The International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

For over 400 years, more than 15 million men, women and children were the victims of the tragic transatlantic slave trade, one of the darkest chapters in human history.

Every year on 25 March, the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade offers the opportunity to honor and remember those who suffered and died at the hands of the brutal slavery system. The International Day also aims to raise awareness about the dangers of racism and prejudice today.

In order to more permanently honor the victims, a memorial has been erected at United Nations Headquarters in New York. The unveiling took place on 25 March 2015. The winning design for the memorial, The Ark of Return  by Rodney Leon, an American architect of Haitian descent, was selected through an international competition and announced in September 2013.

The Wisdom Store

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RubyMae’s Collection:  Conscious  Art  Of  Black  Life.

  Dr.  Ruby Mae Chapman , a Creative Child of the Universe,  a Critical Thinker, Writer, Artist, Crafter, Life Encourager, Scholar, Researcher, and Grant Writer.  Owner of the Wisdom Store, writings include “Life Interruptions, “Ask Ruby” ,”Miss Manners”  and  “Messy Manners”.  Dr. Ruby Mae is featured in newsletters and magazines.

RubyMae’s Collection:  Conscious Art of Black Life

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Folk art focusing on the African Diaspora

Dr. Ruby Mae Chapman, Life’s Interruptions,  Co-Founder of Napolean & Ada Moton Chapman Institute, Folk Artist, Children’s Advocate, Scholar, Researcher and Writer

 

For more inspiring readings visit my blogs: 
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Lest We Forget....

Mr. Carson turned his attention to slavery after describing photographs of poor immigrants displayed at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration. These new arrivals worked long hours, six or seven days a week, with little pay, he said. And before them, there were slaves.

“That’s what America is about, a land of dreams and opportunity,’’ he said. “There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder for less. But they too had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great-grandsons, great-granddaughters, might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land.”

We people who are darker than blue

 

 

 

We people who are darker than blue
Are we gonna stand around this town
And let what others say come true?
We're just good for nothing they all figure

A boyish, grown up, shiftless jigger
Now we can't hardly stand for that
Or is that really where it's at?
We people who are darker than blue

This ain't no time for segregatin'
I'm talking 'bout brown and yellow two
High yellow girl, can't you tell
You're just the surface of our dark deep well

If your mind could really see
You'd know your color the same as me
Pardon me, brother, as you stand in your glory
I know you won't mind if I tell the whole story

Get yourself together, learn to know your side
Shall we commit our own genocide
Before you check out your mind?

I know we've all got problems
That's why I'm here to say
Keep peace with me and I with you
Let me love in my own way

Now I know we have great respect
For the sister, and mother it's even better yet
But there's the joker in the street

Loving one brother and killing the other
When the time comes and we are really free
There'll be no brothers left you see

We people who are darker than blue
Don't let us hang around this town
And let what others say come true

We're just good for nothing they all figure
A boyish, grown up, shiftless jigger
Now we can't hardly stand for that
Or is that really where it's at?

Pardon me, brother, while you stand in your glory
I know you won't mind if I tell the whole story
Pardon me, brother, I know we've come a long, long way
But let us not be so satisfied for tomorrow can be an
An even brighter day

Songwriters
MAYFIELD, CURTIS

  

In The Words of Marvin Gaye: What's Going On!

In this ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that slaves were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the Federal Government or the courts. The opinion also stated that Congress had no authority to ban slavery from a Federal territory.

Activist jailed and beaten

Hamer became a SNCC field secretary in early 1963. A few months later, she attended a citizenship training school sponsored by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in Charleston, South Carolina, to learn how to teach her neighbors about the benefits of citizenship. On the bus trip home in June, the bus made a rest stop in Winona, Mississippi. Annelle Ponder of SCLC, who was traveling with the group, said that three or four of the people went in to the café to be served. They sat at the counter but the waitress refused to serve them. A highway patrolman came from the rear of the café and tapped some of the group on the shoulder with his billy club, saying, “Y’all get out — get out.” Ponder reminded him it was against the law to refuse them service but he said, “Ain’t no damn law, you just get out of here!”
On the way back to the bus, Ponder wrote down the license number of the patrol car and at that, the patrolman and police chief came out of the restaurant and put the cafe group under arrest. As that was occurring, Hamer got off the bus to see whether the rest of the group should go on to Greenwood. The police chief arrested her as well. Later the police had two other black prisoners beat Hamer and 15-year-old June Johnson, who would not say “sir” to the men. In a trial later that year, an all-white jury acquitted the law officers. Hamer recalled, “After I got out of jail, half dead, I found that Medgar Evers had been shot down in his own yard.”

