Reparations - What the Democrats Owe

A Letter from Wayne Perryman

from the office

Rev. Wayne Perryman

January 9, 2006

Congressional Black Caucus National Bar Association

NAACP National Urban League

Dr. Cornell West Professor Charles Ogletree

Senator Hillary Clinton Senator Joseph Biden

Senator Barack Obama Senator Edward Kennedy

Senator Joseph Lieberman Senator Barbara Boxer

Senator Pat Roberts Senator Carl Levin

Senator Diane Feinstein Cong. John Conyers

Cong. Jesse Jackson Jr. Cong. Harold Ford

Senator Mary Landrieu Senator Sam Brownback

Senator Bill Frist Cong. Elijah Cummings

Attention Congressional & Community Leaders:

I thought it would only be fitting and proper to provide an explanation as to what brought about the Reparations lawsuit against the Democratic Party. Before I share with you the chain of events that led to the lawsuit, I thought that perhaps I should give you a brief background on myself and my past political affiliation.

I am the author of several books, a former radio talk show host, a former newspaper publisher, a corporate consultant, a community activist and an inner-city minister located in Seattle Washington. In addition to working with gang members and professional athletes, I spend my leisure time doing research. In 1993, based on personal research, I challenged major Christian Publishers and scholars that continued to produce publications promoting the Curse of Ham theory (a theory that justified slavery from a Christian perspective). My efforts resulted in a public apology and the removal of the 400 year old curse theory from all of their publications including removing it from the Encyclopedia Britannica. My book: The 1993 Trial On The Curse of Ham was based on that research.

Most of my adult life I have voted for, and worked with a number of Democratic candidates at the local level. In 1996, I served as a member of the Washington State Black Clergy to Re-elect President Bill Clinton and worked closely with the co-chair. After President Clinton was re-elected, I was challenged by a group of young people from our church regarding the history of the Democratic Party and their relationship with blacks. Their challenge prompted me to devote a considerable amount of time researching the subject.

My research included reviewing Congressional Records from 1860 to present, reading the works of several renowned history professors (both black and white) and looking at the Democratic Platform from the early 1800’s to 1954. In addition to these documents I reviewed the research of those who produced the books: Without Sanctuary, 100 Years of Lynchings and added to my library PBS and the History Channel’s series on The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow and Reconstruction: The Second Civil War. Excerpts from those books and film documentaries were included as exhibits in my Reparations lawsuit against the Democratic Party.

The graphic depictions of whites fighting over the private parts of black men (penises, fingers, ears) after hanging them and igniting them with kerosene, is forever embedded in my mind. I can still hear the cries of the victims’ wives and children pleading and begging for the lives of their loved ones while Democratic national and local elected officials joined the crowd and cheered. The lynching of Mary Turner, the nine-month pregnant mother was even more horrific and graphic. All of these events took place under the banner of “States Rights” in regions controlled by Democratic governors, mayors, judges, sheriffs, Congressmen and U.S. Senators. Like Dr King, my parents lived through those times in Atlanta and I never fully appreciated what they and other blacks went through until I had completed my research.

In addition to lynchings and terrorist attacks by the Democrat’s terrorist organizations (as revealed in the 1871 Senate hearings), Democrats legislated Black Codes, Jim Crow laws and a multitude of other repressive legislation at the federal and state levels (and repealed other key pieces of Civil Rights legislation) all in an effort to deny blacks their rights as citizens. The entire system of racism in America was meticulously thought-out and carried-out by a powerful political machine. And that political machine according to historians, was the Democratic Party - the party of “White Supremacy.”

Based on these findings, I wrote my latest book: Unfounded Loyalty, and sent a letter to the DNC requesting that they issue an apology to African Americans. In 2005, I sent a second letter to the DNC, again requesting an apology (see attached). When the DNC ignored the first request, I filed my first lawsuit on December 10, 2004. Prior to my letters, members of the Congressional Black Caucus sent former Congressman JC Watts the letter below (on January 28, 1999). In that letter the Caucus told Mr. Watts and his Republican counterparts to:“Clearly and publicly distance themselves from the CCC and any other white supremacist, anti-semitic or hate groups….” In my letter to the DNC, I expressed similar sentiments. I told the DNC “An apology is one of the only ways modern-day Democrats can distance themselves from the party’s racist past while bringing some closure to the African American Community.” Instead of apologizing, Howard Dean hired one of the most powerful law-firms in the country, to defend the party’s racist past.

