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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A proposal to establish a task force to study and prepare recommendations for how to give reparations to African Americans passed the California Assembly on Thursday. The bill advanced with a 56-5 vote as protests nationwide over police brutality re-energized the movement for racial justice and activists pressed for sweeping reforms. It is a top priority for California's Legislative Black Caucus. If the bill passes the Senate and is signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom, eight people with backgrounds in racial justice reforms would lead a study into who would be eligible for compensation due to...

U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. said he will re-introduce in the 113th Congress legislation that calls for a seven-member commission to study reparations for African-Americans. “It is the most important piece of legislation I have ever introduced, and I will re-introduce HR40 in the 113th Congress,” Conyers (D., Mich.) told the 400 attendees at the “Revitalizing The Reparations Movement” conference last week at Chicago State University. The 113th Congress first met Jan. 3, 2013. He made his comments in the wake of 14 Caribbean nations demanding reparations and apology from Britain and other European countries for the trans-Atlantic slave trade....

COMPTON — Reparations for African-Americans who endured 200-plus years of slavery in America will be among the topics featured at the second annual Reparations Day event March 6 in Tragniew Park here, organizers said. The Rev. Meri Kha Ra of Krst Unity Church and Minister Tony Muhammad of the Nation of Islam will speak during the program, hosted by the Compton National Reparations Day Committee. The event, which runs from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., also will include live entertainment and student essay contest winners from local area high schools. Reparations is an internationally recognized principle of payment that a...

During his 2004 Senate run and again during the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama stood firm in his opposition to reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans here in the United States. “I have said in the past – and I’ll repeat again – that the best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed,” he said in 2008 right before his historic election. The radical solutions required to address the needs and long-festering wounds of the African American community of course had to be purged from public discourse. Yet...

Leaders of more than a dozen Caribbean countries are launching a united effort to seek compensation from three European nations for what they say is the lingering legacy of the Atlantic slave trade. The Caribbean Community, a regional organization that typically focuses on rather dry issues such as economic integration, has taken up the cause of compensation for slavery and the genocide of native peoples and is preparing for what would likely be a drawn-out battle with the governments of Britain, France and the Netherlands.....

Reparations. That single word has the power to bring forth memories of slave screams, blood-shed, lynching, raping and the unrepentant theft of generations of successful Black families by the United States of America. It also has the power to breed resentment, as the 40 acres and a mule that Black Americans were promised by General William Sherman at the close of the American Civil War were snatched away by President Andrew Johnson and returned to their White owners. Watch the 2008 presidential hopefuls debate whether African Americans should receive reparations here: (VIDEO AT LINK) Primarily left landless, fragmented, disconnected from...

Download a Panhandling for Reparations Kit Instructions, statement, receipts, flags and FAQ.(continued at link)

Peter Flaherty, president of the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), Tuesday denounced Lehman Brothers for apologizing for its alleged links to slavery, warning that such apologies, without legal or moral merit, will only embolden slave reparations activists to advance their unjust agenda. The bank, responding to a Chicago ordinance that requires companies to disclose slave-related business dealings, issued the apology after discovering that the brothers who founded the firm's predecessor in 1850 owned slaves. Joe Polizzotto, general counsel of Lehman Brothers, said, "This is a sad part of our heritage...We're deeply apologetic." Flaherty called the company's decision an act...

A swimmer has been attacked at Port St.John Beach/State Park in Florida by a shark. Beaches are closed down as of 12:30 PM EST. More to follow...

July 31, 2002 Houston City Council won't back push for slave reparations Houston City Council voted today not to back a national bill exploring the possibility of reparations for slaves' descendants. Today's 8-7 vote defeated a resolution by Mayor Lee Brown even though throngs of people, one with a painted face, others with American and African flags, filled council chambers at Tuesday's public session to express support for the measure. A number of cities, including Dallas, Atlanta, Baltimore and New York City, have already passed or considered similar resolutions. But some council members say it doesn't make sense to support...

This morning on a cable news discussion program on, I believe, MSNBC, the host and three guests were discussing the dreaded slave reparations lawsuits. Two guests, a white woman and black man, were in support of the lawsuits but the third, a black man, was against. He was very articulate and appealed to logic, as opposed to the for-guests who dealt mostly with anger and revenge, uh, righting past wrongs. Can anyone tell me the name of the black speaker who spoke against reparations? I just caught the very end and was unable to indentify either him or his organization,...