1951 Murder Case of 2 NAACP Activists Solved

I have posted two articles about this story because it was reported in two different ways. One puts the word "solved" in quotation marks while the other says "Chapter closed." One article barely mentions that the mastermind behind the murder was not pursued or found, just the trigger men, while the other has a more reconcilatory tone to it. Again why did it take over 50 years to solve this murder case. Where was local law enforements duty to close this case even 20 years ago.
Salimah


1951 KKK murder of Florida NAACP activists 'solved'
Party for Socialiam and Liberalism Website
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
By: John Peter Daly

Police and Klan conspired in bombing

On Aug. 16, Florida attorney general Charlie Crist announced that the 1951 murders of civil rights activists Harry T. and Harriette Moore were committed by four Ku Klux Klan members. He also announced that there will be no trial since the four murderers are all deceased.

State and federal officials had known about the four suspects for decades. The murderers were Earl J. Brooklyn,

Tillman H. Bevlin, Joseph N. Cox and Edward L. Spivey. Though Crist said that others may have also been involved, the Florida attorney general’s office is not pursuing any other suspects and the details of each suspect’s role will not be revealed.

The Moore’s home was bombed on Christmas day in 1951, immediately killing Harry T. Moore. Harriette Moore died of injuries nine days later. One of their daughters, who was also in the house, survived the blast. Another daughter was on her way home for the holiday when the bombing happened.

At the time, several suspects emerged during an FBI investigation. None were pursued due to supposedly "insufficient evidence." No one has ever been prosecuted in the case. In 1980, Spivey, a former marine and Ku Klux Klansman told NAACP officials that he and other Klansmen had conspired with law enforcement officials to plan and carry out the assassination of the Moores.

In an interesting use of words, Crist said strong circumstantial evidence pointed to ultra-violent factions within the KKK "as being responsible for this horrible act." Apparently, the attorney general was able to determine that this particular "faction" was more violent than the KKK itself. This is twisted logic at best. The KKK was organized specifically to terrorize, harass and murder African American activists and help violently repress the African American community as a whole.

The KKK is a racist terrorist organization that has long worked hand-in-hand with the police and U.S. government to help enforce unequal treatment for the Black community. The KKK also terrorizes immigrants, the Latino community, LGBT people and others.

The Moores: important civil rights leaders

The announcement of the "solving" of these murders provides an opportunity to acknowledge the work of the Moores and people like them. Described as "quiet leaders" in the Miami Herald, the Moores were courageous fighters who directed their energy at opposing the deeply entrenched racism of the South at the time.

In a 1948 letter to Florida state senator Wayne Morse, Moore wrote: "Those of us who have spent all of our lives in the South know that there is no such thing as ‘separate but equal.’"

In 1934, Harry Moore started the Brevard County NAACP in central Florida. He steadily built it into an activist organization. In 1937, in conjunction with the all-black Florida State Teacher’s Association, and backed by the NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall in New York, Moore filed the first lawsuit in the deep South to equalize Black and white teachers’ salaries. Although the case was eventually lost, it led to a dozen other federal lawsuits in Florida that eventually won equal pay for Black teachers.

When Harry and Harriette were fired from their teaching positions and blacklisted, Harry took on a full time organizing position with the NAACP. He built 63 chapters throughout the state. Under Moore’s leadership, over 116,000 African American voters in Florida became registered—31 percent of those eligible and 51 percent higher than any other southern state.

The Moores targeted the brutal aspects of African American oppression at the time: lynchings, police brutality, and the entire apartheid political system in the South. From the early 1940s until his death, Harry T. Moore launched investigations into every Florida lynching.

In July 1949, four African American men were accused of raping a white woman. It was nationally known as the Groveland rape case. A racist riot ensued after the accusation, in which racist vigilantes shot into and burned down African American homes.

Harry Moore uncovered evidence that the Groveland defendants had been brutally beaten by the notoriously racist sheriff Willis McCall of Lake County. When two of the convictions were overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1951, Sheriff McCall shot the two defendants, killing one, while transporting them to a pre-trial hearing. Moore called for McCall’s immediate indictment for murder.

Harry T. and Harriette Moore were true anti-terrorist fighters. To pay real homage to the Moores, full reparations for the crimes of the government, the banks, and the corporations who promote and profit from KKK terrorism against the African American community are necessary.


