The contemporary movement for reparations over slavery and the exploitation of African Americans is too often thought of as being only about money, said Professor Robin D.G. Kelley in a Montgomery Fellowship lecture yesterday afternoon.
Kelley, a professor of History and Africana Studies at New York University, spoke about the history of the reparations movement and the impact that the payment of reparations would have upon all Americans.
The lecture began with a recording of a song by Oscar Brown, Jr. called "Forty Acres and a Mule," a slogan which has come to symbolize a history of broken promises in America.
Kelley acknowledged that the debt owed to the exploited will never be able to be repaid, but contributions to the betterment of contemporary society would have a significant impact.
"Reparations are not the end of the movement," he said. "It's an infusion to make those movements more visionary."
The demand for reparations concerns social justice more than it does the payments of funds to individuals. But many people are more concerned with calculating damages than with the issue of how to reconstruct society in a better fashion.
"We don't want a handout. This isn't about a handout at all," Kelley said.
Kelley chronicled historical payments of reparations by the United States government to indigenous Alaskans and to Japanese Americans after the internment during World War II.
Movements for reparations payments are not a recent occurrence. Groups advocating for the cause began forming during the first years of Reconstruction and have included groups such as the Nation of Islam, the Black Panther Party, and countless Christian churches.
Kelley argued that the payment of monies should go into education, civic organizations and community development, which would enrich all of America's poor, not just African Americans, while also stimulating the national economy.
Kelley said that although payment in full of wages and damages to exploited workers would "break the back of the economy," such a change would be a beneficial thing. He advocated starting over with "something new," preferring a type of economy that would cease to exploit the labor of workers.