A Nassau Bay police officer has been suspended with pay after former astronaut Mae Jemison accused him of twisting her wrist and slamming her to the ground during a traffic stop.
The Chicago native, who in 1992 became the first black woman to fly in space, complained to Police Chief Robert Holden that Officer Henry Hughes III physically and emotionally mistreated her when she was arrested on a speeding warrant Saturday. 
The department said Hughes has been suspended with pay pending an investigation by the department's internal affairs division.
According to Jemison's complaint, Hughes stopped her for an illegal turn. After learning of an outstanding warrant for failing to pay a speeding ticket, the officer told Jemison she was under arrest.
Her attorney, Rusty Hardin, said Jemison threw down her car keys in disbelief. When the officer started to handcuff her, she reached down to pick up the keys.
"When she does that, he grabs her left hand, knocking her wallet and paper out of it, twists her wrist and throws her arms up behind her back" before throwing her down on the road, Hardin said.

On Tuesday, the arrest warrant for the incident was released, detailing state trooper Brian Encinia’s version of events.
According to the officer, Sandra  Bland — a 28-year old African American woman — was pulled over for failing to signal a lane change and he “had Bland exit the vehicle to further conduct a safe traffic investigation.”
“Force was used to subdue Sandra  Bland to the ground to which Bland continued to fight back,” he added.
Sandra Bland was charged with assault on a public servant then booked in the Waller County Jail, where she later died.

 

Free but not Equal? Are we going back?

Now we are free. What do we want? We want education; we want protection; we want plenty of work; we want good pay for it, but not any more or less than any one else...and then you will see the down-trodden race rise up.

—John Adams, a former slave   Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot. —Frederick Douglass, 1865 We went every day about nine o’clock, with our books wrapped in paper to prevent the police or white persons from seeing them...After school we left the same way we entered, one by one, when we would go to the square about a block from school, and wait for each other. —Susie King, who attended a secret school in Savannah, Georgia Have we really actually been free?

2014-IBW Press Release

October 3, 2014 Press Release This year’s Reparations Issues Forum at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C. was simply an awesome event! With Congressman John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member, House Judiciary Committee, serving as the Honorary Host, an overflow audience was treated to a series of substantive and powerful presentations calculated to strengthen the Reparations Movement in the Caribbean and the U.S. Congressman Conyers has championed the cause of Reparations in the Congress by consistently introducing HR-40, the Reparations Study Bill, since 1989. He welcomed the speakers and audience, which included several Ambassador from the Caribbean Diplomatic Corp., by restating the importance of “sustaining a dialogue on the legacy of slavery” as a means of achieving meaningful racial justice and reconciliation in America. Don Rojas, Director of Communications for the Institute of the Black World 21st Century, introduced the Honorable Camillo Gonsalves, Foreign Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the Keynote Speaker and Special Guest Sir Hilary Beckles, Chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Commission. Speaking on behalf of Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, who was unable to attend the session, Foreign Minister Gonsalves provided a comprehensive historical background and rationale for CARICOM’s bold, unanimous decision to demand reparations from the former European colonialists for Native genocide and African enslavement.   He stated that the demand for “reparatory justice” has become the cornerstone of the domestic and foreign policy of his country. Fresh off a recent speech on reparations delivered to the House of Commons in Great Britain, Sir Hilary Beckles passionately detailed crimes against Native People and enslaved Africans committed by European colonialists and the gross exploitation that is directly responsible for the underdevelopment of Caribbean nations today. CARICOM’s Ten Point Reparations Program is designed to compel former colonialists to “clean up the mess” they left as a burden for “independent” Caribbean nations. Then, in a tribute to Congressman Conyers for his leadership on reparations, Professor Beckles brought the audience to its feet by proclaiming a “Conyers’ Decade of Reparatory Justice” as a theme to galvanize the Reparations Movement in the U.S. and beyond. Atty. Nkechi Taifa, Senior Policy Analyst, Open Societies Foundations, joined in praising Congressman Conyers for his steadfast and uncompromising work on the issue of reparations. She also acknowledged the milestone contributions of the National Coalition for Reparations for Blacks in America (N’COBRA) and numerous activists and organizers alive and deceased who kept the issue alive among African Americans and people of goodwill. Atty. Taifa reminded the audience of the basic definition for reparations as “the repair of the cultural, spiritual, psychological and physical damage done to a subjugated or oppressed people.” Ta-Nehisi Coates, Senior Editor, The Atlantic, is a recent convert to reparations whose brilliant and compelling essay The Case for Reparations has introduced a new generation to the concept. He stressed that the process of “extraction” of wealth and opportunities from Africans in America has never been accidental but an ingrained and devastating dimension of the evolution and development of the American nation. If reparations are to be won, this reality must be an integral part of the dialogue. He urged the audience not to be dissuaded by arguments about the feasibility or practically of the concept but to be motivated by the necessity to achieve justice. Kaimi Wenger, Law Professor, Thomas Jefferson Law School, who has written on the subject, referenced some of the legal cases that have been filed to advance the cause of reparations. He suggested that it is important to “think outside the box” in devising legal and political strategies to intensify education and advocacy campaigns to strengthen the movement. Professor Wenger encouraged the audience to never give up on this worthy cause. Dr. Ron Daniels, President of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century, enthusiastically embraced Professor Beckles’ proclamation of a “Conyer’s Decade of Reparatory Justice.” He suggested that it is a powerful and appropriate theme to motivate members of the Congressional Black Caucus, civil rights/human rights, faith, labor, civic and fraternal leaders to recommit to promote HR-40 in honor of the visionary and courageous work on reparations by the Dean of the Congressional Black Caucus. Dr. Daniels also took the occasion to announce an agreement in principle for IBW to host an official meeting of the CARICOM Reparations Commission in the U.S. at a mutually agreeable time in the near future — most likely in New York City. In addition, he indicated that IBW will create an African American Reparations Commission based on the CARICOM model. This Commission will take up the task of formulating a Reparations Program as a focal point for creating greater public awareness and mobilizing/organizing to advance the struggle to achieve Reparatory Justice in the U.S.   After formulating a Preliminary Program, the Commission would conduct regional hearings for community review, comment and input before adopting a Final Program. Dr. Daniels said the African American Reparations Commission will be a representative and inclusive body of fifteen women and men beginning with the selection of organizations and leaders who have been in the forefront of the Reparations Movements as well as notable leaders who support the concept. N’COBRA, December 12thMovement, Nation of Islam, Dr. Iva Carruthers, Dr. Conrad Worrill, Dr. Ray Winbush, Atty. Nkechi Taifa, Professor Charles Ogletree, Dr. Claire Nelson, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Danny Glover, Dr. Julianne Malveaux, Susan Taylor, Dr. Marc Lamont Hill and Ta-Nehisi Coates are among the potential Commissioners mentioned. IBW estimates that a budget of $150,000 will be required to finance the first year to eighteen months of the work of the African American Reparations Commission. “Black people and those sympathetic to the cause will have to finance this initiative,” Dr. Daniels explained. “We can’t expect corporations or foundations to underwrite a campaign for Reparations for Black people. In the spirit of the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, IBW is counting on contributions from the people to finance this Initiative.” Emily Moore, a retired educator, tennis instructor and community activist from New York, stepped up to the plate to write the first check for $1,000 toward the goal of $150,000! Obviously moved by the many tributes and calls for a “Conyers’s Decade of Reparatory Justice, in his concluding remarks Congressman Conyers remarked that “this Reparations Forum has been the most substantive since I began introducing HR-40. I expect great things as we move forward.”