Chapter closed in Moore case:
Suspects in civil rights slayings would be eligible for indictment if alive today, Crist says

BY BILLY COX
FLORIDA TODAY

Nearly 55 years after her parents were assassinated for attempting to register African-American voters, surviving daughter Evangeline Moore returned to the shade of an oak tree near her obliterated homestead Wednesday afternoon.

She declared, "I'm very satisfied this chapter in my life is closed."

Moments after Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist announced the unsurprising results of a 20-month investigation into the murders of educators Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore, their 76-year-old daughter was confident the killers were experiencing justice on another plane of existence.

"God has taken care of them," Moore said as a trumpet played "Taps" after the press conference, "and they are resting in hell."

The investigation named as suspects Apopka Ku Klux Klan members Joe Cox, Earl Brooklyn, Tillman Belvin and Edward Spivey.

The names have been known to investigators since the FBI began an inquiry immediately after the late-evening Christmas Day house bombing in 1951.

Though never convicted, they seemed cursed. Within a year of the murders, Brooklyn and Belvin were dead from natural causes and Cox had committed suicide. Cancer claimed Spivey in 1980.

"There may have been others," said Crist, whose Office of Civil Rights had posted a $25,000 reward for new information, "but too much evidence has been lost."

The latest investigation -- launched in 2004 after a request from Brevard County NAACP leaders -- was conducted with the assistance of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Brevard County Sheriff's Office and the FBI.

Although the investigators were unable to uncover fresh leads or even to identify the type of bomb that destroyed the Moores' home, FDLE Commissioner Gerald Bailey said he was "confident that, if (the Klansmen) were alive today, we'd be able to send (the case) to a grand jury."

Confessions revisited

FDLE agent Dennis Norred said his office followed some tantalizing threads. Spivey, who fingered his dead KKK colleagues during the final stages of cancer, was initially discounted. But in retrospect, Norred said, the information Spivey disclosed was so detailed it could only have been known by "a person who had to be there."

Especially compelling was Belvin's suspicious cash transaction four days before the Dec. 25 bombing. He paid off the balance of his house mortgage a year before it was due. Spivey claimed Belvin had been rewarded by an advance payoff, but investigators could not identify the source of the money.

Ben Green, a Florida State University professor whose groundbreaking biography, "Before His Time: The Untold Story of Harry T. Moore, America's First Civil Rights Martyr," introduced national audiences to Moore's quiet heroics in 1999, reviewed the Attorney General's report and found little new information.

"I was disappointed the tipsters didn't come up with more than this," Green said from Tallahassee. "The big unanswered question is, 'Who put these guys up to it?' The investigators did a great job, and they interviewed tons more people than I did. But this certainly isn't the end of the story."

Final chapter

The long ordeal, however, is over for Evangeline Moore, whose parents were fired from the Brevard County school system in 1946 for lobbying for equitable pay among black and white teachers. Although she read Green's book and knew the suspects' names, she said the government investigation seals the lid on her doubts.

"I'm glad they dug deep and deeper and they found the evidence," she said.

The press conference was held outside the Moore Cultural Center in the citrus groves that once belonged to the founder of the Brevard County Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The investigation has also closed the books for 99-year-old Cocoa resident Rosa Jones, a long retired teacher who knew the Moores well.

"I was with (Harry Moore) when he made plans to fight for equal pay for teachers in the state of Florida," Jones said from her wheelchair. "We still have to keep fighting for and moving toward justice, because that's what it's all about."

Relationships

Central Brevard NAACP president Alberta Wilson echoed Jones, calling the event "an historic moment for Brevard County" with the potential to "build better race relations."

At the Family Meat Market several miles north in sleepy, downtown Mims, 22-year-old New York transplant Melissa Fermin had never heard of the Moores. She said that taking 55 years to wrap up a murder investigation "is unbelievable."

Albert Gutierrez, 25, also taking a mid-afternoon break, doubted that the historic significance of the investigation would cause change.

"This racist stuff is still going on today, it's just more under wraps. And it's not just here," the Dominican Republic native said. "Where I'm from the whites hate the blacks and the blacks hate the whites. It's sad. It's messed up."

