the go-ahead to a historic class-action suit against businesses that sold to South Africa's apartheid regime, a federal appellate court here has put the world's largest companies on notice that they can be held liable for doing business with foreign regimes that commit human-rights abuses.

The decision last month by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan revives several class-action suits brought by South Africans against the arms suppliers, oil producers, and computer manufacturers that sold goods to the apartheid government during the second half of the 20th century.

The claims earlier had been dismissed by a lower court as being beyond the jurisdiction of American courts.

The 2–1 ruling, with Judges Peter Hall and Robert Katzmann in the majority, means that a Manhattan judge yet may oversee compensation of billions of dollars to South African blacks who lived under apartheid rule. That prospect raises profound questions about the role of American courts in providing a place of reckoning for the wrongs of foreign governments.

Previous court rulings by federal judges here had left it uncertain whether corporations can be sued in American courts for acting as accomplices to foreign governments committing atrocities. The effect of the decision is to "give courts the green light to hear suits against corporations for their connections to abusive regimes," a law professor at Duke University, Curtis Bradley, who served as counselor on international law at the State Department in 2004, said.

The 2nd Circuit now joins two other appellate courts in the West and Southeast in allowing American courts to impose accomplice liability on corporations for human-rights violations against international law. This emerging consensus has arisen without any nod of congressional approval since the First Congress adopted the Alien Torts Statute in 1789, which courts now use to assert jurisdiction in these cases. Still, the 2nd Circuit sets a relatively high bar for finding that a company is liable as an accomplice in apartheid, torture, or assassination.

Two of the three 2nd Circuit judges would require more proof than that the company simply knew it was assisting a foreign government to commit human-rights violations. Liability would require companies to share "a common purpose" with a foreign government or a subjective intent that a human-rights abuse occur, according to the 2nd Circuit's decision.

Even with this court victory, the plaintiffs still face several hurdles, the most significant of which is to show that the conduct of defendants such as Ford and amounted to "aiding and abetting" apartheid.

Another hurdle is the opposition voiced by the post-apartheid South African government, which argues that it — not America — should be dealing with apartheid's legacy. The South African government has asked that the suits be dismissed. Officials there have said apartheid-related claims belonged before that country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission for apartheid-era crimes.

The dissenting member of the 2nd Circuit's panel, Edward Korman, said the suits should have been dismissed.

South Africa, Judge Korman wrote, "has asserted the right to define and finalize issues related to reparations for apartheid-era offenses within its own legal framework — thus making this lawsuit an insult to the post-apartheid, black-majority government of a free people."

The State Department has joined South Africa, citing the foreign policy tensions these suits pose to American-South African relations.

The Alien Torts Statute, under which the apartheid suits are being brought, was passed 218 years ago because of anti-piracy concerns. It allows American courts to hear foreigners' suits involving egregious violations of international law and that occurred beyond America's borders. The law was largely ignored until about 30 years ago when it was used to sue a Paraguayan police official accused of torturing a man to death. While the Supreme Court in 2004 allowed foreigners to use the law to sue foreign officials, the court left open the question of whether the Alien Torts Statute gave courts jurisdiction over deep-pocketed corporate defendants for "aiding and abetting" violations.

In one landmark decision endorsing just such liability against Unocal, California's 9th Circuit allowed a suit by Burmese villagers who said the Burmese military used them for slave labor on a pipeline.

Only one Alien Torts Statute case with a corporate defendant has gone to trial: It resulted in a win for Alabama's Drummond Ltd., which had been accused of a role in the slaying by paramilitary forces of three labor union activists near a company mine in Colombia.

But never before had anybody brought a claim under the Alien Torts Statute for violations even approaching the scale of those committed by the apartheid regime.

"It's a matter of the scale and the tenuousness of the allegations and the diffuseness of the conduct here that will embolden other lawyers," a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Anthony Sebok, said, of the apartheid suits. "Like the Holocaust litigation of the 1990s, this is going to be a signal event, and it's going to be shorthand to people about how you can push the envelope."