Reparations for slavery debate in the United States

Reparations for slavery debate in the United States Reparations for slavery is a proposal that some type of compensation should be provided to the descendants of enslaved people in the United States, in consideration of the coerced and uncompensated labor their ancestors performed over centuries. This compensation has been proposed in a variety of forms, from individual monetary payments to land-based compensation schemes related to independence. The idea remains highly controversial and no broad consensus exists as to how it could be implemented. There have been similar calls for reparations from some Caribbean countries[1] and elsewhere in the African diaspora, and some African countries have called for reparations to their states for the loss of their population.[2][3] U.S. historical context[edit]The arguments surrounding reparations are based on the formal discussion about many different reparations and actual land reparations received by African-Americans which were later taken away. In 1865, after the Confederate States of America were defeated in the American Civil War, General William Tecumseh Sherman issued Special Field Orders, No. 15 to both "assure the harmony of action in the area of operations"[4] and to solve problems caused by the masses of freed slaves, a temporary plan granting each freed family forty acres of tillable land in the sea islands and around Charleston, South Carolina for the exclusive use of black people who had been enslaved. The army also had a number of unneeded mules which were given to settlers. Around 40,000 freed slaves were settled on 400,000 acres (1,600 km²) in Georgia and South Carolina. However, President Andrew Johnson reversed the order after Lincoln was assassinated and the land was returned to its previous owners. In 1867, Thaddeus Stevens sponsored a bill for the redistribution of land to African Americans, but it was not passed. Reconstruction came to an end in 1877 without the issue of reparations having been addressed. Thereafter, a deliberate movement of regression and oppression arose in southern states. Jim Crow laws passed in some southeastern states to reinforce the existing inequality that slavery had produced. In addition white extremist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan engaged in a massive campaign of intimidation throughout the Southeast in order to keep African Americans in their prescribed social place. For decades this assumed inequality and injustice was ruled on in court decisions and debated in public discourse. Reparation for slavery in what is now the United States is a complicated issue. Any proposal for reparations must take into account the role of the, then relatively newly formed, United States government in the importation and enslavement of Africans and that of the older and established European countries that created the colonies in which slavery was legal; as well as their efforts to stop the trade in slaves. It must also consider if and how much modern Americans have benefited from the importation and enslavement of Africans since the end of the slave trade in 1865. Profit from slavery was not limited to a particular region: New England merchants profited from the importation of slaves, while Southern planters profited from the continued enslavement of Africans. In a 2007 column in The New York Times, historian Eric Foner writes: [In] the Colonial era, Southern planters regularly purchased imported slaves, and merchants in New York and New England profited handsomely from the trade. The American Revolution threw the slave trade and slavery itself into crisis. In the run-up to war, Congress banned the importation of slaves as part of a broader nonimportation policy. During the War of Independence, tens of thousands of slaves escaped to British lines. Many accompanied the British out of the country when peace arrived. Inspired by the ideals of the Revolution, most of the newly independent American states banned the slave trade. But importation resumed to South Carolina and Georgia, which had been occupied by the British during the war and lost the largest number of slaves. The slave trade was a major source of disagreement at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. South Carolina’s delegates were determined to protect slavery, and they had a powerful impact on the final document. They originated the three-fifths clause (giving the South extra representation in Congress by counting part of its slave population) and threatened disunion if the slave trade were banned, as other states demanded. The result was a compromise barring Congress from prohibiting the importation of slaves until 1808. Some Anti-Federalists, as opponents of ratification were called, cited the slave trade clause as a reason why the Constitution should be rejected, claiming it brought shame upon the new nation.... As slavery expanded into the Deep South, a flourishing internal slave trade replaced importation from Africa. Between 1808 and 1860, the economies of older states like Virginia came increasingly to rely on the sale of slaves to the cotton fields of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. But demand far outstripped supply, and the price of slaves rose inexorably, placing ownership outside the reach of poorer Southerners.[5] Proposals for reparations[edit]United States government[edit]Some proposals have called for direct payments from the U.S. government. One such proposal delivered in the McCormick Convention Center conference room for the first National Reparations Convention by Howshua Amariel, a Chicago social activist, would require the federal government to make reparations to proven descendants of slaves. In addition, Amariel stated "For those blacks who wish to remain in America, they should receive reparations in the form of free education, free medical, free legal and free financial aid for 50 years with no taxes levied," and "For those desiring to leave America, every black person would receive a million dollars or more, backed by gold, in reparation." At the convention Amariel's proposal received approval from the 100 or so participants,[6] nevertheless the question of who would receive such payments, who should pay them and in what amount, has remained highly controversial,[7][8] since the United States Census does not track descent from slaves or slave owners and relies on self-reported racial categories. Various estimates have been given if such payments were to be made. Harper's Magazine has created an estimate that the total of reparations due is over 100 trillion dollars, based on 222,505,049 hours of forced labor between 1619 and 1865, with a compounded interest of 6%.