Hurricane Katrina and Reparations

Many are saying that the effects and response to hurricane Katrina highlights the racial inequality that still continues to exist in the United States today. As a result, calls for reparations for past wrongdoings from slavery and Jim Crow have been renewed. Katrina was like a wake up call to some African Americans; a repressed memory resurfacing or a recurring nightmare that you wished you would never dream again. Katrina showed that this country still views African Americans as somehow less deserving than others; we are still treated like second-class citizens. I hate to sound pessimistic but why do we think the response to Katrina would have been any different? Have we not learned from the days in which African Americans were first freed as people, when this government after saying “you are free” turned its back on us. Callie House, one of the first activists of the reparations movement, in 1890s saw this first hand. She was troubled by the state in which former slaves were living in and sought to petition the US government to provide assistance to these people. She took upon herself to demand some monies from the government (monies, by the way, which came from the spoils of the Civil War) so that these freed slaves, broken and sometimes physically crippled by their enslavement and subsequently freed lives to live off of. Read Mary Frances Berry’s book, “My Face is Black is True” to learn more about Callie House’s struggle. But when African Americans were most desperate and most vulnerable, the nation that fought for their freedom, abandoned them. Why would our government be any different today when it still does not recognize the possibility that this country owes a debt to African Americans?

Worcester Telegram and Gazette: Slavery reparation debate rages

Aug 21, 2006

Slavery reparation debate rages

Leaders wonder how best to compensate blacks

By Bronislaus B. Kush TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
bkush@telegram.com

The national Episcopal Church’s apology this summer for its role in slavery has reignited debate about whether black Americans should be compensated for the injustices inflicted upon their ancestors.

“I think it’s a good idea, if the money can be used for things like getting kids some jobs or training,” said Diane Thomas, a 27-year-old black woman who lives in Worcester.

The decision by the church has prompted an earnest discussion about how practical the idea is and whether there’s finally enough political will to move the proposal forward.


The discourse hasn’t been limited to religious people, academics or to residents of the South where the trade flourished.

In the Bay State, for example, the reparations issue has been brought up in local churches of various denominations and school officials said it’s expected to be revisited as students return to college classrooms this fall. The Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts, which encompasses the Worcester area, may even discuss the matter further at its annual convention in Springfield in October.

Slavery became part of American history when Dutch traders brought 20 captive Africans to the Jamestown colony in 1619.

Though it wasn’t prevalent, slavery did gain a significant foothold in New England during the Colonial and Revolutionary War eras.

The reparations issue first surfaced nationally almost immediately after the Civil War, with advocates believing that compensation would help obliterate the stain that the slave trade had placed on American history.

For example, Union Gen. William Sherman proposed in 1865 that former slaves be given a mule apiece along with 40 acres of land on the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina.

That plan never got anywhere but the matter was periodically revisited and was a cause of civil rights activists in the 1960s.

The subject garnered recent interest when the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, in June, passed a number of resolutions dealing with the issue, including an acknowledgement that the church participated in “this sin.”

“It is an issue that has drawn attention” said William H. Coyne, the archdeacon of the Diocese of Western Massachusetts, who attended the General Convention.

Delegates in June voted to apologize for the church’s complicity but stopped short of calling for compensation from the church.

Rather, the convention directed local dioceses to document cases of the church’s participation and directed the Committee on Anti-Racism to study and report to the executive committee by March 31, 2008, on how the church can be “the repairer of the breach, both materially and relationally, and achieve the healing and reconciliation that will lead us to a new life in Christ.”

Many members of the Episcopal Church have been eager to compensate blacks because some bishops owned slaves.

The issue of compensation has also been posed in Congress.

U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., a Democrat from Michigan, introduced a bill in 1989 that would establish a commission to study the economic and social impact of slavery and to make appropriate remedies “to redress the harm inflicted on living African Americans.”

A spokeswoman said Mr. Conyers, the dean of the Congressional Black Caucus, has pledged to keep refiling the bill until it is passed.

According to his office, at least four million Africans and their descendants were enslaved from 1619 to 1865.

Proposal opponents, some of them black, argue it doesn’t make sense to compensate people generations after a historical wrong.

There are also questions as to how the compensation may be made.

For example, should blacks be individually given a one-time payment or should the compensation be made in the form of funding for more educational and social service programming?

James Bonds Jr., president of the Business Inclusion Council and chairman of the board of directors of the Greater YMCA of Worcester, said he believes reparations could translate into job training and education for young blacks.

