Reparations Accord for Blacks in America

What is it?An agreement between representatives of the reparations movement and the U.S. Congress, and others, to settle the long standing reparations dispute in the form of agreed upon payment forms and methods.Legal DefinitionAn accord being a contract, the requirements of mutual assent and consideration must be made. An agreement whereby one of the parties undertakes to give or perform, and other to accept, in satisfaction of liquidated or disputed claim arising in contract or tort something different or less from what Blacks are or consider themselves entitled to. A settlement of points remaining at issue between nations.[Source: Blacks Law Dictionary, 9th Edition; The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.]Historical Background:In 1865, two-years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, President Abraham Lincoln still had no plans for implementation of this official announcement. Except for a special called gathering of 20 Black religious leaders, away from the public square, ordered by President Lincoln, and facilitated by General William Sherman and the Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, there was no formal accord[agreement] of terms and conditions of the Emancipation Proclamation. However, it was agreed by these 20 leaders that:“The best way we can take care of ourselves is to have land, and turn it and till it by our own labor – that is , by the labor of the women and children and old men, and we can soon maintain ourselves and have something to spare.” This, while recorded fro the public record, never occurred.(Source: Billingsley, Andrew, Mighty Like a River: The Black church and Social Reform)Reparations Accord for Blacks in America:Whereas, the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives resolution acknowledges the centuries-long crimes of the United States government, its corporations, financial and educational institutions, as well as a large number of its wealthiest citizenry;Whereas, the Congressional apologies acknowledge and apologize to African descendant people on behalf of the US government and its citizenry, and recommits to the principle of justice and equality;Whereas the Congressional apologies forgo the opportunity for a reciprocal zero-sum resolution for the holocaust of enslavement by disclaiming and prohibiting the just reckoning of the atrocities committed – is a resolution that offers INSUFFICIENT REDRESS to the people to whom the apology is tendered and to whom a reparations accord is due;Therefore, our resolve as a coalition of Blacks in America is to move congress off of the dime of denial to a national public dialogue on the terms and conditions of a reparations accord for Blacks in America. N’COBRA will continue efforts to dialogue and collaborate with Congress, corporations, financial institutions, educational institutions, religious organizations, and others and collaborate for the good of the public. However, if Congress continues to refuse to dialogue and collaborate with N’COBRA we will continue to advocate for a public dialog on a reparations accord for the good of the public.Our demand for a reparations accord is consistent with the precedents of reparations accords setting for the terms and conditions of reparations where both sides win, as exampled by the following historical precedents of record:• In the USA: Alaska Natives and their supporters had forced the US Congress to pass an Alaska Native Land Settlement Bill.• Japanese Americans and their supporters had secured a Japanese American Redress Bill.• Indigenous people and their supporters had secured a number of Congressional Bills to make good on broken Treaties with various Native American Nations.• Long before these concessions, the military might of the US Congress had forced Germany to pay reparations to Israel and individual Jewish survivors of the European Holocaust.• Jewish survivors and their supporters, with the backing of the US Government, had forced corporations to pay reparations for slave labor, lost artifacts, and looted property.• United States military might have forced Iraq to pay reparations to Kuwait. Britain was forced to honor a lease obtained from China under coerced conditions; they returned Hong Kong to China after 156 years.• The US Congress passed Public Law 105-106, a Jewish Holocaust Assets study Bill (105th Congress) by voice vote in one day, funded it within one year, and extended it two years beyond its original end date.• Congress and a number of State legislatures approved tax exempt status for Jewish reparations, passed a Jewish Holocaust education bill, and institutionalized an annual American Day of Remembrance of the German Holocaust.• The US Congress passed Public Law 106-45, the Wartime Violation of Italian American Civil Liberties Act (106th Congress), a bill to study and report on the injustices suffered by Italian Americans during WWII. The bill included a formal Presidential acknowledgment of such injustices.• For various reasons, there were numerous aid packages to enemy nations, and known rogue and warring nations.Reparations can be paid without re-creating capital, or without taking capital away from anybody. Thus, our reparations payment strategies will demand that the surplus accumulated as capital be invested in life-sustaining consumption first and foremost until the vast inequity in sustenance is overcome.

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Reparations Accord for Blacks in America

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