The plaintiffs, who include victims of apartheid violence, accuse corporations, ranging from New York banks to a Swiss artillery manufacturer, of propping up the apartheid regime for decades through providing military goods to the South African security forces, and computing equipment to bureaucrats, which were used to track apartheid's racial categories of whites, coloreds, and Asians.

The plaintiffs allege that the companies also played a direct role in apartheid violence. General Motors "recruited white employees to join a citizen commando force" involved in vigilante killings, plaintiffs claim in one court brief. And one South African mining concern, Implats, allegedly requested police to put down a 1986 mine strike.

Banks, the plaintiffs say, played a significant role in propping up an increasingly isolated South Africa. Following the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, when police opened fire on a crowd of black protesters, Chase Manhattan "devised a package of loans" to South Africa, one group of plaintiffs claim, that was meant "to replace capital leaving the country because of police brutality." Another group of plaintiffs claim that bank loans by Credit Suisse and UBS "supported the government during the bloodiest period of apartheid in the late 1980s" before its collapse in the early 1990s.

Since last month's ruling, a lawyer for the defendants, Francis Barron of Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, has said his clients will ask the Supreme Court this year to dismiss the suits on foreign policy considerations. The Supreme Court is no stranger to the case.

In a footnote to one decision on the Alien Torts Statute, the federal high court took the unusual step of singling out these lawsuits for mention.

Citing the potential impact of the apartheid litigation on American relations with South Africa, the court said: "There is a strong argument that federal courts should give serious weight to the Executive Branch's view of the case's impact on foreign policy."

Rawstory: Honoring the unpaird builders of the Capitol

Congressional task force: Honor slaves that built the Capitol

Jason Rhyne
Published: Friday November 9, 2007

The slaves who helped to construct the US Capitol in Washington, DC, should be honored for their historic effort, reports a Congressional task force that recently completed a two-year examination of how African-American laborers contributed to the building's construction.

"The research turned up little-known facts about the role of slaves in building what was known in the 1800s as the 'Temple of Liberty,' reports Roll Call's's Emily Yehle. "Their tasks included hauling stone, laying brick and sawing timber in the hot sun -- all for $60 a year paid to their white owners."

Task force chairman Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), who led the group of House legislators and scholars involved in the effort, said it was vital that slaves' place in American history be appropriately commemorated.

"We look back today, not to open old wounds, but to ensure that we tell the story -- the complete story -- of those slaves so their toils are never forgotten," Lewis told Roll Call. "Slavery is a part of our nation’s history of which we are not proud. However, we should not run away or hide from it."

Proposed plans from the task force to honor that legacy include an exhibit in the Capitol about the experience of slaves in the 19th century, as well as online information resources and print materials. The group's next step will be to present its proposals to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

"We’re going to need a sizable appropriation to do the work that we want to do," Lewis told the paper, adding that specific plans were still being formulated.

"When we look at the building, it’s not your building, the majority, it's our building," Sarah Jean Davidson, a preservationist who participated in the project, told Roll Call. “Once they start feeling that we are connected, we are one."

An August story in USA Today detailed the work of Philip Reid, a slave who was significantly involved in the history of the Statue of Freedom, the bronze sculpture which sits atop the Capitol dome.

When an early plaster version of the statue proved difficult for workmen to separate -- which was required before the statue could be cast in bronze -- Reid, a skilled craftsman, had singlehandedly solved the problem.

"But the work of Reid and other slaves remains an all-but-untold story," the report continued. "The US Capitol Historical Society mentions it in a traveling exhibit about the history of African-Americans in the Capitol, but no permanent memorial exists in the building itself."

According to Roll Call, some recognition projects are already underway. A measure proposed by Reps. Zach Wamp (R-TN) and Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL), proposes to change the name of the Capitol Vistor Center's Great Hall to Emancipation Hall.