“I think blacks deserve it (compensation),” said Mr. Bonds, who also serves on the executive committee of Worcester Interfaith. “We have been in this country from day one and have never received our just due. Although we keep fighting for our fair share, we keep coming in last.”

Mable L. Millner, assistant dean of students and director of the multicultural education program at the College of the Holy Cross, said the issue of compensation is a complex one that needs deep consideration, if it is pursued.

“The issue, on the surface, may sound good but you have to make sure that the reparations properly trickle down through the bureaucracy and get to the people who really need them,” said Ms. Millner, who also sits on Worcester’s Human Rights Commission.

She warned that the reparations shouldn’t be offered in a one-shot deal.

For example, if the reparations come in the form of scholarships, Ms. Millner said that eligible students shouldn’t just receive one year’s worth of financial aid.

“You don’t want to see a repeat of what happened with the Hurricane Katrina victims, who weren’t provided with follow-up support,” she explained.

Most blacks, however, feel the reparations issue will never be resolved, given the politics.

Tell everyone what you think

EVENT: DEMAND Reparations March an Conference is Weekend

There will be a march and conference this Friday and Saturday in Jacksonville, MS. It is being hosted by Imari A. Obadele, renown Black nationalist activist, founder of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA), and professor or Political Science at prairie View A & M University. Here's some information from his posting on NCOBRA listserv:


EVENT: DEMAND MARCH and Conference

WHERE: Jackson, Mississippi

WHEN: Friday evening 18 August 2006, and Saturday (beginning with a morning March) and concluding with an Afternoon-Evening Conference on Saturday, 19 August 2006.

TRANSPORTATION AND LODGING: Some transportation is being organized in Detroit, Philadelphia, Baton Rouge and elsewhere.

Holiday Motel
(601) 355-5677
1740 Highway 80 W
Jackson, MS 39204

or
Regency Inn
(601) 354-4931
1714 Highway 80 W
Jackson, MS 39204

CONTACT: Dr. Charles Holmes at Tougaloo (601 977-6141)
PG-RNA Residence phone 601 352-0702

SCHEDULE (from Obadele's recent posting):

"Brother Oscar and Colleagues, our Black Grassroots Political Movement is planning a reception for Friday night, 18 August 2006, honoring all who arrive Friday and especially Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, Atty. Faya Toure' (aka Rose Sanders), and Atty. Chokwe Lumumba. Time is 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM. We will advise of the site by Tuesday. The DEMAND March assembles on Saturday morning, 19th August, in front of the Masonic Temple on Lynch Street, just down from Jackson State University. After a rally, our line will proceed through an area including the historic Lewis Street, and - about 11 AM - arrive at St. Luther Baptist Church, 1040 Banks Street. The CONFERENCE will be held here. The organizers have planned an opening session which will contain four, sequential "DEMAND" subjects, presented as General Assemblies guided by short presentations by leaders and permitting dialogue between the leaders and those in the general assemblies. Next there will be four caucuses, where people will bring their minds and thoughts to explore the problems before us AND to shape the DEMANDS to go to individuals AND public officials, clergy, and organizations. Plans will be layed for a national people's convention in October."

I will get more details as they come forth.
Salimah

Brown University Report on Ties to Slavery Due out this Fall

The President of Brown, Ruth Simmons, an African American is doing a great job at the University. It is very encouraging that the University in continuing to move forward with its investigation in Brown's past and connection to slavery. It looks like the final report will be out this Fall.

July 17, 2006
Report on Brown U.'s Ties to Slavery Expected This Fall

By ALISON NGUYEN, Brown Daily Herald
(U-WIRE) PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice is scheduled to release its final report this fall, according to James Campbell, chair of the committee and associate professor of Africana studies. The report will come nearly three years after the committee's creation generated a wave of national media coverage for Brown, immersing the University in the politically charged and volatile national dialogue over slavery reparations.
Though media attention in 2004 focused largely on the possibility of monetary reparations, Simmons clarified in an April 2004 Boston Globe editorial that "the Committee's work is not about whether or how we should pay reparations." Instead, the committee's goal is largely to understand the University's own historical ties to slavery, said Professor of History Omer Bartov, a member of the committee.

"How can one, in retrospect, find some ways of restitution? How does one come to terms with such a past?" said Bartov, whose academic research has focused on genocide and human rights crimes. "We wanted to place that within the context of higher education, within American history (and) within the context, more generally, of different types of slavery and other crimes against humanity."

