By
MARCIA MOXAM COMRIE
They were stolen from their native land – kidnapped, shackled and forced to endure
a heartless journey across the Atlantic into a life of enslavement.
For hundreds of years, slaves from Africa and their descendants have endured
oppression, segregation and degradation, but now payback may be on the horizon.
A group of Southeast Queens residents gathered at York College last week
for a very important lecture — perhaps one of the most important lectures any in the
group has ever attended.
At the podium, Etta May Ladson, a retired school teacher/college professor and
self-described archivist, invited by the college’s Concerned Black Faculty and Staff,
revealed that the decades-old demand that African Americans be given reparation for the
atrocities of slavery is about to reach fruition.
Retired college professor Etta May Ladson is at the
forefront of a push for reparations for African American slavery.
PRESS Photo by Marcia Moxam Comrie
|
According to Ladson, reparation is no longer a
fantasy but a very real possibility with representatives getting on the bandwagon in
support of a congressional bill known as Bill H.R. 40.
"This is no pie in the sky," Ladson told her rapt
audience
"Representative John Conyers is sponsoring the bill. I
don’t care how long it takes, reparations will come, it is an inexorable leadership
destiny," she said.
As optimistic as Ladson is about reparation , she’s
also realistic about opposition.
"Opposition to it remains very high," she said.
"There are people who say ‘well yes, African Americans suffered through slavery,
but slavery ended with the Civil War in 1865, it’s too late.’ Well, fifty years
after the Holocaust, the Jews are getting redress for suffering under Hitler’s
regime. I’m not trying to compare slavery to Holocaust, pain is pain but we’re
talking about duration. 400 years compared to 10! But the Jews are absolutely right in
seeking redress!"
For Ladson, also a poet and the author of Strange
Land Songs, a book of sonnets celebrating the leadership destiny of African
Americans , reparations are not about the people who have died.
It is the "residual after effects that are all around
us," she said.
For those who say African Americans have already been taken
care of through Affirmative Action, Ladson said that in no way makes up for 400 years of
suffering.
According to Ladson, nothing short of money would come
close to compensating the descendants of the slaves.
"The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 gave an initial check
of $20,000 each to the Japanese people (or their next of kin) held in detention during
World War II. They lost their homes and everything they owned.
"So we’re not talking African American reparation
without money," she said.
H.R. 40 is currently under consideration in
the 107th Congress and is intended, "to acknowledge the fundamental injustice,
cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American
colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to examine the institution of
slavery, subsequently de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against
African-Americans and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans, to make
recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies and for other purposes."
The bill states that "4,000,000 Africans and their
descendants were enslaved" and that the United States "constitutionally and
statutorily sanctioned it.
It further states that the slavery "that flourished in
the United States constituted an immoral and inhumane deprivation of Africans’ life,
liberty, African citizenship rights and cultural heritage and denied them the fruits of
their own labor."
The Bill, as introduced by Congressman Conyers, who is
African American, is receiving the support of many of his colleagues including Queens
Congressman Gregory Meeks and Brooklyn Congressman Major Owens.
Mike McKay, a spokesperson for Congressman Meeks,
emphasized that "the congressman supports Mr. Conyers’ Bill, as introduced."
McKay also said that as the bill makes the rounds
throughout what could be a very lengthy process, it could change it could get watered down
and "take a different shape." If the congressman doesn’t agree with terms
of the supposed updates, he "will not support it, " McKay said explaining that
it could take years, even decades, to pass.
Preparation
For Reparation |
According to Ladson, African Americans
should begin preparation for reparation now.
"Educate yourselves," she encouraged. "Study
how this legislation is structured and get your family’s genealogy. The key is
documentation," she said.
She also advised that there will be extra funds for those
who can prove their ancestors or family supported black causes and or helped slaves become
and remain free.
"If the Jews can prove that their families had
valuable art collections or Swiss bank accounts, we should be able to prove that our
families helped others."
Ladson gave the example of "The Jenkins
Orphanage" the first black orphanage, founded to take care of black children who
could not go to the white orphanages.
That founder’s descendants could receive extra funds.
Ladson suggested that blacks could now set up foundations
geared toward supporting other blacks, such as scholarship funds for underprivileged
youngsters.
Ladson said she would like to see a three
tiered bill.
"The legislation needs to add a dimension of honor for
those people who were enslaved," Ladson said. "We’ve never thought of the
beauty of the people – they’ve only talked about the enslavement. But there
never were a finer people to set foot on the American shores. They were physically
superior as Darwin would’ve said, the weaker ones died on the trip so the ones who
came here were stronger they worked in the fields from sun up until sun down. They had
superior linguistic abilities – they came here speaking three to four languages and
learned English in one generation . . . they were inexplicably hopeful."
Ladson added that tier two should be an apology and tier
three ought to acknowledge the significance of whites to the freedom of African Americans
and that whites or white organizations should also be acknowledged.
"We have to be realistic," she said. "Any
kind of bill must include white people in some way. Across those 400 years white people
helped. Freedom has always at some, level always included some white person or
organization. The bill must include those organizations maybe with grants and maybe that
will change the divisiveness."
Ladson joked that even people who thought
they were white, can still apply.
During and after slavery many people who could
"pass" for white, actually crossed and disappeared behind the color line to
protect themselves and their children.
Ladson said those who can prove that their ancestors had to
do this for protection or economic opportunities, would still qualify.
"Article II of the Holocaust bill provides that if you
had to change your last name to prevent suffering and to get ahead, you can get
redress," she said, implying the same thing applies to blacks whose foreparents had
to "change" their race.
Citing an example of a woman who sent her two white-looking
children to the other end of the country for protection and "whites only"
opportunities but could not go herself because she could not pass as white, Ladson
explained that such families can claim for the pain of such separations.
"Everybody should prepare," she said.
Ladson says when the time comes, forms will
be widely distributed and may even come "as part of your 1040 (tax) package."
According to Jean Phelps, president of the Jamaica Branch
NAACP and a board member of United Black Women for Change, passage of this bill is overdue
and well deserved.
"I think it’s overdue and I think we’re
entitled," said Phelps. "More so than any other group because of
longevity."