Book Review: "Reparations: Pro and Con"

REPARATIONS: PRO AND CON, by Alfred L. Brophy. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. 312pp. Cloth $29.95/£17.99. ISBN: 9780195304084.

Reviewed by Marie J. Fritz, Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland, College Park. Email: mfritz [at] gvpt.umd.edu.

In REPARATIONS: PRO AND CON, Alfred L. Brophy surveys the major arguments presented by those on both sides of the black reparations debate. Talk of reparations has increased in the past decade, but despite increased visibility in the press, on college campuses, and among the business sector, reparations advocates and opponents, Brophy points out, focus on different sides of the debate and fail to communicate with one another. The author admits that although “it is not possible to reach definitive conclusions about these issues, it is possible to identify the key arguments on either side and to suggest some of the ways that we can focus the debate and evaluate the utility of reparations” (p.xii). This vague central thesis offers the reader little insight on what to expect.

Following the introduction is a chapter that explores the definition of reparations. Chapter Two traces reparations efforts from the late eighteenth century through the present. Brophy explains that various forms of reparations existed prior to the abolitionist period and the United States Civil War. As early as 1781 a person held as a slave in Massachusetts, who had been promised emancipation, sued his owner for assault and battery and won. The suit did not include a claim for unpaid labor, but subsequent judgments across the states occasionally granted former slaves payment for unpaid wages (p.20). The history of reparations becomes more complex during the Civil War and the Reconstruction period as Northern elites sought to break apart the Southern oligarchy. In 1862 President Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, which immediately emancipated slaves in the city and provided compensation to former slave owners in Washington, DC who were loyal to the Union (p.25). Under this Act these former slaves were also promised monies to emigrate outside of the United States. Three years later, Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau to resettle former slaves and adjudicate property claims, among other goals; however, attempts at land redistribution often proved futile as President Andrew Johnson revoked earlier land confiscation orders, Southern courts seized jurisdiction from the Bureau, and black farmers were often left with no other option than to sign labor contracts with extremely unfavorable terms and in many cases with former owners. Brophy asserts that, although the Freedmen’s Bureau did not intend to compensate for past unpaid labor, “the goal was forward-thinking, trying to make it possible for the freed slaves to be economically self-sufficient” (p.26). For a detailed and insightful exploration of the Freedmen’s Bureau, see Williams’ THE CONSTRAINTS OF RACE: [*794] LEGACIES OF WHITE SKIN PRIVLEGE IN AMERICA (2003).

Although the period of Reconstruction saw increased federal efforts at formal equality for blacks, these attempts existed alongside a growing social and political environment infused with extreme racial violence. After 1877 there were periodic attempts at reparations for former slaves, but for decades attention focused primarily on addressing unequal treatment formalized by the Jim Crow system (p.34). In 1969, James Forman called for white churches and synagogues – which he viewed as constitutive of American capitalism – to pay reparations to blacks, marking the start of the modern reparations movement (p.37). Soon after, law professor Boris Bittker added another layer to the reparations debate by moving away from unpaid labor and a contributions-based approach towards promoting a harm-based analysis of entitlement (p.39). Black reparations activism remained anemic through the 1970s and 1980s. Meanwhile, some American Indian communities and Japanese American internment camp survivors received limited reparations from the federal government (p.40).

Brophy explores the contemporary black reparations movement in Chapter Three. He asks why the issue has received renewed scholarly and popular attention in recent years, and cites the confluence of bleak economic and social indicators for black Americans, the decline in support of affirmative action programs, and the development of critical race theory (CRT) as the intellectual foundation for black reparations proponents. In addition, he states, “Awareness of past tragedies and their impact on the present has led to a renewed focus on tragedies” (p.57). Brophy points to a series of law review articles by critical race legal scholars that were crucial in shaping the current reparations debate. Central to most of these arguments are the following: American jurisprudence has not been responsive to the needs of minorities, so we should look to the least advantaged groups for political and legal insights; color-blind approaches to legal remedies are shortsighted and overlook profound, internalized racism; and finally, group remedies are required to address group-based harms. These themes were subsequently popularized by reparations proponents outside of academia and the proposed remedies, Brophy explains, range from seeking distributive justice to establishing separate states for African Americans (p.74).

