Why the issue of reparations for African-Americans has encountered
such strong resistance and what can be done to change that.Henry
(African-American Studies/UC-Berkeley; Ralph Bunche: Model Negro or
American Other?, 1999) takes the long view, providing first the
political and legal background of race relations in the United
States and looking at how the demands and tactics of reparation
movements and the responses to them have changed over time. He
compares two major reparations processes that occurred duringt the
same time period, between 1921 and 1923 - one in Rosewood, Fla.,
the other in Tulsa, Okla. - examining the factors that accounted
for their different outcomes and considering the lessons to be
learned from each. Current reparations movements, Henry notes, have
been encouraged by the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988
and by the success of Japanese Americans in gaining an apology and
reparations for their internment during World War II. The author
reports that in cities and states that have large and influential
African-American populations, a number of reparations bills have
been passed. However, an anti-reparations movement opposes such
efforts, as exemplified by the provocative advertisement placed in
campus newspapers in 2001 by conservative author David Horowitz.
Titled Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks Is a Bad Idea for
Blacks - and Racist, Too, it is reprinted here in its entirety.
(Horowitz offered the ad to some 50 elite universities, the author
notes, but only seven ran it.) As further evidence that it is time
for the culture and politics of reparations to change, Henry points
to the inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina, to the absence of
a national African-American museum in Washington, D.C. - where
museums to Native Americans and the Holocaust have been established
- and to the continued refusal of the U.S. government to
participate in global racism conferences. Proposals about the
specific form of possible reparations vary widely, and Henry
counsels that the reparations movement must agree on specific
goals. In his view, an acceptance of moral guilt in the form of an
apology for slavery and its consequences from Congress, the
president, or both, would be an important first step. Not a
strident call to arms, but a conscience-stirring scholarly survey
by a social historian providing hard data and guidance for
activists. (Kirkus Reviews)
View the Table of Contents
View the Preface
aReparations for the continuing legacy of American racism is the
central civil rights issue of the twenty-first century. Henry's
bold and insightful Long Overdue provides a detailed examination of
the current rationale for compensation to African Americans. Long
Overdue skillfully explores the political debate and controversies
surrounding reparations, and provides constructive suggestions for
what the movement needs in order to achieve its policy
objectives.a
--Manning Marable, author of "Let Nobody Turn Us Around"
aHenry offers a simply superb interrogation of the Black
reparations movement that is distinguished by its attention to
history, social movements theory, and global context. The case
studies presented here provide contrasting examples of reparations
in distinct time periods and highlight political mobilization on
local, national, and international scales. Long Overdue
compellingly illustrates how distinct demands for reparations have
been historically articulated, how they have converged with Black
nationalist thought, and how they have influenced the broader
public discourse on race and racism. An essential read for a
contentious debate.a
--Michael Omi, co-author of "Racial Formation in the United States:
From the 1960s to the 1990s"
Ever since the unfulfilled promise of aForty Acres and a mule, a
America has consistently failed to confront the issue of racial
injustice. Exploring why America has failed to compensate Black
Americans for the wrongs of slavery, Long Overdue provides a
history of the racial reparations movement and shows why it is an
idea whose time has come.
Martin Luther King, Jr., remarkedin his aI Have a Dreama speech
that America has given Black citizens a abad checka marked
ainsufficient funds.a Yet apart from a few Black nationalists, the
call for reparations has been peripheral to Black policy demands.
Charles P. Henry examines Americansa unwillingness to confront this
economic injustice, and crafts a skillful moral, political,
economic, and historical argument for African American reparations,
focusing on successful political cases.
In the wake of recent successes in South Africa and New Zealand,
new models for reparations have recently found traction in a number
of American cities and states, from Dallas to Baltimore and
Virginia to California. By looking at other dispossessed group --
Native Americans, holocaust survivors, and Japanese internment
victims in the 1940s -- Henry shows how some groups have won the
fight for reparations.
As Hurricane Katrina made apparent, the legacy of racial
segregation and economic disadvantage is never far below the
surface in America. Long Overdue provides an up-to-date survey of
the political and legislative efforts that are now breaking the
surface to move reparations into the heart of our national
discussion about race.
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