[9] Should all or part of this amount be paid to the descendants of slaves in the United States, the current U.S. government would only pay a fraction of that cost, over 40 trillion dollars, since it has been in existence only since 1789. The Rev. M.J. Divine, better known as Father Divine, was one of the earliest leaders to argue clearly for "retroactive compensation" and the message was spread via International Peace Mission publications. On July 28, 1951, Father Divine issued a "peace stamp" bearing the text: "Peace! All nations and peoples who have suppressed and oppressed the under-privileged, they will be obliged to pay the African slaves and their descendants for all uncompensated servitude and for all unjust compensation, whereby they have been unjustly deprived of compensation on the account of previous condition of servitude and the present condition of servitude. This is to be accomplished in the defense of all other under-privileged subjects and must be paid retroactive up-to-date".[10] On July 30, 2008, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution apologizing for American slavery and subsequent discriminatory laws.[11] Some states have also apologized for slavery, including Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. Duke University public policy professor William "Sandy" Darity said such apologies are a first step, but compensation is also necessary. In April 2010, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates in a New York Times editorial advised reparations activists to consider the African role in the slave trade in regards to who should shoulder the cost of reparations.[12] Ex-colonial governments The full cost of slavery reparations prior to 1776 would be borne by the governments of the European countries (Spain, the United Kingdom, and France) who governed North America at that time[why?]. One additional problem is that the governments in power in the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe are not still in power now. France, for example, has gone through several forms of government since it was last a colonial power in North America. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to hold the current French government liable for the enslavement of Africans that previous governments encouraged and benefited from between the 17th century up to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Private institutions[edit]Private institutions and corporations were also involved in slavery. On March 8, 2000, Reuters News Service reported that Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, a law school graduate, initiated a one-woman campaign making a historic demand for restitution and apologies from modern companies that played a direct role in enslaving Africans. Aetna Inc. was her first target because of their practice of writing life insurance policies on the lives of enslaved Africans with slave owners as the beneficiaries. In response to Farmer-Paellmann's demand, Aetna Inc. issued a public apology, and the "corporate restitution movement" was born.[not specific enough to verify] By 2002, nine lawsuits were filed around the country coordinated by Farmer-Paellmann and the Restitution Study Group—a New York non-profit. The litigation included 20 plaintiffs demanding restitution from 20 companies from the banking, insurance, textile, railroad, and tobacco industries. The cases were consolidated under 28 U.S.C. § 1407 to multidistrict litigation in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The district court dismissed the lawsuits with prejudice, and the claimants appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. On December 13, 2006, that Court, in an opinion written by Judge Richard Posner, modified the district court's judgment to be a dismissal without prejudice, affirmed the majority of the district court's judgment, and reversed the portion of the district court's judgment dismissing the plaintiffs' consumer protection claims, remanding the case for further proceedings consistent with its opinion [1]. Thus, the plaintiffs may bring the lawsuit again, but must clear considerable procedural and substantive hurdles first: If one or more of the defendants violated a state law by transporting slaves in 1850, and the plaintiffs can establish standing to sue, prove the violation despite its antiquity, establish that the law was intended to provide a remedy (either directly or by providing the basis for a common law action for conspiracy, conversion, or restitution) to lawfully enslaved persons or their descendants, identify their ancestors, quantify damages incurred, and persuade the court to toll the statute of limitations, there would be no further obstacle to the grant of relief.[13] In October 2000, California passed a Slavery Era Disclosure Law requiring insurance companies doing business there to report on their role in slavery. The disclosure legislation, introduced by Senator Tom Hayden, is the prototype for similar laws passed in 12 states around the United States.[citation needed] The NAACP has called for more of such legislation at local and corporate levels. It quotes Dennis C. Hayes, CEO of the NAACP, as saying, "Absolutely, we will be pursuing reparations from companies that have historical ties to slavery and engaging all parties to come to the table."[14] Brown University, whose namesake family was involved in the slave trade, has also established a committee to explore the issue of reparations. In February 2007, Brown University announced a set of responses[15] to its Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice.