Slavery Reparations for African Americans Issue Re-emerges on the National Scene What had been a relatively obscure debate sprang into the nation's consciousness, as conservative commentator David Horowitz was thwarted in his efforts to place an anti-reparations ad in a number of the nation's top college newspapers. (The ad was entitled "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea -- and Racist Too.") Twenty-seven of 52 of the papers rejected the ad - some called it racist - and on one campus, students effectively stopped the debate by snatching all the newspapers containing the ad. Meanwhile hundreds of blacks rallied in front of the Capitol on August 17th to demand slavery reparations, saying that compensation is long overdue for the ills of that institution. This included announcements that legislation would be introduced in congress to study the issue and make recommendations on what to do about it. Should the US government pay the descendants of slaves? If so, how much? Below are some Pro & Con statements about Slavery reparations for African Americans: It's one of those issues both sides (the one that favors it and the one that opposes it), feel very strongly about. More remarkably, both sides can offer some very persuasive arguments as to why African Americans should, or should not, be compensated for slavery. PRO: Japanese Americans were paid for having been held in detention camps during WWII. Jewish Holocaust victims have been, and continue to be paid, for the crimes committed against them by the Nazis. Why shouldn't African Americans be compensated for slavery? CON: The only Japanese Americans and Jews who are being paid are those who were victims themselves. No African American alive today was ever a slave. PRO: The fact is, museums all over the world are making an effort to return art works stolen by the Nazis to their rightful owners or, if the owners are dead, to the former owners' presumptive heirs. CON: Legally, we have a long tradition of returning stolen property to either their rightful owners or to the owners' estates. To make people pay for injustices committed by their ancestors, centuries before, against someone else's ancestors, is something that's never been done. PRO: Beginning in the 1980s, the American and Canadian governments started paying Eskimos and Native Americans for the wrongs done to their ancestors by the ancestors of white Americans. Whether people like it or not, we do have a history of reparations. CON: Those payments were not reparations in the sense of slavery reparations. They were "making good" on broken treaties (and broken promises) between several Indian nations and the two governments in question. The United States didn't even exist until 1776, and slavery had already been going on in America for over 100 years before that date. And shouldn't the descendants of the abolitionists and the operators of the underground railroad receive money from this reparation fund? At the very least, shouldn't they be excluded from paying for it? And what about Blacks that owned slaves? Should their descendants not get reparations? PRO: After the Civil War ended, General Sherman promised "forty acres and a mule" to each freed slave. Just before the ex-slaves began to receive their promised compensation, President Andrew Johnson put a stop to the program. Don't those forty acres count as a broken promise, and shouldn't the ex-slaves' descendants be paid the value of said broken promise-with interest? Following the abolition of slavery in the United States in 1865, some four million African slaves were released from bondage. They were given no money or land to compensate them for their years of servitude. These former slaves also faced white populations who refused to follow laws established by the federal government, giving blacks full U.S. citizenship. CON: Blacks currently living in the United States live lives far better than the peoples of African itself. The Average African in Africa probably earns less than $1000 a year, has no plumbing and a much lower life expectancy then Blacks living in the U.S. Blacks in the US average $20,000 a year, live longer than most people in the world and have access to all the modern conveniences, from plumbing to cable TV. Unfortunately we're already starting to see the effect of the reparations debate on race relations. So far, this discussion has done little to further race relations in America, but rather, it has hurt them. Instead of enlightening white America to the horrible history of slavery, the reparations proposal offends many non-black Americans - coming across as a selfish and greedy slap in the face, rather than a serious civil rights proposal. In addition, a lot of Americans feel they've already made good on the country's slave-owning past - be it through the passage of civil rights legislation, adoption of affirmative action programs, and even through the lives of their loved ones lost during the Civil War (on whichever side). Horowitz hasn't done much to aid the race debate either. His ad, while containing some valid points, also includes such canards as the idea that slavery benefited blacks, that welfare is repayment for slavery (suggesting that it exclusively benefits blacks), and that blacks themselves were slaveowners (which they may have been, but that doesn't exonerate the sin, or harm, of slavery). That ad, like the reparations proposal itself, is doing nothing to win friends across the racial divide that is America. Only time will tell how the reparations issue will be settled (if at all.) So much time has passed, and the sides art so far apart on the issue, that it seems unlikely that either side will be able to work out a settlement in Congress. For that is where this issue will ultimately have to be settled. hat had been a relatively obscure debate