[BRC-NEWS] Reparations By Y2K Or Else! Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source - "Oscar L. Beard" [from THEBLACKLIST] A disproportionate number of African "Americans" are in jail and the judicial system. Unemployment among Blacks is traditionally twice that of whites, and Black institutions, social agencies, education and communities are not funded on a level with Whites. Yet, leaders of America's public and private sectors deny that an institutionalized pattern of discrimination still exists in this country and still refuse to apologize for slavery and 400 years of racial bondage for African "Americans." President Clinton says, "The African Americans with whom I discuss this issue, say it is not important" to have an apology. But, President Clinton may want to open his ears to the mass of America's Black People. More people than he knows are concerned about the discrimination that still exists in America and are demanding payment for wrongs that continue being done to them. Similar to the Japanese, Indians and others who've been compensated for wrongs done to them, more African "Americans" than he knows want Clinton and the U.S. Congress to apologize, as well as pay us what is owed. Most Blacks know the sting of America's institution of racism. Instead of diminishing in chorus and discussion, as appointed Black leaders would have it, the concept of Black Reparations gains movement with each case of discrimination in the work place, restaurant facility and judicial system. In a poll among Black newspaper readers, when asked: Do you think that American descendants of African slaves deserve reparations? Overwhelmingly, the response - 70 percent - was "yes." Members of the movement say Black Reparations are: 1) the debt owed to Blacks for the centuries of unpaid slave labor that built America's early economy and 2) debt owed from discriminatory wage and employment patterns Blacks have been subjected to since emancipation. Robert L. Brock, an attorney who has incessantly litigated the issue, says, "The wealth of America is our legal property. But we must make our legal claims to get money as others have made their claims and gotten money." Brock's Washington, D.C.-based Self Determination Committee is bringing a high level of movement leaders together in Washington, D.C. June 11, 1999 to educate Blacks on how to make more noise about the issue and make claims. This gathering for Reparations will occur just three blocks from the White House, at Metropolitan A.M.E. Church, 1518 M. Street, N.W. At this Reparations Mass Meeting presenters will include: Florida State Senator Daryl L. Jones, who successfully spearheaded getting Black victims of the Rosewood (Fla.) Massacre $150,000 each (one hundred and fifty thousand); John H. Boyd, Jr., President of the National Black Farmers Association, Inc., who got over $350 million for the Black farmers who were adjudicated as "wronged" by the U.S. Department of Agriculture; nationally syndicated columnist William Reed will report on a survey on Reparations conducted among Black newspaper readers; and Dorothy Lewis, who chairs the oldest group working for Reparations (N'COBRA) National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, will discuss "Reparations Now! Get Ready to Get Paid," and current actions being taken to gain compensation payments for African "Americans". Attorney Brock is organizer of the June 11, 1999 meeting and has represented U.S. African slave descendants in a successful Class Action lawsuit against the Internal Revenue and U.S. Government for illegal Black taxation, slavery, and a myriad of human rights violations. Brock is coalescing the movement to have African "Americans" make legal claims to get money and Reparations. He claims: "Reparations are not new. Reparations are both legal and common. The U.S. owes Reparations to all African-Americans of U.S. slave descent." U.S. Congressman John Conyers is the sponsor of H.R. 40, a bill to form a Commission to Study Reparations Proposal for African-Americans Act. Conyers, the Self-Determination Committee's 1998 Keynote Speaker, has submitted H.R. 40 in Congress every year since 1989. He says, "The time is ripe now to push for a galvanizing of national efforts to put the Reparations Movement and H.R. 40 at the top of the American agenda. The President's recent initiatives on American race relations underscore the long-standing domestic imperative of healing and repairing the suffering from the legacy of slavery and its continuing effects on African-Americans today." Brock says, "More Black Americans want an acknowledgement of the injustice and inhumanity of slavery in the United States than any of the people clinging to the status quo. If White America doesn't take the initiative and proactive steps toward an apology for slavery and appropriate payments, Blacks are not likely to stay appeased for long." Contact: Attorney Dr. Robert L. Brock, (202) 544-5366 Website: http://www.directblackaction.com -30- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress - General News/Alerts/Announcements Subscribe: Email "subscribe brc-news" to ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrc-06.03.99-23:51:54-1760