[16] While in 1995 the Southern Baptist Convention apologized for the "sins" of racism, including slavery.[17] In December 2005, a boycott was called by a coalition of reparations groups under the sponsorship of the Restitution Study Group. The boycott targets the student loan products of banks deemed complicit in slavery—particularly those identified in the Farmer-Paellmann litigation. As part of the boycott students are asked to choose from other banks to finance their student loans."[18] In 2005, JP Morgan Chase and Wachovia both apologized for their connections to slavery Social services A number of supporters for reparations[who?] advocate that compensation should be in the form of community rehabilitation and not payments to individual descendants Arguments for reparations Accumulated wealth[edit]In 2008 the American Humanist Association published an article which argued that if emancipated slaves had been allowed to possess and retain the profits of their labor, their descendants might now control a much larger share of American social and monetary wealth.[21] Not only did the freedmen and -women not receive a share of these profits, but they were stripped of the small amounts of compensation paid to some of them during Reconstruction. The wealth of the United States, they say, was greatly enhanced by the exploitation of African American slave labor.[22] According to this view, reparations would be valuable primarily as a way of correcting modern economic imbalance. Precedents[edit]Under the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, the U.S. government apologized for Japanese American internment during World War II and provided reparations of $20,000 to each survivor, to compensate for loss of property and liberty during that period. For many years, Native American tribes have received compensation for lands ceded to the United States by them in various treaties. Other countries have also opted to pay reparations for past grievances, such as the German government making reparations to Jews and survivors and descendants of the Holocaust.[23] Arguments against reparations[edit]Relocation of injustice[edit]The principal argument against reparations is that their cost would not be imposed upon the perpetrators of slavery who were a very small percentage of society with 4.8% of southern whites (only 1.4% of all whites in the country)[citation needed], nor confined to those who can be shown to be the specific indirect beneficiaries of slavery, but would simply be indiscriminately borne by taxpayers per se. Those making this argument often add that the descendants of white abolitionists and soldiers in the Union Army might be taxed to fund reparations despite the sacrifices their ancestors already made to end slavery. In the case of Public Lands, European colonizers killed or forcibly relocated[24] many Southeastern Native American tribes. One argument against reparations is that in assigning public lands to African-Americans for the enslavement of their ancestors, a greater and further wrong would be committed against the Southeastern Native Americans[25] who have ancestral claims and treaty rights to that same land.[not specific enough to verify] In addition, several historians, such as João C. Curto, have made important contributions to the global understanding of the African side of the Atlantic slave trade. By arguing that African merchants determined the assemblage of trade goods accepted in exchange for slaves, many historians argue for African agency and ultimately a shared responsibility for the slave trade.[26] Identification of victims and of levels of victimization[edit]Identification of actual descendants of slaves would be an enormous undertaking, because such descent is not simply identical with present racial self-identification. And levels of actual victimization would be impossible to identify; had freed slaves been given their recoverable damages, they may have followed different patterns of marriage and of reproduction, and in some cases would not have made their offspring the sole or even principal heirs to their estates. (Opponents of reparations refer to the lost wealth of slaves as “dissipated”, not in the sense of simply having ceased to exist, but in the sense of being untraceable and transmitted elsewhere.)[citation needed] Comparative utility[edit]It has been argued that reparations for slavery cannot be justified on the basis that slave descendants are subjectively worse off as a result of slavery, because it has been suggested that they are better off than they would have been in Africa if the slave trade had never happened. The slave population in the US grew six-fold after the importation of slaves was ceased. In all other countries the slave population either did not increase or declined. This was because the treatment of slaves in the US was generally very good - birth survival rates exceeded that of poor whites and was twice that of their native Africa. In addition, each state had laws against the abuse of slaves and many religious groups rigorously enforced them. In Up From Slavery, former slave Booker T. Washington wrote, I have long since ceased to cherish any spirit of bitterness against the Southern white people on account of the enslavement of my race. No one section of our country was wholly responsible for its introduction... Having once got its tentacles fastened on to the economic and social life of the Republic, it was no easy matter for the country to relieve itself of the institution. Then, when we rid ourselves of prejudice, or racial feeling, and look facts in the face, we must acknowledge that, notwithstanding the cruelty and moral wrong of slavery, the ten million Negroes inhabiting this country, who themselves or whose ancestors went through the school of American slavery, are in a stronger and more hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously, than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of the globe....This I say, not to justify slavery – on the other hand, I condemn it as an institution, as we all know that in America it was established for selfish and financial reasons, and not from a missionary motive – but to call attention to a fact, and to show how Providence so often uses men and institutions to accomplish a purpose. When persons ask me in these days how, in the midst of what sometimes seem hopelessly discouraging conditions, I can have such faith in the future of my race in this country, I remind them of the wilderness through which and out of which, a good Providence has already led us.