sprang into the nation's consciousness, as conservative commentator David Horowitz was thwarted in his efforts to place an anti-reparations ad in a number of the nation's top college newspapers. (The ad was entitled "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea -- and Racist Too.") Twenty-seven of 52 of the papers rejected the ad - some called it racist - and on one campus, students effectively stopped the debate by snatching all the newspapers containing the ad. Meanwhile hundreds of blacks rallied in front of the Capitol on August 17th to demand slavery reparations, saying that compensation is long overdue for the ills of that institution. This included announcements that legislation would be introduced in congress to study the issue and make recommendations on what to do about it. Should the US government pay the descendants of slaves? If so, how much? Below are some Pro & Con statements about Slavery reparations for African Americans: It's one of those issues both sides (the one that favors it and the one that opposes it), feel very strongly about. More remarkably, both sides can offer some very persuasive arguments as to why African Americans should, or should not, be compensated for slavery. PRO: Japanese Americans were paid for having been held in detention camps during WWII. Jewish Holocaust victims have been, and continue to be paid, for the crimes committed against them by the Nazis. Why shouldn't African Americans be compensated for slavery? CON: The only Japanese Americans and Jews who are being paid are those who were victims themselves. No African American alive today was ever a slave. PRO: The fact is, museums all over the world are making an effort to return art works stolen by the Nazis to their rightful owners or, if the owners are dead, to the former owners' presumptive heirs. CON: Legally, we have a long tradition of returning stolen property to either their rightful owners or to the owners' estates. To make people pay for injustices committed by their ancestors, centuries before, against someone else's ancestors, is something that's never been done. PRO: Beginning in the 1980s, the American and Canadian governments started paying Eskimos and Native Americans for the wrongs done to their ancestors by the ancestors of white Americans. Whether people like it or not, we do have a history of reparations. CON: Those payments were not reparations in the sense of slavery reparations. They were "making good" on broken treaties (and broken promises) between several Indian nations and the two governments in question. The United States didn't even exist until 1776, and slavery had already been going on in America for over 100 years before that date. And shouldn't the descendants of the abolitionists and the operators of the underground railroad receive money from this reparation fund? At the very least, shouldn't they be excluded from paying for it? And what about Blacks that owned slaves? Should their descendants not get reparations? PRO: After the Civil War ended, General Sherman promised "forty acres and a mule" to each freed slave. Just before the ex-slaves began to receive their promised compensation, President Andrew Johnson put a stop to the program. Don't those forty acres count as a broken promise, and shouldn't the ex-slaves' descendants be paid the value of said broken promise-with interest? Following the abolition of slavery in the United States in 1865, some four million African slaves were released from bondage. They were given no money or land to compensate them for their years of servitude. These former slaves also faced white populations who refused to follow laws established by the federal government, giving blacks full U.S. citizenship. CON: Blacks currently living in the United States live lives far better than the peoples of African itself. The Average African in Africa probably earns less than $1000 a year, has no plumbing and a much lower life expectancy then Blacks living in the U.S. Blacks in the US average $20,000 a year, live longer than most people in the world and have access to all the modern conveniences, from plumbing to cable TV. Unfortunately we're already starting to see the effect of the reparations debate on race relations. So far, this discussion has done little to further race relations in America, but rather, it has hurt them. Instead of enlightening white America to the horrible history of slavery, the reparations proposal offends many non-black Americans - coming across as a selfish and greedy slap in the face, rather than a serious civil rights proposal. In addition, a lot of Americans feel they've already made good on the country's slave-owning past - be it through the passage of civil rights legislation, adoption of affirmative action programs, and even through the lives of their loved ones lost during the Civil War (on whichever side). Horowitz hasn't done much to aid the race debate either. His ad, while containing some valid points, also includes such canards as the idea that slavery benefited blacks, that welfare is repayment for slavery (suggesting that it exclusively benefits blacks), and that blacks themselves were slaveowners (which they may have been, but that doesn't exonerate the sin, or harm, of slavery). That ad, like the reparations proposal itself, is doing nothing to win friends across the racial divide that is America. Only time will tell how the reparations issue will be settled (if at all.) So much time has passed, and the sides art so far apart on the issue, that it seems unlikely that either side will be able to work out a settlement in Congress. For that is where this issue will ultimately have to be settled.

We hope you found this article helpful.

Search for more civil rights history articles related to:
"Slavery Reparations for African Americans"

Bookmark this Page!