In Chapter Four, Brophy turns to arguments opposing reparations for blacks. He groups the arguments into four categories: lack of legal liability, compensation has been paid through social welfare provisions, compensation is not politically viable, and reparations are divisive. The most popular argument against reparations is that general, societal liability does not exist, so citizens today cannot be responsible for something over which they had no control (p.77). Another common criticism of reparations is that Great Society programs, including anti-poverty measures and affirmative action, and contemporary public benefits, such as cash assistance and subsidized housing, are forms of reparations payments (p.82). The author rightly points out that public assistance programs are not race-based; therefore, such programs should not be considered “payment” for past [*795] injustices. Some commentators opposed to black reparations present arguments that run the spectrum from the absurd (despite slavery, blacks are better off in the United States than if they had remained in Africa) (p.82) to the macabre (the Civil War as atonement for slavery) (p.85). Here, Brophy responds to even the most peculiar anti-reparationist arguments judiciously. Although he clearly sympathizes with efforts by black reparationists to find ways to address adequately years of brutalization and inequality, Brophy agrees that reparations payments are likely lead to more divisiveness. Ultimately, the author concedes, “This may be yet another instance in which African Americans will have to be content with not what is just but with the knowledge that they have contributed yet again to the enrichment of American society, though they have not received adequate compensation for their labor” (p.94).

The final section of the book, which Brophy describes as “reparations in practice” and includes discussions of reparations lawsuits and legislative reparations, is the most concise of the volume. Brophy seems most comfortable evaluating case law and legal doctrine. However, by focusing on reparations litigation and other pro-reparations strategies, the section seems out of step with the theme of the book.

In the concluding chapter, Brophy summarizes the volume by identifying four models of reparations, but without a comprehensive discussion of the political and legal feasibility of such proposals, the section reads like a textbook, with numerous rhetorical questions and hypothetical possibilities that are more nebulous than instructive. In fact, in relation to the reparations options he outlines, Brophy instructs the reader as follows: “See which ones, if any, you like – and how much you think they will accomplish” (p.169).

As a technical issue, the book could have benefited from sharper editing. For example, in a discussion of the numerous futile apologies former President Bill Clinton made with respect to the Rwandan genocide that occurred while he was in office, Brophy states that the genocide “left something like a million people dead” – an oddly casual reference given the topic (p.48). Brophy provides a sufficient summary of the debate surrounding reparations for blacks in the United States; however, political scientists and legal historians may find the volume lacking in analytical depth. While the author makes some valuable points, unfortunately, the volume fails to add to the debate.

REFERENCES:

Williams, Linda Faye. 2003. THE CONSTRAINTS OF RACE: LEGACIES OF WHITE SKIN PRIVLEGE IN AMERICA. State College, PA: The Pennsylvania State Press.

NYT: "James Watson Retires After Racial Comments"

Not reparations related but whenever people tell me that African Americans should just get over slavery and decades of post slavery apartheid, I point to stories like this where even now the most eminent scientists are practicing eugenics and racism. We battle this every day of our lives even in the year 2007. I think I'm owed for the bills I have from my therapist dealing with this crap!