In part an exploration of how institutions can approach complex historical issues and evaluate their meaning for the present, the committee is expected to include a series of recommendations for action along with its historical research into Brown's ties to the slave trade.

"I think a lot of people are looking to Brown," said Alfred Brophy, a law professor at the University of Alabama and author of the book "Reparations Pro and Con."

"What happens at the University will set the model," he said. "One of Brown's contributions to the country will be setting a framework for how we discuss (reparations nationally)."

Before Brown: a movement gains ground

Simmons' charge to the committee and its formation three years ago came on the heels of a series of lawsuits that brought questions about reparations into the American public consciousness.

In 2002, slave descendants filed nine lawsuits seeking reparations from FleetBoston, Aetna, JP Morgan Chase and other companies in New York and New Jersey. The legal rulings went against the plaintiffs but brought national attention to the issue of slavery reparations, at least in a monetary form.

Prior to these lawsuits, the movement for reparations had been brewing for nearly two decades. In 1987, the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America was formed to bring together organizations -- including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Bar Association, several local and state legislative bodies and various academic groups and sororities -- in support of reparations for slavery.

In 2000, author Randall Robinson's bestselling book "The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks" argued in favor of reparations, further raising the movement's profile and noting in particular that some Ivy League schools, including Brown, had directly benefited financially from the slave trade.

In 2001, the reparations movement surfaced on Brown's campus when conservative commentator David Horowitz placed an advertisement in several college newspapers, including The Herald, opposing reparations. The ad sparked intense controversy on campus, and several students and faculty members called the ad racist and demanded that The Herald make a public apology for printing it.

On a legislative level, the Chicago City Council passed the Slavery Era Disclosure Ordinance in 2002, requiring all firms interested in contracts with the city to investigate and reveal any potential ties to slavery.

U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., continues to propose a federal study of slavery, racial discrimination and "appropriate remedies" in House of Representatives Bill 49, which he has introduced annually since 1989. The bill has failed to leave the House Judiciary Committee each year.

More than money: The discussion today

While many of these high-profile efforts for reparations support -- and even focus on -- monetary reparations, the current dialogue on the issue extends beyond disparities of income or educational opportunity in the black community to broader cultural and historical questions.

What continuing debt or obligation exists? Moreover, how does one institution -- and how does a nation -- come to terms with historical links to slavery?

"The solutions can't simply be to urge people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps," said committee member Neta Crawford, adjunct research professor at the Watson Institute for International Studies.

Implicit in advocacy for reparations is a link between slavery and the current condition of the black community, Crawford said.

"Reparations advocates are showing a chain from the original crime and condition of slavery through conditions of legal segregation and de facto segregation," she said. "Such a chain suggests that the problems that black people face today are not simply of their own making, but are structural."

Still, many involved in the reparations discussion suggest the common public misconception that the term "reparations" stands for financial payments are out of sync with current thinking on the issue.

"I think the reparations movement is going away very rapidly from individual payments," Brophy said. "It's focusing on cultural issues. How do we remember or not remember the connection of great institutions -- Brown, Harvard, Yale, the University of Alabama -- as well as corporations, to slavery?"

Eric Miller, assistant professor of law at Saint Louis University School of Law, said the movement for reparations represents the "quintessential American virtue of self-reliance," as Americans demand an investigation and some form of restoration.

Miller, Campbell and Brophy all view this shift to a broader cultural outlook as a significant development in the national reparations movement.

Campbell said the committee's own approach to the issue -- which has included events on the sex slave trade, South African apartheid, genocide in Darfur and the Native American experience in Southeastern New England -- demonstrates this breadth of historical and cultural perspective.

"If you look at the programs that we've sponsored over the last couple years, it's pretty clear that there are lots of different ways of thinking about repair beyond simply the narrow question of monetary reparations," Campbell said.

The criticism: All talk, no action?

As an in-depth inquiry into a university's history, Brown's committee has largely been hailed as a success by academics and historians such as Brophy. It has reached beyond the Van Wickle Gates and engaged other communities in its research and efforts to spur dialogue. Yet among those involved in the national movement for reparations, the actions of academic institutions like Brown have received some criticism.