[27] Conservative commentator David Horowitz writes, The claim for reparations is premised on the false assumption that only whites have benefited from slavery. If slave labor created wealth for Americans, then obviously it has created wealth for black Americans as well, including the descendants of slaves. The GNP of black America is so large that it makes the African-American community the 10th most prosperous "nation" in the world. American blacks on average enjoy per capita incomes in the range of twenty to fifty times that of blacks living in any of the African nations from which they were taken.[28] Legal argument against reparations[edit]Many legal experts point to the fact that slavery was not illegal in the United States[29] prior to the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (ratified in 1865). Thus, there is no legal foundation for compensating the descendants of slaves for the crime against their ancestors when, in strictly legal terms, no crime was committed. Chattel slavery is now considered by the overwhelming majority in the United States to be highly immoral, though it was perfectly legal at the time. However, opponents of this legal argument contend that such was the case in Nazi Germany, whereby the activities of the Nazis were legal under German law; however, unlike slavery, the German activities were precedented by the Allied Powers following WWI, which could not rule against the German government then due to lack of precedent, but could do so afterward following WWII on the basis of this established WWI precedent. Other legal experts[who?] point to the fact that the current U.S. government did not exist prior to June 21, 1788 when the United States Constitution was ratified. Therefore, they say the U.S. government inherited the institution of slavery, and cannot be held legally liable for the enslavement of Africans by Europeans prior to that time. Figuring out who was enslaved by whom in order to fairly apply reparations from the U.S. government only to those who were enslaved under U.S. laws, would be an impossible task. Some areas of the South had communities of freedman, such as existed in Savannah, Charleston and New Orleans, while in the North, for example, former slaves lived as freedman both before and after the creation of the United States in 1788. For example, in 1667 Dutch colonists freed some of their slaves and gave them property in what is now Manhattan.[30][31] The descendants of Groote and Christina Manuell—two of those freed slaves—can trace their family's history as freedman back to the child of Groote and Christina, Nicolas Manuell, whom they consider their family's first freeborn African-American. In 1712, the British, then in control of New York, prohibited blacks from inheriting land, effectively ending property ownership for this family. While this is only one example out of thousands of enslaved persons, it does mean that not all slavery reparations can be determined by racial self-identification alone; reparations would have to include a determination of the free or slave status of one's African-American ancestors, as well as when and by whom they were enslaved and denied rights such as property ownership. Because of slavery, the original African heritage has been blended with the American experience, the same as it has been for generations of immigrants from other countries. For this reason, determining a "fair share" of reparations would be an impossible task. Another legal argument against reparations for slavery from a legal (as opposed to a moral standpoint) is that the statute of limitations for filing lawsuits has long since passed. Thus, courts are prohibited from granting relief. This has been used effectively in several suits, including "In re African American Slave Descendants", which dismissed a high-profile suit against a number of businesses with ties to slavery.[citation needed] Another argument against reparations (though this is not a legal argument) is that few African-Americans are of "pure" African blood since the offspring of the original slaves were occasionally the progeny of Caucasian male masters (and a variety of White males) by means of rape, concubinage or threat and forcibly slave-breeding of African female slaves.[dubious – discuss] Reparations could cause increased racism[edit]Anti-reparations advocates argue reparations payments based on race alone would be perceived by nearly everyone as a monstrous injustice, embittering many, and inevitably setting back race relations. In this view, apologetic feelings some whites may hold because of slavery and past civil rights injustices would, to a significant extent, be replaced by anger.[citation needed] The Libertarian Party, among other groups and individuals, has suggested that reparations would make racism worse: A renewed demand by African-Americans for slavery reparations should be rejected because such payments would only increase racial hostility...[32] A leading work against reparations is David Horowitz, Uncivil Wars: The Controversy Over Reparations for Slavery (2002). Other works that discuss problems with reparations, include John Torpey, Making Whole What Has Been Smashed: On Reparations Politics (2006), Alfred Brophy, Reparations Pro and Con (2006), Nahshon Perez, Freedom from Past Injustices (Edinburgh University Press, 2012). There is also a technical problem with identifying those who should be entitled to exemptions because of their ancestral opposition to Slavery. In particular, there was a significant Anti-Slavery Resistance Movement among the German and Mexican Texans during the Civil War [2] which effectively negated the gains from New Mexico [3] by choking off supplies.

