Absolutely not true. Pres. Bush acknowledged the realities of past slavery, but the thrust of the speech was forward, future. The input of Africans on American shores continues to help our country as a whole become a land of justice and freedom for all. He ended with the words: "This untamed fire of justice continues to burn in the affairs of man, and it lights the way before us."
The irony here is that modern reparation-seekers are doing exactly what slave owners did in the past--profit from the toils of working men and women.
"Whether it's called ‘reparations’ or ‘reconstruction assistance,’ something is needed in order to return peoples to their own history.”
Money taken from workers today cannot "return peoples to their own history". People make their own history. What's done in the distant past is done, and we can only move forward. I would ask the reparations seekers, what do you want to be remembered for? As someone who delayed the progress of black advancement by convincing blacks that they must live on the dole, that somehow a lottery check from uncle Sam will make everything all right? Or as someone who made their own destiny and rose above the injustices of the past to enjoy true equality and the rewards of accomplishment? I think I know what Jesse Jackson and the folks in the article above have chosen.
And that's not even getting into the mega-quagmire question of who pays, and who receives?