James Watson Retires After Racial Comments
NY TIMES
By CORNELIA DEAN
Published: October 25, 2007
James D. Watson, the eminent biologist who ignited an uproar last week with remarks about the intelligence of people of African descent, retired today as chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island and from its board.
In a statement, he noted that, at 79, he is “overdue” to surrender leadership positions at the lab, which he joined as director in 1968 and served as president until 2003. But he said the circumstances of his resignation “are not those which I could ever have anticipated or desired.”
Dr. Watson, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for describing the double-helix structure of DNA, and later headed the American government’s part in the international Human Genome Project, was quoted in The Times of London last week as suggesting that, overall, people of African descent are not as intelligent as people of European descent. In the ensuing uproar, he issued a statement apologizing “unreservedly” for the comments, adding “there is no scientific basis for such a belief.”
But Dr. Watson, who has a reputation for making sometimes incendiary off-the-cuff remarks, did not say he had been misquoted.
Within days, the Cold Spring board had relieved him of the administrative responsibilities of the chancellor’s job. In that position, a spokesman for the laboratory said, he was most involved with educational efforts and fund-raising.
In his statement announcing his resignation, he said he would remain at the laboratory, working particularly on cancer research. “Final victory is within our grasp,” he said. “I wish to be among those at the victory line.”
In the years after he left Harvard to direct the laboratory, Dr. Watson transformed it from a small facility into a world-class institution prominent in research on cancer, plant biology, neuroscience and computational biology, the board said in announcing his retirement. Bruce Stillman, who succeeded him as president, said today that he had created an “unparalleled” research environment at the laboratory.
In his statement, Dr. Watson said the work of the Human Genome Project, an international effort which deciphered the chemical contents of human genes, had opened the door to work on many diseases, particularly illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, ailments he said have afflicted members of his family.
He also referred to his Scots and Irish forebears, saying their lives were guided by faith in reason and social justice, “especially the need for those on top to help care for the less fortunate.”

Here's a link to the London Sunday Times article. Here's another article that highlights other comments he had about dark skinned people. He really should be a ashamed of himself.

NAACP Demands Reparations for 1898 Race Riot

HISTORY IS MADE: DEMAND 1898 RACE RIOT REPARATIONS, SAYS NC NAACP, WEEK OF OCTOBER 18-24, 2007

by CASH MICHAELS
The Wilmington Journal
Originally posted 10/22/2007

The NC General Assembly must enact pending legislation that compensates descendants of black victims from the 1898 Wilmington race massacre for losses suffered historically by their families, and makes reparations to Wilmington’s African-American community, or else the state should prepare to be sued, declares the president of the NC NAACP.

That sentiment was shared by hundreds of delegates and attendees during a national NAACP “Symposium on the 1898 Wilmington Terrorist Attack,” held Oct. 12 as part of the 64th Annual NC NAACP State Convention at the Wilmington Hilton Riverside Hotel.

The symposium, hosted by NC NAACP Pres. Rev. William Barber and the New Hanover County NAACP, featured surviving descendants of 1898 victims; a panel of experts, including three members of the state’s 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission, addressing the reasons why there should be reparations and compensation; and a videotaped address from noted historian Dr. John Hope Franklin, professor emeritus of Duke University, discussing why he feels justice is warranted for the 1898 descendants.

“What are we doing…asking for apologies; offering apologies; seeking apologies?” Dr. Franklin asked rhetorically. “I want us to stop and think about what this has done to a vast number of people who are still crawling on the ground trying to get up. They really need help, and the need for help can be traced right back to the slave period, and the period after slavery [like 1898] which in many ways was worse.”

“We need to make amends for that, “Dr. Franklin added.

Beyond compensation for the descendants, Dr. Franklin said reparations should be given in the form of scholarships, affordable housing, and funding efforts to rebuild the black community.

The symposium was historic, not only because for the first time 12 descendants were brought together to tell how the tragic, racist events of over a century ago, still reverberate in their families today, but because a major commitment was being formulated to do something about it.

There were descendants of wealthy black businessman Thomas A. Miller, who was known for being so industrious, it was said that he loaned money to both blacks and whites, which was rare then.

Miller’s descendants wanted to know, “Where did his money and property go after 1898?”

