a rbg guidebook for reparations studies: interactive introduction
TRANSCRIPT
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RBG Communiversity
THIS DOWNLOADABLE RESOURCE IS PART OF:
The RBG Maafa (European Holocaust of Afrikan Enslavement) and Reparations Collection
Icebreaker Video
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For 246 years, enslaved Afrikan (our ancestors) endured inhuman living conditions, torture and
rape, legally enforced servitude, and other horrendous crimes against humanity. Meanwhile,
countless American corporations sponsored and/or benefited from the uncompensated labor and
exploitation of these slaves.
In 1863, “President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation began the process of freeing” the more
than 4 million slaves of Afrikan descent in the United States. But while chattel slavery was
abolished, sharecropping, "black codes", Jim Crow laws, lynching, psychic violence and socio-
structural and institutional racism perpetuated restrictions upon the “freed” Afrikans nonetheless.
Dozens of corporations continued to this very day to benefit from unpaid labor of our ancestors,
allowing these companies to flourish, while unemployment sores to all time post-chattel highs as
I write. Citing the persisting legacy of slavery, suffering and death we as descendants of these
slaves must continue to fight for reparations and reconciliation on behalf of the approximately 35
million living descendants of our enslaved ancestors.
Although I personally believe that the immorality of the American system, business and culture
of white supremacy / racism will never see fit to give us reparations; the principles and
documentation of our fight for such a just caused must be carried forward. At the end of the day,
I agree 101% with Minister Malcolm X when he says “Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody
can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.” (From: Malcolm X
Speaks, 1965) Thus, as we struggle against continued U.S. colonization New Afrikans must have
a determined sense of history in regard to the New Afrikan Nation’s historical struggle,
movement in and relationship to the United States. The work that has been done and is being
done towards reparations is “bread and butter knowledge”. Without such knowledge; our
practice will continue to be confused and chaotic, lacking the historical continuity which serves
to give practical guidance to our struggle and movement on the road to full independence. It is
with these notions in mind that I have compiled this booklet. A tremendous amount of scholarly,
diligent and valuable work has been done by our people over the past 30 years on the issue of
reparations, especially by the still active National Coalition Of Blacks for Reparations in
America (N'COBRA). As a teacher and inspire of our youth, I believe young New Afrikan
revolutionaries and activist must get up to speed on the sequence, progress and details of this
potent work to best “carry the torch and keep the fire burning”
The booklet is comprised of an interactive introduction drawn by myself, as to so-called “break
the ice”; followed by select resources published over the past 30 years by National Coalition Of
Blacks for Reparations in America.
By placing this data in a single document for download, it is my hope and intention that our
young people will come into a new revelation as to the strength of our spirit to fight for what is
right, and become energized to learn from the historical principals that have been at the center of
the reparations movement. And for those of us that have been around a while longer, I desire to
resurrect fond memories and transmit a rational hope for the future as you guide in your wisdom.
PRESCRIPT:
And most of all, I intend to catalyze all New Afrikans to “Be Down with the Reparations Clique”.
RBG Street Scholar/August, 2012
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QUOTES REGARDING REPARATIONS
N'COBRA
http://www.ncobra.org/
“We must prepare African people and communities for the
demands of the new millennium. Reparations are needed to
repair the wrongs, injury, and damage done to us by the US
federal and State governments, their agents, and representatives.
These have proved that their vision for African people in
America is joblessness, more prisons (more killer kkkops), more
black women and men in private prisons, AIDS and violence.
"The US Eurocentric educational system has failed to prepare
African children for liberation, nation-building, and self-
determination. This educational system produces people who are
anti-black; including many blacks who are self-alienated and
anti-black. We want our resources, our inheritance, to do for
ourselves without US Federal and State involvement."
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John Hope Franklin, Historian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hope_Franklin
"Most living Americans do have a connection with slavery. They
have inherited the preferential advantage, if they are white, or
the loathsome disadvantage, if they are black; and those
positions are virtually as alive today as they were in the 19th
century. The pattern of housing, the discrimination in
employment, the resistance to equal opportunity in education,
the racial profiling, the inequities in the administration of
justice, the low expectation of blacks in the discharge of duties
assigned to them, the widespread belief that blacks have
physical prowess but little intellectual capacities and the
widespread opposition to affirmative action, as if that had not
been enjoyed by whites for three centuries, all indicate that the
vestiges of slavery are still with us."
