Posted on 07/14/2007 12:12:45 PM PDT by Altura Ct.
In speeches demanding government reparations for 400 years of American slavery to ruminations on the revolutionary nature of a rose in a woman's hand, black activists Friday took up the the thorny topic of how best to "resurrect" the African-American family.
Chicago activist Conrad Worrill urged those gathered at the Shape Community Center for the 28th convention of the National Black United Front to continue to push for government compensation for centuries of slavery.
"It's clear they owe us for 400 years of free labor," he said. "They owe us."
Worrill, United Front national chairman, was the opening speaker for the organization's three-day conference. Founded in Brooklyn, N.Y., the group was active in opposing the white-led government of South Africa, supporting Harold Washington's election as Chicago's first black mayor and participating in the Nation of Islam's 1995 Million Man March in Washington, D.C. In the 1990s, the group lodged allegations of U.S. genocide with the United Nations.
Houston Nation of Islam Minister Robert Muhammad, also on Friday's program, called the United Front the "hardest of hard-core" activists. "We say, 'No justice, no peace,' and mean it," he said.
Today, delegates will tour the Fourth Ward — Houston's "Freedman's Town" — then discuss strategies and experiments in African-centered education.
In an earlier interview, Worrill attributed many of the problems facing contemporary black families to the legacy of slavery, which he said "disrupted, decimated and shut down" black family life for centuries.
Blacks bear the responsibility of "repairing the family internally," he said, but must not stop demanding that government address social ills.
'Apologies aren't enough' Citing ex-slave Callie House's decades-long, early 20th-century crusade to glean government pensions for former bondsmen as a model, Worrill said blacks must push for reparations with the tenacity they exhibited in seeking the end of legally sanctioned segregation. "What we're seeing unfold is that many states have now offered apologies," he said. "Apologies aren't enough.
"Why are blacks any different than the Japanese?" he said, alluding to reparations paid Japanese-Americans held in World War II internment camps.
Ajamu Webster, of the United Front's Kansas City chapter, told delegates about the Fathers for Life program, which provided peer counseling sessions for adult men. The program also endeavored to "lift up brothers," publicizing examples of highly successful fathers.
An effort to "take back Father's Day" resulted in large numbers of men spending the day in the park with their children. In a related campaign, children were encouraged to write essays about their fathers, which they then read over the radio.
Muhammad told delegates that activists in their zeal sometimes "have not taken care of business at home." Citing the teachings of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, Muhammad said family is "second only to God."
The power of love He admonished the men in the audience to "feel your woman's pain," and to exhibit patience and loyalty. "What's wrong with flowers?" Muhammad said. "Nothing is as revolutionary as a rose in a woman's hand. Nothing is as revolutionary as taking her out to dinner and a movie. Nothing is more revolutionary than going to the park. ... Nothing more revolutionary than a rowboat ride.
"Black power is love power. Black power is family power."
Before the Magna Carta was signed, my ancestors were essentially serfs and I wanna’ know when I’m getting my reparations.
Houston Nation of Islam Minister Robert Muhammad
on slavery TODAY, as black children are taken by Islam. ..... [sound of crickets]
poor bugger can read and write
perhaps he would have been better off at home in africa where he could be both starving and illiterate
In speeches demanding government reparations for 400 years of American slavery .... "It's clear they owe us for 400 years of free labor," he said. "They owe us."
Hey asshat, did you fail history? "Amercia" didn't have 400 years of slavery. Try 87 (at the most) you moron. You know, "Four Score and Seven years ago..". And idiot, your math sucks too. Technically slavery ended in 'America' on January 1, 1863, the day of the Emancipation Proclamation, which gives us only 76 years from the ratification on the U.S. Constitution in 1787. Your '400 years' would mean 'America' was founded in .. uh ... lets see ... mmmm .. oh yeah... 1463. Or from 1776 would mean ... 1376!!!!!
Either one is a pretty freaking neat trick since Columbus didn't sail from Spain until 1492!!!
If anything, Great Britain (aka England) is the country you should go after jerk-off. Oh wait ... you reparation pimps did about a decade ago and the English Court told you to bugger off as Slavery was legal at the time so no laws were broken and as such nobody 'owed' you sh*t. In short you were laughed out of court.
Go smoke some crack then call someone who cares.
That’s because it’s not logic.
I also marveled at his victimization statement:
“It’s clear they owe us for 400 years of free labor,” he said. “They owe us.”
Why is it that Africa for all of it’s age has not produced in the last 2000 years a working government and a world power?
How about fixing up the pathologies that are self-inflicted and stop whining about something done to people who have since died by people who have since died?
The USA abolished slavery! These hate-mongers will never let it fade because their power derives from keeping people down and blaming whitey for their self-inflicted troubles.
Exactly. Look at what happened with the hurricane Katrina handouts.
Oooooh that’s a good one. I agree.
it has
Zimbabwe
and soon to be elevated
South Africa
Ok, but we will have to charge for the free room and board you had during that time. Plus deduct the sick days taken, absent without leave time, the years of free room and board for your children too young to work, clothing, furniture, transportation costs, money paid out on your behalf. Plus deduct the tracts of land given to you by your former slave masters, charitable contributions, education costs, welfare, grants, forgivable loans, delinquent loans, and all other hand outs up to this point.
Now, when can we expect to be paid all the money "African Americans" owe us? plus interest of course. And while we are waiting for repayment, we'll expect regular monthly payments for the privilage of staying in this country, or, you can return to Africa since you are not an American, and therefore not entitled to anything American citizens are, which includes the right to live here, unless paying to the privillage of being allowed to work here, and have a valid work visa.
Reparations=something for nothing, an entitlement mentality that further cripples initiative and self-reliance. The last thing the black underclass needs. How sad.
>”Why are blacks any different than the Japanese?”
Japanese victims still lived at the time of reparations. Black slaves are not.
>”It’s clear they owe us for 400 years of free labor,” he
>said. “They owe us.”
Nah! We owe dead people $$. The dead don’t collect, they only know they are dead.
Lets see, what is the going rate these days for manually picking cotton with your fingers? Would it be something like a nickel a week maybe? Now, divide that up between every decendent of each slave. That comes to about 200 bucks per slave per lifetime. Assume each slave has now 1024 living relatives, that comes to about 20 cents per living black citizen.
I say pay them now. And then consider the slate wiped clean. No more race quotas. No more jesse jackson. No more hate crimes laws. We are now even steven. Sound fair?
I won’t even go into the cost of the civil war which was to give them freedom. They owe us that. But if we charged them for that, they’d end up oweing us. So I’ll let that slide.
Only countries steeped in a Judeo/Christian heritage do that.
First Class?
I’d send them coach.
Actually slavey didn’t end throughout the US until the 13th Amendment was passed in 1865. Lincoln’s Proclamation ended slavery in those states which were in rebellion. He issued it in September, 1862 and as you pointed out it took effect in January, 1863. But not in the border states which had not left the union.
The sad thing is this is the one legacy of slavery that continues to harm blacks. Worst still is that up until the 1960's black families were making quite a comeback. Then the Libs gave them no-fault divorce, the 'sexual revolution' and now gay marriage. The premise of all these "progressive" policies is that a father is no longer required. It amazes me that the blacks keep voting for the democrats who have been tearing their families apart for 200 years now. A sad thing
In speeches demanding government reparations for 400 years of Roman slavery to ruminations on the revolutionary nature of a rose in a woman’s hand, Irish activists Friday took up the the thorny topic of how best to “resurrect” the Irish family.
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