IDEA REPARATIONS : A Proposal to Pay Modern Blacks for Injustices of Slavery Resurfaces

More than a century after the end of Southern slavery, the idea of paying reparations to black Americans for injustices stemming from the slavery of their ancestors is being pushed anew by black congressmen.

Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), a House Judiciary Committee member and a leading voice within the Black Congressional Caucus, has introduced legislation that would create a commission to study the effect and legacy of slavery on American blacks.

The commission then would recommend to Congress a range of remedies, possibly involving special programs and educational funding for blacks or outright reparations payments.

“Americans need an understanding of our racial climate and how it got to where it is,” said Conyers, whose bill is still in the Judiciary Committee’s civil rights subcommittee. Because the bill does not appear to have much support outside the black caucus, it is not likely to reach the House floor soon. There is no similar legislation in the Senate.

But even if it dies quickly, the bill serves an obvious purpose for the black congressional agenda: It underlines in dramatic fashion the call for more funding for social programs after years of gutting by the Ronald Reagan Administration.

There’s nothing new about the concept of doling out financial compensation for slavery. The idea surfaced immediately after the Civil War, when a bill that would have granted freed slaves “40 acres and a mule” was vetoed by President Andrew Johnson.

The idea regained momentum last year after Congress approved a $1.25-billion reparations bill for the 60,000 surviving Japanese-Americans who were interned without trial during World War II.

Black-reparations proponents portray that law as a precedent that bolsters their own arguments.

However, the bill’s critics dismiss such a comparison. They point out that every Japanese-American designated to receive a $20,000 check had personally suffered in an internment camp, whereas American blacks are more than a century removed from the direct lash of slavery.

Reparations “may prove too complicated, and we may be too late,” Conyers said.