One of the most prominent descendants was Dr. Levin Manly, Jr., grandson of black publisher Alexander Manly, who was forced to flee for his life from the state after a racist white mob burned his black newspaper, the Daily Record during the 1898 massacre.

Dr. Manly said he and other descendants of those who were victimized then are entitled to due compensation from the state for what was lost, taken or destroyed.

“As far as I am concerned, there is no statute of limitation on the need to compensate the descendants [for] their loss in 1898,” Dr. Manly said during a visit to Wilmington earlier this year. “Stolen from Alex Manly was his most important possession – his dream…and dreams are priceless.”

As the 13-member 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission recounted in its report to the NC General Assembly last year, the Democratic Party of North Carolina in the late 1890s conspired to do away with a coalition “Fusionist” party of blacks and Republicans who ran Wilmington city government, and threatened to keep power.

Blacks in parts of North Carolina at that time were doing well not only in business, but in politics, being elected to both local offices and the Legislature. Black men were able to vote as part of Reconstruction after the Civil War.

Wilmington, the state’s largest city then, was considered a shining example of black power, with numerous businesses and property owners, as well as elected officials in city government. Blacks outnumbered whites, and controlled what went on.

“The overthrow or coup d’ tat took place within the context of an ongoing statewide political campaign based on white supremacy,” the commission’s report, six years in the making, said. “An armed overthrow of the legitimately elected municipal government.”

Powerful elite white racists, including Josephus Daniels, editor of the Raleigh News and Observer at the time, plotted to overthrow Wilmington government, and take the port city back from Black hands.

Other major white newspapers across the state, including the Charlotte Observer and Wilmington Messenger and Morning Star, also fanned the flames of white insurrection and conspiracy against blacks.

On Nov. 10, 1898 after the elections, a white mob of “Red Shirts” fanned out across the city with weapons, murdering untold numbers of black citizens, forcing others to flee for their lives, never to return to their homes and businesses.

“Unknown numbers of Blacks were killed in the conspiracy designed to end black political power and the progressive government in Wilmington and establish white supremacy and a control by a new government,” a summary of the commission report says. “…Blacks lost positions in government, in professional arenas and as skilled artisans. Black businesses and workers suffered economic decline…”

The report adds, “Organizers of the coup instituted a banishment campaign, targeting political opponents, black and white, leading to the expulsion from the city of over twenty targeted individuals and a mass exodus of over 2,100 others. Consequently, the Republican power base in Wilmington was destroyed.”

“One result of the Wilmington diaspora (the departure of African Americans from the Port City, voluntary or otherwise) was a decline in economic opportunity for Black citizens,” the commission’s report notes. ‘Analysis of statistical data indicates that Wilmington’s Black businesses and workers suffered losses after 1898 in terms of job status, income, and access to capital.”

“After 1898, Black-owned businesses suffered economic decline as some businesses closed or moved from the city’s business district to traditionally black neighborhoods.”

Ever since then, Black economic and political power, along with the population in Wilmington and New Hanover County, has steadily eroded.

“[The white mob was] goaded into a riot by the atmosphere that was created …artificially by the white leadership of the state,” said Dr. Franklin via videotape at the NAACP symposium, adding that white supremacists, jealous of the achievements and enterprise of “black manhood” in Wilmington, couldn’t let it continue.

“[The 1898 Wilmington terrorist attack] provided a model and framework for white supremacy across the nation,” Carolyn Coleman, national NAACP Board member, said in prepared remarks.

“What we do here today, and what we do in Wilmington after we leave from here, will show the nation whether we are serious in dealing with our past, and making our present and future better.”

The 1898 commission made 15 recommendations to the General Assembly on how best to repair the damage from 1898, including setting up an authority to promote small black business growth in the area; making sure the story of the 1898 massacre is included in North Carolina public school history curriculums; and including New Hanover County in the current forty NC counties covered by the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Rep. Thomas Wright [D-New Hanover] filed at least a dozen bills last session based on the commission’s recommendations, but only one of them ever reached the floor of both houses, and was ratified.