Abjoa Aiyetoro, co-president of N'COBRA's legal defense research and education fund and co-chair of its reparations coordinating committee, said universities' attention has narrowed the scope of reparations dialogue.

"Some people have the tendency to assume the movement is a lawyer-led or university-led movement, when the movement is broader than that," she said.

"My concern is: will the slavery and justice committee do something?" Aiyetoro said. She added she hopes the committee will not end as merely a "feel-good process" for Brown.

"Will there be a scholarship fund?" she said. "Will there be grant money available for African-American descendant study? What will be made available concretely as a reparative package?"

After the report: Only the beginning

Though the contents of the final report are uncertain, one element it is not likely to include is a tidy resolution.

Campbell said -- and has repeatedly emphasized -- that the purpose of the committee is to open up a forum to stimulate discussion among students, scholars, community members and policy makers on the historical, cultural and political implications of slavery.

In this way, he said, the committee hopes to make the reparations debate "more informed, richer, more civil."

"This two-year exercise isn't intended to be the last word on the subject," Campbell said. "What we're trying to do is to facilitate a conversation that we hope will continue both on our campus and in the nation long after the committee has folded up its tent."

He added, "This is kind of a beginning."

Corporations Shy Away From Donating to New Slavery Museum

An interesting article from Business Week Online. It is indicative of this country's overall feeling about it's past and slavery. Way to go Wal-Mart, Philip Morris, and Wachovia Bank making worthy donations to the museum.

A Cause That Scares Business
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_33/b3997082.htm
The ugliness recalled by a National Slavery Museum gives corporate donors the jitters


The idea first came to then-Virginia Governor L. Douglas Wilder in 1992 as he stood before the Door of No Return on Gorée Island, off the coast of Senegal, from which countless Africans were sent in shackles for enslavement in America. A year later, during a conference in Gabon, Wilder publicly disclosed his private obsession: creating a national museum of slavery. For the past 13 years he has been trying to transform his $200 million dream into a concrete-and-glass reality.

He has a long way to go. Wilder, the 75-year-old grandson of slaves and now the mayor of Richmond, the former Confederate capital, has the backing of such entertainment figures as Bill Cosby and Ben Vereen, who played Chicken George in the TV miniseries Roots, and eminent historians such as John Hope Franklin of Duke University. But to start a museum it's almost mandatory to have corporate money, and Wilder has discovered that many companies aren't eager to give to a cause tied to the country's most enduring sin.

"TOO SENSITIVE"
Museum officials say they have received $50 million in pledges or contributions from corporations and individuals, topped by Cosby's $1 million gift last year. Business benefactors include Wal-Mart (WMT ), Wachovia Bank (WB ), Dominion Power, and Philip Morris (MO ). But others have hesitated to touch the topic. "They say: 'It's too sensitive. You're just trying to pull scabs off of old wounds,"' Wilder recounts.

Two hours north of Richmond, the government-supported Smithsonian Institution is planning a National Museum of African American History & Culture. That project, to be located in Washington, will have a much broader focus. Its advisory board includes business powerhouses such as Oprah Winfrey, Time Warner (TWX ) CEO Richard D. Parsons, Black Entertainment Television (VIA ) founder Robert L. Johnson, and American Express (AXP ) CEO Kenneth I. Chennault. Wilder's slavery museum has no prominent CEOs on its board. (He says he hopes to make inroads in coming months.) After years of effort to find a location and delays in fund-raising, Wilder concedes that he won't meet his original target of a 2007 opening.

Fund-raising veterans say Wilder has a tough sell. Slavery "is an issue that sometimes people don't want to think about because it reminds them of how ugly life can be," says Adam Goozh, CEO of CreateHope, a firm that advises companies on charitable giving but has no role in Wilder's campaign. More generally, corporate belt-tightening and the large amount of charity directed to victims of Hurricane Katrina last year have made fund-raising more competitive.

Plans for the proposed slavery museum call for a 290,000-square-foot structure overlooking the Rappahannock River in Fredericksburg, Va., halfway between Richmond and Washington and near four famous Civil War battlefields. The museum's design, by New York architect C.C. Pei, son of the legendary architect I.M. Pei, includes 10 permanent galleries, two libraries, several classrooms, a lecture hall, and a 450-seat theater. Its visual centerpiece is to be a full-size replica of the Portuguese slave ship Dos Amigos, reaching nearly 100 feet off the ground, which will be visible through a wall of glass to drivers cruising on nearby I-95.

