Black reparations movement presses on with its demands

By Kenneth Meeks Special to the AmNews August 15, 1992

In the midst of the 500th anniversary of the so-called "discovery of America," there's a growing international movement in the African and African-American communities calling for reparation payments to African people for the historical injustices wrought on them and for their enslavement in the United States.

In Africa, a small group of diplomats, academics, and intellectuals forming the nucleus to an international campaign have been drumming up support calling for America to pay various African countries (and Nigeria in particular) for enslaving their people.

Elombe Brath, a leading New York Black activist and historian, said this issue has been around for several years but has picked up renewed momentum when African officials raised the issue last year.

One suggestion for reparations would be to cancel all financial debts owed the United States by African and Caribbean nations, a debt ranging in the billions of dollars.

and its legislation.

There are several historical precedents for reparations payments from one nation or people to another.

Indeed, this country has a his tory of repaying races of people for historical ills, dating back to 1971 when the American government paid $1 billion plus 44 million acres of land to Alaska natives for land settlements that were wrongly taken away from them by the U.S. government in the 1800s and before.