After it was significantly watered down in the state Senate, the measure, which was signed into law,expressed “profound regret” for the 1898 riot instigated by “political leaders” (as opposed to the original language, “white elite”).

All of the other Wright-sponsored 1898 bills were stalled in House committees, especially after the state Board of Elections found alleged campaign funding violations, and referred Wright’s case to the Wake District Attorney for possible indictments.

NC NAACP Pres. Rev Barber says the General Assembly must revisit those 1898 bills next session, or else face litigation.

Rep. Thomas Wright, who cochaired the 1898 Commission after the man who originally conceived it, Sen. Luther Jordan, passed, related how angry his fellow lawmakers were at him for introducing the legislation.

For instance Wright’s House Bill 1558, the 1898 Wilmington Riot Reconciliation Act of 2007 effectively says if the General Assembly officially acknowledges the unjust impact on the African-American community not only in Wilmington, but throughout North Carolina, then it is compelled to make amends.

“Based on …the findings of the Wilmington Race Riot Commission, the purposes of this act, with respect to victims of the November 10, 1898, Wilmington coup d’etat, are to provide redress for the victims by providing a special statute of limitations, of two years from its enactment, that will allow the estates of persons injured, killed, or that otherwise suffered personal or property losses resulting from the November 10, 1898, Wilmington coup d’etat, to file legal claims.”

That language mirrors the remarks made by the 1898 Commission leadership when their report was issued a year ago.

But the prospect of the state actually being held liable for injustices over a century old clearly frightened many lawmakers.

Rep. Dan Blue (D-Wake), the chair of the House Judiciary II Committee, reportedly confirmed to colleagues that language contained in the pending measures, “…would open the field to lawsuits by the descendants of those who were killed, injured or forced to leave town,” according to one published report.

Both the 1898 descendants and the NCNAACP promise that that will happen unless the General Assembly does more than simply express “profound regret” about the state of North Carolina allowing the massacre to proceed, and people to be killed or chased away.

Inez Campbell-Eason, a descendant of black businessman Isham Quick Sr., talked about the tremendous research she employed to find out more about her great, great grandfather and the assets he left behind.

The fact that the massacre of 1898 took Quick’s legacy from her family, she said, is deeply hurtful.

Mary Alice Thatch, editor of the Wilmington Journal and great granddaughter of Henry Clay McNeill, who eventually left the city, said the impact of 1898 on the black community in and beyond the port city has been devastating and long lasting.

McNeill’s son, William, was forced to leave the city “within 24 hours”.

“As I think about it now, it brings tears to my eyes,” Ms. Thatch, daughter of Wilmington Journal founder, the late Thomas Jervay Sr., said. “I think about what happened on that night, and I visualize how my great uncle answered that door…I’ll be honest with you, it makes me angry.”

The impact of 1898 has also been devastating to black newspapers like The Journal, Ms. Thatch added, which are still struggling to stay alive because adversaries have learned to target the advertising in lieu of tepid community support, instead of burning down the building.

There were other family descendants there as well. All expressed pain upon first learning the truth about what happened during 1898 to African-Americans, and specifically to their ancestors, and what was taken from their families and never returned.

Many of them said despite the civil rights advances for black people since 1898, they feel that the yoke of racial oppression is still present in Wilmington, and they will have to stand up and demand justice for their ancestors and their families.

“We want to do more than say it was bad,” Rev. Barber told the convention audience, “We want to say, “We’re going to take you to court, North Carolina.

Now you have two choices – you can do it through the General Assembly…, or we’re going to build a case.”

Political Event: Obama speaking in Newark TODAY!

Presidential Candidate Barack Obama is speaking in Brick City, NJ TODAY at 4pm. He will be at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC). Tickets are $25.