Museum officials say $100 million is needed for building to begin, and they are seeking another $100 million to furnish the facility, create an endowment, and cover annual operating costs, estimated at $2.8 million to $3.5 million.

But the fund-raising requires a delicate pitch. Wilder argues that many businesses in the South and North alike benefited financially from the slave trade, including tobacco, cotton, textiles, banking, insurance, and shipping. "When you look at the totality of the picture, the purpose of slavery was money and commerce and trade," he says. "Slavery was about the subjugation of the human spirit, but it comes down to economics."

NO GUILT BUTTON
Wilder is looking for corporate cash to illuminate that past. Cosby says the museum should deliver a blunt message to business: "Slaves have never been repaid for the work they performed to make this country rich." But pushing the guilt button too hard can backfire, and Wilder is quick to point out that "it's not about reparation. It's about education."

Companies such as Philip Morris and Wachovia, which have acknowledged that their corporate predecessors had ties to slavery, are among those that have pledged to help. The museum will have "a lasting and measurable impact," says Frank Addison, Wachovia's director for philanthropy. "It doesn't hurt that it will bring jobs and development to that area," he adds. Wachovia, the leading bank in the Virginia-Washington corridor in terms of deposits, has pledged to make a "substantial donation" but has not specified the amount. Sources with knowledge of the situation say they expect it to be at least $100,000.

Wilder hopes to persuade leading African American CEOs such as Time Warner's Parsons to help. But Parsons, a board colleague of Wilder's at predominantly black Howard University in Washington, so far hasn't agreed. "I told him: 'Dick, [museum fund-raisers] will be calling on you, but I'm coming [for you],"' Wilder says. "And he laughed." A Time Warner spokesperson declined to comment and said Parsons was unavailable.

It took years for Wilder to settle on a location for the museum. After attempts to place it in Jamestown and Richmond fizzled because of land costs or civic indifference, he was approached by developer Larry Silver, who donated land for the museum near a new project he bills as "North America's largest retail resort."

Wilder's effort has come a long way from that day in Senegal. The museum's staff of 12 has collected more than 5,000 artifacts related to slavery and has launched a Web site.

A June gala at Washington's Warner Theatre attracted 1,400 people, who paid $100 to $300 to see a show headlined by Vereen and Cosby. Museum officials say they will target athletes, entertainers, and churches -- as well as businesses -- in coming months. "Governor Wilder can get done what he puts his mind to," says Silver, the developer who donated the land.

Wilder seems undaunted, in part because of how personal this cause is. He wants the attention not only of big corporations and white Americans but also of blacks, who may not have looked dead on at the history of slavery. As a young boy in Richmond, Wilder recalls, "my father didn't want to talk about it, even though his parents were slaves. My mother had to force him to talk about it.... And he would bite down on his pipe, clench it, and almost snap it in two. And he would tell a little, and I would ask for more, and he would say: 'I got to go now."'


By Richard S. Dunham

102 Firms Sued Over Non-Compliance of the Slavery Disclosure Ordinance

Activist sues 102 firms on slavery disclosure


By Michael Higgins
Chicago Tribune staff reporter

August 2, 2006

A local activist has filed a whistle-blower lawsuit against 102 businesses and other entities, alleging they violated a 2002 city ordinance requiring companies that apply for city contracts to reveal whether they profited from slavery.

Bob Brown, a former Black Panther, filed the 560-page lawsuit in May in Cook County Circuit Court, but it had been kept under seal while city officials decided whether to join the suit.

City officials declined last month, and Cook County Judge Rita Novak unsealed the lawsuit.

Brown alleges that entities ranging from the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago to United Airlines to Chicago's "sister cities" such as Toronto and Paris have violated the ordinance at least 549 times on billions of dollars of contracts since 2003.

Brown charges that many of the defendants failed to acknowledge historical ties to slavery by related or predecessor organizations.

The lawsuit alleges, for example, that the archdiocese should have reported the role of Florida church officials in slavery in the 1500s and 1600s.

Archdiocese officials have not yet been served with the lawsuit and could not comment, spokeswoman Susan Burritt said.

The lawsuit does not specify the total damages sought, but it says defendants should pay $10,000 for each false claim and $1,000 for each false statement of fact that is proven at trial, as well as other damages.