Frederick Douglass’s time in Ireland, when he became “a man

Douglass said that as a slave he had heard his master berate O’Connell’s anti-slavery activities and that he had read some of his speeches, which had been reprinted in American newspapers. It was no surprise then, that while in Ireland he would want to hear the Irishman in person. Douglass was not, as it has sometimes been suggested, invited to Conciliation Hall, the headquarters of the Repeal Association, by O’Connell. Hearing that O’Connell was in Dublin, he decided to attend a Repeal meeting, although once there, “having observed the denseness of the crowd, I almost despaired of getting in.” But he did squeeze in and, in a letter he composed later that night, admitted to having been entranced by O’Connell’s eloquence:

“I have heard many speakers within the last four years – speakers of the first order; but I confess, I have never heard one, by whom I was more completely captivated than by Mr. O’Connell. . . . It seems to me that the voice of O’Connell is enough to calm the most violent passion. . . . There is a sweet persuasiveness in it, beyond any voice I ever heard. His power over an audience is perfect.”

Towards the end of the meeting when the audience was thinning out, Douglass moved to the front of the hall where he was introduced to O’Connell by a fellow American. He was then invited on stage to say a few words. Douglass recorded, “although I scarce knew what to say, I managed to say something, which was quite well received.”  In the course of his short speech, his admiration for the Irish man was palpable:

“The poor trampled slave of Carolina had heard the name of the Liberator with joy and hope, and he himself had heard the wish that some black O’Connell would yet rise up among his countrymen and cry ‘Agitate, agitate, agitate!’” he said.

The phrase “Black O’Connell” appears to have originated with Douglass, who, later in life, would suggest that the appellation had been bestowed upon him by O’Connell – a claim that has been frequently repeated. However, the real significance of this phrase is what it reveals about Douglass’s appeal for black people to take responsibility for their own liberation.

Douglass left Dublin at the beginning of October, to travel to other parts of the country. He gave lectures in Wexford, Waterford, Youghal, Limerick and Belfast.  His treatment as an equal; continued to surprise and delight him. He wrote, “I saw no-one that seemed to be shocked or disturbed at my dark presence. No one seemed to feel himself contaminated by contact with me.”

Douglass left Ireland in January 1846. He continued his tour in Britain, staying away from America for almost two years. He gave almost 200 lectures, over 40 of them in Ireland. On the eve of his departure from Belfast, Douglass reflected on his isolation: “. . . as to nation, I belong to none. . . . The land of my birth welcomes me to her shores only as a slave, and spurns with contempt the idea of treating me differently. So I am an outcast from the society of my childhood, and an outlaw in the land of my birth.”

He went on to add, “I can truly say, I have spent some of the happiest moments of my life since landing in this country.”
Shortly after leaving Ireland, Douglass wrote to Garrison. The letter revealed that, as a result of this visit, he had come to see the crusade for abolition as part of a much wider struggle for social justice:

“I see much here to remind me of my former condition, and I confess I should be ashamed to lift up my voice against American slavery, but that I know the cause of humanity is one the world over. He who really and truly feels for the American slave, cannot steel his heart to the woes of others; and he who thinks himself an abolitionist, yet cannot enter into the wrongs of others, has yet to find a true foundation for his anti-slavery.”

