Ex-Black Panther Sues Bush, Pope, Elizabeth II over Slavery

NewsMax ^ | 1/8/04 | Carl Limbacher

[WinOne4TheGipper]

Bob Brown, a former Black Panther and co-director of Pan-African Roots, filed a 183-page class-action lawsuit yesterday, claiming that 71 defendants owe reparations for slavery.

The suit names: The King of Spain, the Queen of England, the Pontiff, President Bush, and Jaques Chirac; the governors of Illinois, Virginia, Louisiana and Texas; nine ports; several major sugar, gun, tobacco, and railroad companies; many, many banks and even Bacardi Rum.

The Chicago Tribune pointed out that Brown will have difficulty with such a suit, considering that "slavery was legal, as well as the difficulty Brown and those he represents face in proving that they were directly deprived due to slavery." Not to mention the fact that it would be nearly impossible to prove that the pope or the current president had anything to do with slavery.

[Editor's note: In fact, if one wanted to sue anyone, one might think of suing the Democratic party, which, had Gen. George McClellan defeated Lincoln in 1864, would have eliminated emancipation in a conciliatory move toward the secessionist South, but we digress]

Bob Bennett, former dean of Northwestern University's law school told the Tribune: "The lawsuit strikes me as a rhetorical statement which probably belongs in the realm of political rhetoric and demonstration and maybe even lobbying, but not in a court of law."

Brown brought the suit himself, without the help of a lawyer, and has been working on it for two years, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

He is calling on those named as defendants in the suit ""to acknowledge and apologize for the role that they and their predecessors played and continue to play."

[Editor's note: No one is sure what role anyone continues to play in the slave trade, since it has been outlawed by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified almost 150 years ago, but we digress further]

Brown added that "Slavery was and is an illegal criminal enterprise," a point that is clearly not true; slavery is certainly immoral, wrong, horrific and heinous - but it was, unfortunately, legal in the South at the time.

Brown challenged Pope John Paul II directly: "The Pope must come and say the truth ... He must come and tell us why ... certain Catholic forces disobeyed Catholic laws, enslaved us and became unjustly enriched up on us. He must open the Vatican library and disclose the files."

[WinOne4TheGipper]

Like the editors, I would love to know who in that group still owns slaves.

[onedoug]

He forgot the Muslim Caliphate.

[TheBigB]

They still exist in parts of Africa, but don't tell Jesse.

[kb2614]

I read this twice and I still react the same,,,,,

BWHAHAHAHAHA

Dude needs to get a life.

[Frank_Discussion]

My exact thoughts!

[Support Free Republic]

Hey, I don't mean to be nosey...

... but I'd really like some bacon,
or some help for FR.

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

The day this government gives in to reparations will be the day that a second Civil War starts. Slavery and the War of Northern Aggression ended over 100 years before I was born, and I'll be damned if I give 1 penny to these leeches.

[kb2614]

SHHHHH, you'll burst his bubble.

Don't forget modern day Sudan (modern being used loosely here).

[Steel Wolf]

Or the tribes that fought his ancestors and sold them to the slavers.

If he's looking for currently slaveholders, perhaps he should try suing the government of the Sudan.

If he's just a fool out looking to cause trouble with people who have money, and no ties to slavery less than 130 years old, then he's on the right course.

[New Perspective]

Maybe he should start with the ones who actually had slaves and work his way down from there. Why should people who never owned slaves pay people who were never slaves?

[trebb]

Since the Panthers and other radical groups advocate violence in order to achieve their goals, you would think they would rather sue the families of slaves that didn't rise up against their "masters".

[nwrep]

The Chicago Tribune correctly points out that slavery was legal. In addition, it was sanctioned, prescribed and encouraged by the Koran, the Caliphate and the Ottoman Sultans.

Instead of descendants of slaves suing for slavery, I would advise the present day Africans to sue the Arabs and Europeans for depriving their ancestors of a chance of participating in the slave life, and escaping Africa.

[FormerLib]

One difference between genius and idiocy is that genius has its limits.

[jscd3]

Brown challenged Pope John Paul II directly: "The Pope must come and say the truth ... He must come and tell us why ... certain Catholic forces disobeyed Catholic laws..

I'm guessing it's for the same reason that certain racist criminals (oh, let's say the Black Panthers, just for argument's sake) disobeyed the laws of California and the US and engaged in robbery, rape, murder, drug dealling, fomenting revolution, etc. Brown must explain himself and immediately make available all of his old notes, letters, and diaries! /sarcasm

Seriously, what a nimrod...

[tracer]

Brown should add me to his list of defendants as well.

My then-unborn spirit, although close to the Lord Above before and after the historical course of slavery, made no effort to abolish it.

I'm not able to recall, but I may well have been too busy trying to intervene from On High with regard to the enslavement of my own ancestors by the Romans and later by the Turks.

But, Bobby, should you change your mind and add me to your list of miscreants, I've got a response to your motion for discovery "right here," as they say.......

[Republicus2001]

Heh, perhaps a cynical countersuit would be in the works...that is suing West Africa for selling the "slavery angle" to the Yankee traders of mercantile America in the 17th century. Since then the U.S. has been sorely injured from the effects of Africans selling their people as slaves.

[Reagan Man]

Slavery was an ugly event in American history. It was wrong, its been abolished and its time to move on. But the idea of reparations is just as wrong.

Reparations would harm people who never owned slaves and reward people who never were slaves.

[tracer]

Confucius say: "Legal discovery process is bitch"......

[Sangria]

Somebody needs to commit this mad man to a mental facility. He sounds dangerous to me.