Ald. Dorothy Tillman (3rd) led the push for the Slavery Era Disclosure Ordinance in 2002. The ordinance was the first of its kind in the nation.

City officials "certainly know about the violations," Brown said . "Why have a law if you're unwilling to apply it?"

Law Department spokeswoman Jennifer Hoyle would not comment on why the city declined to join Brown's lawsuit. "He's entitled to proceed with the case on his own," Hoyle said.

In 2004, Brown filed a federal class-action lawsuit seeking reparations for slavery. That suit named 71 defendants, including President Bush and the pope. He later withdrew the suit.

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mjhiggins@...
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

Spain Okays Reparations for Civil War Victims

BY MAR ROMAN, Associated Press Writer
Sat Jul 29, 7:06 AM ET

The Spanish government has approved a divisive bill allowing reparations for victims of the Spanish Civil War and the ensuing dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco, one of the darkest chapters of Spain's modern history.

The bill also bans symbols and references to the 1939-1975 Franco regime in public buildings and asks local governments to rename streets or plazas that are named after the former dictator or allude to his regime.

"This bill is going to help heal without reopening old wounds," Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said Friday. She expressed hope it would allow Spain "to close with honor a tragic chapter of our history."

The legislation, prepared by an ad hoc government commission, is expected to gain the majority approval required in Parliament. It was uncertain whether it would go before lawmakers by the end of the year.

Conservatives have opposed the idea of reparations, saying it goes against the reconciliatory spirit of the country's democratic transition. After Franco's death in 1975, Spaniards adopted what has been called a pact of silence to not focus on unhealed wounds, preferring instead to work toward rebuilding a shattered nation.

"Revising history is a great mistake," said Popular Party leader Mariano Rajoy. "Spain has to look at the future and resolve the problems that people are really interested in. The vast majority of Spaniards don't want to talk about the civil war or Franco."

Some leftist parties and victims associations argue the bill does not go far enough, saying it lacks a condemnation of the Franco regime and measures such as the annulment of summary trials during the dictatorship.

Under the legislation, all victims of the civil war launched by Franco's revolt against the republican government and his dictatorship — including exiles, former prisoners and relatives of those executed — would have a year to claim reparations.

The bill urges local authorities to help relatives exhume loved ones who were buried in mass graves, and calls for the organization of government archives on the period to improve access to documents scattered around the country.

It also prohibits political events at the Valley of the Fallen, a colossal monument outside Madrid that includes Franco's tomb and is the most potent symbol of his regime.

Both sides in the 1936-39 civil war committed atrocities, including executions of civilians. The war pitted soldiers loyal to an elected Socialist government against troops who backed Franco in his military uprising that ultimately prevailed

NYC Councilman Charles Barron, Running for Congress

Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn), a New York City Council Member and supporter of African American reparations, is running for the House of Representatives this September. He has been a Council Member for 4 years and has 35 years of activism both on the local and national level. Check out his congressional campaign website. I interviewed him on reparations (I will post the transcript soon). He is a leader in the reparations movement for the New York City area. He has sponsored slavery era disclosure legislation, similar to the one in Chicago and Los Angeles, and has supported several reparations resolutions. He will be on the September 12th ballot running for the 10th Congressional District of New York

Council Member Constituent Page
Legislation related to Reparations and African American Heritage

Int 0300-2004
Information regarding city contractors ("re: slave trade, etc.").
Description: A Local Law to amend the administrative code of the city of New York, in relation to information regarding city contractors


Res 0337-2002
Establishing a New York State commission to quantify the debt owed to people of African descent (A.9286-B)
Description: Resolution calling upon the State Legislature to enact Assembly Bill A9286-B, establishing a New York State commission to quantify the debt owed to people of African descent and permitting certain claims and making an appropriation therefor.


Res 0219-2002
Reparations to African-American Decendants, Hearing Description: Resolution calling upon the Congress of the United States to hold fact-finding hearings to establish and define the bases and justifications for the government of the United States to pay reparations to African-American descendants of African ancestors who were held in slavery in this country, and its original colonies, between 1619 and 1865.


Res 0217-2002
Establish a Commission on Queen Mother Moore Reparations
Description: Resolution urging the establishment of a Commission on Queen Mother Moore Reparations for Descendants of Africans of New York City.