Should America Pay?

Reparations -- Payment of a debt owed; the act of repairing a wrong or injury; to atone for wrongdoings; to make amends; to make one whole again; the payment of damages; to repair a nation; compensation in money, land, or materials for damages.

--National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA)

The enslavement of Africans in America is arguably the greatest human rights violation the world has ever witnessed. 250 years of brutalization--it is difficult to even conceive the dimensions of the loss, more difficult still to conceive how possibly to repair or repay. The historical link between slavery and contemporary race relations is more potent and contentious than ever.

Distinguished academics, lawmakers, and grassroots organizers have increasingly embraced the idea that reparations should be pursued vigorously in courts of law and legislative bodies, as they have been in cases of other abuses against ethnic minorities such as the Holocaust Jews or the Japanese-Americans wrongly interned during World War II. The precedent for redress has been established. But others ask, Who should pay? The government, our citizens? Private corporations or individual legacies, which directly benefited from the slave trade? And to whom should payment be made? Should it go into a managed trust to benefit African American causes or should it be paid to individuals? And how exactly would reparations today help heal the wounds of the past?

This comprehensive collection, the only one of its kind, gathers together the seminal essays of key participants in this debate. The book is divided into six parts:

- The first section gives the historical context under which the reparations movement was born and grew.

- The second part details some of the wide-ranging legal issues associated with reparations: obstacles such as sovereign immunity which protects the government from prosecution by its citizens; as well as successful strategies like suing private companies (for example: suing Aetna which insured slaves' lives for slave-owners)

- The third section presents both side of this challenging debate. Included are pro-reparations essays by an array of contributors, including Congressman John Conyers Jr., Christopher Hitchens, Professor Molefi Kete Asante, and activist Deadria C. Farmer-Paellmann, which are balanced by counterarguments by Shelby Steele, Armstrong Williams, and linguist John McWhorter.

- The fourth section provides histories of organizations such as the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America and the National Black United Front, which are central to the reparations movement.

- The fifth section presents the voices of a variety of people, Black and white, teachers, journalists, psychologists, even a poet, who give prescriptive suggestions about healing the damage done by racism in the United States.

- The sixth section includes the primary source historical documents that are considered important in understanding reparations - such as the Thirteenth Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, General William Sherman's 1865 Field Order No. 15 (the origin of the infamous promise of "forty acres and a mule"), First Congressional Reparations Bill of 1867 and the Dakar Declaration of 2001.

Should America Pay? It is important question that will engage and challenge your students. This is the definitive sourcebook for discussions on the subject and will be invaluable to anyone looking for historical and legal insight into one of America's most urgent and passionate debates.