The Petition For Reparations
Will the U.S. government acknowledge the demand? "The Campaign To Cash The Check," spearheaded by Rev. Al Sharpton of the National Action Network based in New York City, and a host of other activists and organizers from around the country, have emerged as a force willing to take to the streets, in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, to make known to the world the critical issues affecting Black people in this country.
"It's obvious today," Dr. King challenged us in 1963, "that America has defaulted on it s promissory note in so far as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation. America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds."
Dr. King continued: "We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of' this nation. And so we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice."
It should be clear to all African people that both the Republican and Democratic Parties, the last several years, have participated in compromising any efforts to "Cash The Check." In fact. both parties have compromised many of the hard fought gains that came out of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements of the 1960s.
Therefore, The Campaign To Cash The Check will focus on one of the most critical issues Black people should demand, and fight for. That is the continued demand for Reparations.
The National Coalition of Blacks For Reparations In America (N'COBRA) recently completed its 7th Annual Convention in Atlanta. It is through the work of N'COBRA, and other Pan Africanist and Nationalist organizations, that this demand for reparations has been kept alive.
A paper presented by African scholar Chinweizu at the First Pan-African Conference on Reparations in Abuja, Nigeria, on April 27. 1993. pointed out that. "we must ask not only that reparations be made for specific acts. or that restitution be made of specific properties. We who have been such monumental victims are obliged to also ask: "What sorts of system, capitalist as well as pre-capitalist, with their values and world outlook, made this long holocaust possible; and what must be done to transform these systems into some other kind where a holocaust could not be inflicted on us';"'
Chinweizu explains that. "Unless we address and effectively answer that question, our quest for reparations would be flawed and incomplete. We must therefore look into the nature of the old existing global order and see what needs to be done to change it for the better."
The Check that Dr. King was talking about Cashing in 1963. that has not been cashed, is the Check of Reparations today. Of course, when we talk about reparations, we are talking about repairs for damages inflicted upon Black people by the European and Asian worlds that are still at the base of our current condition as a people.
In this connection, we must link that demand for reparations of Blacks in America to Blacks everywhere. In other words, the western world was built off the backs of the Atlantic Slave Trade that resulted in the development of Europe. The former slave trading nations such as Portugal, Spain, France and England must also be challenged around the question of reparations for Black people.
Black people in America must be clear as to what is at stake and what we should be fighting for as we challenge the Republican and Democratic Parties—both of whom are extensions of the white supremacy world order.
Again, Chinweizu points out in his paper that, "The hallmarks of the old global order, which was initiated by the voyage of Columbus, may be summarized as a propensity for perpetrating holocaust, a devotion to exploitation, and a passion for necrophobia." Expanding on this point Chinweizu writes. "It has inflicted holocaust, through genocide and culturecide—but not only on the Black World; it has visited exploitation, through slavery and colonialism—but not only on the Black World; but it has reserved for the Black World a special scourge: that virulent strain of racism known as Necrophobia!"
It is not fashionable any longer to discuss in the public political domain the real condition of African people in America and what we should be fighting for and demanding in the political public arena.
In the name of our ancestors, it is our duty!
(Dr. Worrill is the National Chairman of the National Black United Front (NBUF)
located at 700 E. Oakwood Blvd.,
Chicago, Illinois 60653,
(312) 268-7500 Ext. 144, Fax (312) 924-1956).