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Joseph Anderson, Member of the National Council of
African American Men
http://www.tulsareparations.org/TulsaRiot.htm
"The arguments for reparations aren't made on the basis of
whether every white person directly gained from slavery. The
arguments are made on the basis that slavery was
institutionalized and protected by law in the United States. As
the government is an entity that survives generations, its debts
and obligations survive the lifespan of any particular
individuals... Governments make restitution to victims as a
group or class."
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Ernest Allen, Jr. and Robert Chrisman
"Most blacks suffered and continue to suffer the economic
consequences of slavery and its aftermath. As of 1998, median
white family income in the U.S. was $49,023; median black
family income was $29,404, just 60% of white income."
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Oscar Brown Jr., Forty Acres and a Mule (Play the Video)
I'm not bitter, neither am I
cruel But ain't nobody paid
for slavery yet I may be
crazy, but I ain't no fool.
About my forty acres and
my mule... One hundred
years of debt at ten percent
'Per year, per forty acres and
per mule Now add that up...
15th
Amendment or the Darkey's millenium-40 acres of land and a mule, from Robert N. Dennis
collection of stereoscopic views (Expand to full screen view)
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Forty Acres and a Mule refers
to the short-lived policy,
during the last stages of the
American Civil War during
1865, of providing arable land
to black former slaves who
had become free as a result of
the advance of the Union
armies into the territory
previously controlled by the
Confederacy, particularly after
Major General William
Tecumseh Sherman's "March
to the Sea." General Sherman's Special Field Orders, No. 15, issued on January 16,
1865, provided for the land, while some of its beneficiaries also received mules
from the Army, for use in plowing.
The Special Field Orders issued by Sherman were never intended to represent an
official policy of the United States government with regards to all former slaves
and were issued "throughout the campaign to assure the harmony of action in the
area of operations." Sherman's orders specifically allocated "the islands from
Charleston, south, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles back
from the sea, and the country bordering the St. Johns River, Florida." Brigadier
General Rufus Saxton, an abolitionist from Massachusetts, was appointed by
Sherman to oversee the settling of the freed slaves. By June 1865, about 10,000
freed slaves were settled on 400,000 acres (160,000 ha) in Georgia and South
Carolina.
After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, his successor, Andrew
Johnson, revoked Sherman's Orders and returned the land to its previous white
owners. Because of this, the phrase "40 acres and a mule" has come to represent
the failure of Reconstruction policies in restoring to African in American the fruits
of their labor.
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Robin D.G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams
"If we think of reparations as part of a broad strategy to radically
transform society -- redistributing wealth, creating a democratic
and caring public culture, exposing the ways capitalism and
slavery produced massive inequality -- then the ongoing struggle
for reparations holds enormous promise for revitalizing
movements for social justice."
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Huey Newton, The Black Panther Party Ten-Point Program
"We want an end to the robbery by the white man of our Black
Community. We believe that this racist government has robbed
us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres
and two mules. Forty acres and two mules was promised 100
years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of black
people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be
distributed to our many communities. The Germans are now
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aiding the Jews in Israel for the genocide of the Jewish people.
The Germans murdered six million Jews. The American racist
has taken part in the slaughter of over fifty million black people;
therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make."
Malcolm X
"If you are the son of a man who had a wealthy estate and you
inherit your father's estate, you have to pay off the debts that
your father incurred before he died. The only reason that the
present generation of white Americans are in a position of
economic strength...is because their fathers worked our fathers
for over 400 years with no pay...We were sold from plantation to
plantation like you sell a horse, or a cow, or a chicken, or a
bushel of wheat...All that money...is what gives the present
generation of American whites the ability to walk around the
earth with their chest out...like they have some kind of economic
ingenuity.
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"Your father isn't here to pay. My
father isn't here to collect. But I'm here
to collect and you're here to pay."
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