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Chantel Lynn
Professor Malcolm Campbell
Honors English 1103
4 October 2016
Topic Proposal: Reparations for Slavery
Introduction/Overview
I will be examining the debate over reparations for slavery and analyzing why African
Americans have yet to be acknowledged as an ethnicity that has been and is still being robbed of
its freedoms. This never-ending debate involves ethical, moral, and legal issues that make the
issue much more controversial. While this is true, the complexity of the matter is not grounds for
dismissal, especially since other races such as Jews received restitution for their Holocaust. After
millions of slaves were forced to leave their homes, their peace, and comfort, they were
subjected to horrendous living conditions as they were forced to work on plantations for
generations upon generations. Though the Emancipation Proclamation formally declared their
freedom, the lives of freed slaves barely improved because they still lived in fear of their lives,
and many families had no other choice but to continue to live on the land where they labored
endlessly and hopelessly. The problem at hand, according to Points of View, is that the rightful
recipients of the restitution are slaves who are no longer living and the people who would have to
give the restitution are slave owners who are dead. Unfortunately, African Americans are still
under the bondage of slavery and suffer institutionalized oppression.
Established in 1619, American slavery is an institution that forced over four million
Africans to labor under unimaginable conditions at the expense of their own dignity and lives.
After the Civil War, General William Tecumseh Sherman promised newly freed slaves in South

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Carolina and Georgia forty acres of land and a mule to sustain themselves and their families.
Also, the Freedmans Bureau was created by Congress to assist the overwhelming amount of
new citizens with adjusting to society. Many people fail to realize that during the Reconstruction
period, free slaves had civil rights for years after slavery. According to Points of View, they were
able to vote and hold offices in state governments as well as federal governments. It wasnt until
the Ku-Klux-Klan (KKK) white southerners who were intimidated by their ex slavesthat
African Americans were subjected to Jim Crow laws and stripped of their rights. After a split
election in the Electoral College of 1877, Southern Democrats and Northern Republicans made a
compromise that ended Reconstruction and made Rutherford B. Hayes the Republican president.
Following the end of Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws were enforced as an attempt to
disenfranchise African Americans from their rights and KKK members continued to take the law
into their own hands by striking various levels of distress and intimidation into them out of an
internal fear of losing white supremacy. African Americans tried to combat this injustice, but in
in 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v Ferguson that blacks and whites should remain
separate but equal as a way to justify the harsh reality of racism.
According to Points of View, there have been many documented attempts of African
Americans advocating for reparations for slavery. After the Civil War, freed slaves were
supposed to receive forty acres and a mule but reconstruction was a terrible time period that
made it very difficult for freed slaves to survive let alone thrive. During the peak of the
nineteenth century, African Americans rallied for pension for freed slaves and their children and
many African American organizations tried to lobby Congress without much success. Moving on
to the first half of the twentieth century, African Americans were still impoverished and
prevented from having a vote or voice regarding public policy. However, the Civil Rights Act of

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1965 supposedly forced the federal government to get rid of segregation but only four years later,
in 1969, it seemed as if nothing had changed. James Forman, the head of the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC) initiated a project titled the Black Manifesto. This project
demanded half a billion dollars from churches and synagogues because they played a major role
in slavery. Other Civil Rights groups such as the Black Panther Party and Black Muslims
followed suit but to no avail.
History shows that many ethnic groups have received retribution for being wronged.
During the 1950s, West Germany willingly paid over one billion dollars to Israel to redress the
Jews pain and suffering at the hands of Nazis. In 1980, the Supreme Court declared that the
federal government had to pay eight Sioux Indian tribes $122 million for illegally stealing their
land in 1877. However, the Sioux never took the money. Instead they believe a just
compensation would be to have their land back. In 1988, the US apologized to the Japanese for
internment, and survivors were paid for their lost income or property. Only a decade later, House
Representative, John Conyers --an African American-- proposed a bill for reparation of African
slaves but it was shot down by most of the House; Conyers is still fighting for the bill. This year,
President Obama formally apologized to Japan for the U.S. dropping the Atomic Bomb. The
trend is that the minority group that has undergone discrimination from 1619 to the present day
has yet to receive any form of retribution.
The fight for retribution is still active today. In fact, Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, a law
school graduate, filed a law suit against companies such as Aetna Insurance, CSX Railroads,
many banks, insurance companies and agencies for their profits from slavery. Unfortunately,
Farmers efforts went unnoticed as the companies refused to pay anything because they didnt

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claim any responsibility. In 2004, the federal judge over the case claimed that it is too late for
reparations and the period to have received them would have been in 1865.
According to Points of View, those who are for reparations believe that since the federal
government protected slavery during the first seventy years of the nations existence, the private
companies that profited from slavery should be held accountable. Also, since slaves are dead,
their descendants should get the money from these companies. According to historical and
sociological studies, many of the negative connotations of African Americans are attributed to
slavery and its effectshigh poverty, crime, low education in African American communities.
The reparations can be directly paid, used to cover college tuitions, or used to create a federal
board that would give out reparations in the form of loans to individuals that wanted to own a
home or start a business.
Those against reparations for slavery argue that there is no federal document to trace
slave lineage so it would be hard to give it out. Also, many Africans migrated to the US after
slavery was abolished so some African American ancestors have no connection to slavery.
Others say that you cant compare slave reparations to that of the Holocaust and treatment of
Japanese Americans. In regards to payment, some claim that government welfare is sufficient
reparations and tax dollars would have to pay for more.
Restitution for slavery is not a matter of whether or not the ancestors of slaves should be
paid, but when. African Americans suffer the repercussions of slavery every day that they walk
out of their homes, or jail cells, or out from under their bridges in the cities where they arent
even allowed to call home because this home believes their lives dont matter.

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Initial Inquiry Question(s)

The most common question regarding restitution is whether or not the federal
government or private businesses should even pay restitution to the ancestors of slaves? This is
just a diversion from the issue at hand. Why are people so threatened or opposed to the idea of
restitution for slavery and the series of unfortunate events that followed? African American civil
rights leaders paved the way for other civil rights movements so why cant get repaid for it? In
terms of descendants, how far down the family tree should be considered?

My Interest in this Topic

I have always been intrigued by the civil rights movements of the past and present and I
would definitely classify myself as a civil rights advocate. My goal is to become the first female
African American Supreme Court Justice and I would work tirelessly to ensure that African
Americans ancestors would not die in vain. As an African American, it pains me to think about
the amount of pain and suffering that my ancestors had to endure that basically built this nation.
To live in a nation that neither accepts this nor loves African Americans is both heartbreaking
and revolting. As an African American student, I am forced to spend my first month of college
grieving and fighting for the justice that slaves were deprived for because I attend a PWI and
many people dont understand, that civil rights leaders marched for, and that African Americans
of the twenty-first century die for. I know that there is nothing that can repay the costs of slavery,
but to not even have it considered is disgraceful. I dont want my children or my grandchildren to
have to suffer the hardships that me and my parents witness and encounter first hand, but by not
acknowledging the past, white America is essentially saying that African Americans do not
matter and are not a part of American history.

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Next Steps
Throughout this research project I will be utilizing the Points of View database to develop
a clearer understanding of both arguments. I will also use JSTOR to read and study credible
journals regarding this issues. The New York Times is a reliable source that always has a wide
spectrum of intriguing articles so I am sure that I will be able to find something useful. I will also
research Supreme Court cases involving reparations for slavery as well as fail bills in Congress.
Sources such as The New York TIMES and the Huffington Post will be useful as well as the
website ProCon.