5 Examples of How Blacks Can Fight For Reparations For Slavery

The Jewish people had great success in accumulating billions of dollars in reparations after the Holocaust in Germany. After World War II, they created associations such as The World Jewish Restitution Organization and The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) and these agencies filed court cases and won reparations on behalf of the victims and their descendants. Do Blacks deserve reparations for slavery and colonialism? It's a popular issue to debate. Some people observe that Native Americans, Japanese and Jewish people received reparations for crimes committed against them, and wonder why Blacks across the globe have not been compensated as well. Maybe Black people haven't made the right approach to secure reparations for the African Holocaust? Maybe the same arguments and strategies that the Jewish people used successfully could work for us. Blacks Can Hold Companies That Benefited From Slavery Responsible Jewish survivor organizations pressured businesses and corporations (many of them based in Germany) to pay compensation for forced Jewish labor during the Jewish Holocaust. Among those businesses were Deutsche Bank AG, Siemens AG, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW), Volkswagen AG and Adam Opel AG. In response, early in 1999, the German government proclaimed the establishment of a fund with money from these companies to help Holocaust survivors in need. American, Canadian, British, and other European companies, such as Lehman Brothers, Aetna, Inc., JPMorgan Chase, New York Life., Wachovia Corporation, N M Rothschild & Sons, Norfolk Southern, E.W. Scripps, Gannett Co., FleetBoston, Canadian National Railway Company, Brooks Brothers, Barclays, and AIG have all been documented as beneficiaries of the institution of slavery. African descendants in the Americas and the Caribbean can pressure these companies and lobby for reparations. Painting "Sheol" by Artist Rod Brown In 1951, Israeli authorities made a claim to the four powers occupying post-war Germany regarding compensation and reimbursement, saying Germany was responsible for the debt absorbed by the resettled 500,000 Holocaust survivors, who fled Germany to Israel. The Israelis calculated that it cost $3,000 per person (equivalent to $26,981 today), and said they were owed $1.5 billion by Germany. In 1952, an agreement was signed and West Germany paid reparations of an estimated $1.8 billion to Israel over the next fourteen years. The payments were made to the state of Israel as the heir to those victims who had no surviving family. A debt was also incurred after the forced relocation of Africans to the Western Hemisphere. Blacks were left with nothing after slavery and colonialism, so for generations poverty has dogged us as we pay a debt stemming from our ancestors' abduction and enslavement. This case can be made for all Blacks in the African Diaspora. Blacks Can Call For Re-education of Children of African Descent In its initial post-war demands, Israel and the Claims Conference recovered financial reparations from the German government to re-educate young Jewish and Germans children to reverse the psychological effects of the Jewish Holocaust. The goal was to return them to who they were prior to the anti-Semitic ideology. To reverse the effect on African people, Blacks around the globe can form organizations to seek reparations from the U.S., the U.K., Spain, France, and other European governments, to re-educate and repair generations of psychological damage caused in the wake of slavery and colonization. Countries Can Work Together And Petition Politically For Reparations Since 1951, Israel, the United States and other allies combined politically and secured more than $61.8 billion in reparations from Germany for the Jewish people. Together they used their economic and political strength to present legal cases that demonstrated why Germany was accountable for the conditions of Jewish people after the Holocaust. Some Caribbean nations and African organizations have made strides in their fight for reparations for slavery. In September 2013, 14 Caribbean nations filed a lawsuit against the governments of the U. K., France and the Netherlands for financial compensation for what the plaintiffs say is the "lingering legacy" of the Atlantic slave trade. In 1999, The African World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission, which consists of representatives from several African nations, also called for Western Europe and the Americas, beneficiaries of the slave trade and colonialism, to pay reparations. The Caribbean nations and the African organizations would fare better politicaly as one force, just as Israel, its allies and Jewish organizations did. Blacks Can Lobby For The Restitution of Property The World Jewish Restitution Organization presented a legal case after tallying up the property stolen from Jewish people throughout Europe during the Jewish Holocaust. The organization also investigated what happened to money deposited in Swiss banks by Jewish people living outside Switzerland, who were later murdered during the Holocaust. In the 1990s, they estimated that $6 billion dollars in property was taken from Jewish people. Subsequently, reparations were granted to the Holocaust survivors and their descendants when the organization lobbied and pressured Germany and other European nations to pay for the stolen property. Assuming that the estimated 12 million Africans who were shipped to the U.S., Caribbean and South America had at least a place to live prior to the Atlantic slave trade, it isn't farfetched for their descendants to lobby, through organizations, for the restoration of property or a secure place to live without debt. Sources: http://muse.jhu.edu http://atlantablackstar.com http://www.ihr.org http://en.wikipedia.org http://www.huffingtonpost.com

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