Without an apology and repentance there is no way the Democratic Party can ever sincerely honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ms Rosa Parks; two individuals who literally gave their lives to destroy the racist programs, policies and practices that were established by the Democratic Party. And without an apology and repentance there is no way the Democratic Party can ever respect African Americans. Their past programs and practices from slavery through Jim Crow which literally destroyed the lives of millions of blacks, was an act of mass murder. And to hire an attorney to defend that racist past is not only an official endorsement of murder - it is an insult to the entire black race and to those whites who gave their lives to eliminate racial injustice. .

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely

Rev. Wayne Perryman

I supported Herman Cain in his run for the Senate. And if he ever runs again, I would probably support him again.

I also consider Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams two of the finest economists and minds extant today. In case you don’t know them, both are black.

Sowell, Williams and Cain – among others — have spoken out against those fellow blacks who castigate and vilify America for a slavery now long in our past. And ALL thinking men and women oppose the periodic calls for reparations.

The fact is that the modern descendants of slaves brought here in chains in admittedly miserable, soul-gutting conditions now calling for reparations need to remember something:

They should not only be glad to be in America, they should be glad to be ANYWHERE!

Had their ancestors NOT been brought OUT of Africa – many by Muslim slave raiders —the blood of those ancestors would have run into the earth over there several centuries ago, victims of the OTHER black tribes that captured them in one of the interminable tribal conflicts STILL ravaging that sad continent and these modern day would-be “plaintiffs” would not even exist.

And I would remind you that slavery is STILL practiced in parts of Africa (mainly by muslims) and Asia today.

95% of the African slaves who were transported across the Atlantic went to South and Central America, mainly to Portuguese, Spanish and French possessions, and that less than 5% of the slaves who crossed the Atlantic went to the United States, it was remarkable that the vast majority of academic research, films, books and articles concerning the slave trade concentrated only on the American involvement, as though slavery was a uniquely American aberration.

And should the great-great-great grandchildren of SLAVE OWNING BLACKS also be subject to PAYING these reparations? If so, how do we find THEM?

And I have traced MY family back to the SLAVS. For those who don’t know, that word means “slave.” Do I qualify for reparations? From whom??

The official US Census of 1830 lists 3,775 free blacks who owned 12,740 black slaves. Furthermore, the story outlines the history of slavery here, and the first slave owner, the Father of American slavery, was Mr Anthony Johnson, of Northampton, Virginia. His slave was John Casor, the first slave for life. Both were black Africans. The story is very readable, and outlines cases of free black women owning their husbands, free black parents selling their children into slavery to white owners, and absentee free black slave owners, who leased their slaves to plantation owners.
-”Selling Poor Steven”, American Heritage Magazine, Feb/Mar 1993 (Vol. 441) p 90

Of course, a full telling of Black History would not be complete without a telling of the origin of slavery in the Virginia colony:
Virginia, Guide to The Old Dominion, WPA Writers’ Program, Oxford University Press, NY, 1940, p. 378

And the holier-than-thou Northern liberals are strangely silent on recent archeological evidence from NEW YORK CITY clearly tracing the financing of the slave trade to NORTHERN BUSINESSMEN!!

At the height of his remarkable boxing career, Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Clay), once declared “I’m glad my great-grandpa got on that boat.”

And author Robert Hitt Neill tells of attending a Tennessee Mountain Writer’s Conference years ago with several other authors. Among them was Alex Hailey, celebrated author of “Roots.” Watching a TV news show, a group of them watched a demonstration in a Southern state against the “Rebel” flag incorporated into that state’s flag. The very next report covered a famine in Africa. Graphic images showed dead bodies, starving children with distended tummies and runny noses and dying people covered with flies, too weak to brush them away.

Mr. Hailey intoned in a low, serious voice, “Every time an American black sees a story like that, they should find a Confederate flag and kiss it.” He then pointed to the TV screen and continued, “Because these would be me and my descendants, except for American slavery. I thank God that my family and I are here instead of there.”

Next problem!

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