Douglass’s time in Ireland freed him in another way; he wrote his own Preface to the Irish edition of Narrative, thus demonstrating a new-found confidence in no longer having to rely on a white abolitionist to give his writing authority.

The timing of Douglass’s visit coincided with the first appearance of a blight in the potato crop. At this stage nobody knew that the crop failure would mark the onset of prolonged famine in Ireland. Douglass did comment on the poverty of the Irish people, even in Dublin. But he, like O’Connell, drew an important distinction between Irish oppression and American slavery, explaining, “The Irish man is poor, but he is not a slave. He may be in rags, but he is not a slave. He is still the master of his body.”

Douglass’s time in Ireland, when he became “a man,” helped to consolidate his view that the struggle of black slaves was part of a wider struggle for social justice. His experiences in 1845 provided a prism through which he could view suffering and oppression everywhere, and articulate the demand for universal human rights. This approach remained pivotal to his subsequent political activities. Towards the end of his life, Douglass served as Minister to Haiti. In 1893, no longer in that position, he paid public tribute to the beleaguered country – the first black republic – referencing both Ireland and Daniel O’Connell in his speech:

“It was once said by the great Daniel O’Connell, that the history of Ireland might be traced, like a wounded man through a crowd, by the blood. The same can be said of the history of Haiti as a free state.”

Frederick Douglass Discusses the meaning of the Fourth of July

Frederick Douglass Discusses the meaning of the Fourth of July

 

As the city's most distinguished resident, Frederick Douglass was requested to address the

citizens of Rochester on the Fourth of July celebration in 1852. The speech he delivered, under

the title, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?", illustrates the great power, insight and

integrity of the man.

Fellow Citizens:

Pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today?

What have I or those I represent to do with your national independence? Are the great principles

of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence,

extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national

altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from

your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully

returned to these questions. Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For

who is there so cold that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to

the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so

stolid and selfish that would not give his voice to swell the halleluiahs of a nation's jubilee, when

the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the

dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap like a hare."

But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. I am not

included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the

immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in

common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by

your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has

brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is

yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must

mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to

join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean,

citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And

let me warn you, that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up

to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable

ruin. I can today take up the lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people.

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yes! We wept when we remembered Zion. We

hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away

captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us, required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one

of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O

Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave

to the roof of my mouth."

Fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of

millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are today rendered more intolerable by the

jubilant shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not remember those bleeding children of

sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of

my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular

theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before

God and the world. My subject, then, fellow citizens, is "American Slavery." I shall see this day

and! its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing here, identified with the

American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that

the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July.

Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of

the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present,

and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and

bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity, which is outraged, in the name of

liberty, which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded

and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can

command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery-the great sin and shame of America! "I

will not equivocate; I will not excuse"; I will use the severest language I can command, and yet

not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who

is not at heart a slave-holder, shall not confess to be right and just.

But I fancy I hear some of my audience say it is just in this circumstance that you and

your brother Abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you

argue more and denounce less, would you persuade more and rebuke less, your cause would be

much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What

point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the

people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is

conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slave-holders themselves acknowledge it in the

enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on

the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed

by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while

only two of these same crimes will subject a white man to like punishment. What is this but the

acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The manhood of

the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute-books are covered with

enactments, forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read and

write. When you can point to any such laws m reference to the beasts of the field, then I may

consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the

air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be

unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then I will argue with you that the slave is a man!

For the present it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing

that, while we are plowing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting

houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver, and

gold; that while we are reading, writing, and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants, and

secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and

teachers; that while we are engaged in all the enterprises common to other men digging gold in

California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living,

moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and above

all, confessing and worshipping the Christian God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality

beyond the grave-we are called upon to prove that we are men?

Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? That he is the rightful owner of his own

body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question

for republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with

great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to understand?

How should I look today in the presence of Americans, dividing and subdividing a discourse, to

show that men have a natural right to freedom, speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively

and affirmatively? To do so would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your

understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven who does not know that slavery

is wrong

for him.

What! Am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work

them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them

with sticks, to flay their flesh with the last, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs,

to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to

starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus

marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? No; I will not. I have better employment

for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that

our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman

cannot be divine. Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time

for such argument is past.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh! had I the ability, and

could I reach the nation's ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting

reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not

the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The

feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the

propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its

crimes against God and man must be denounced.

What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than

all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To

him your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness,

swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants,

brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and

hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him

mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which

would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more

shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of

the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse and when you have found

the last, lay your facts by the side of the every-day practices of this nation, and you will say with

me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival