Reparations are simple- black people who were harmed by America in America, should be repaired by America in America.

In the most basic terms, NAARC advances a simple expansive and inclusive definition of eligibility for reparations for African Americans/Black people: All Black people who were harmed by America in America, should be repaired by America in America!

We take this position because the focus on who can prove a direct lineage to the enslavement era contains two major false assumptions:

First that lineage in all, or even most, cases can directly be proved.

Second that reparations are only due for the period of enslavement in U.S. history.

NAARC emphatically rejects both assumptions. We ask proponents of reparations based solely on lineage how much genetic material must be identified in one’s blood from the enslavement era in order to be eligible for reparations? Factually, the genetics of people of African descent/Black people in the United States are the result of the amalgamation of multiple lineages from within this country, Africa and the diaspora:

There are our ancestors who were originally kidnapped and illegally transported to what would become the U.S. to be held as indentured servants and enslaved people.

There are those who were impacted by deliberate forced separation from their original ethnic groups; the systematic rape of Black women; forced slave breeding precipitated by the domestic slave trade; co-mingling with the Native peoples of this land; decades-long migrations of African-descended people to the U.S. from the Caribbean, Central and South America and other areas who within one-to-two generations fused into a new Black community in America to become “African Americans.”

And there are the migrants from Africa who have arrived in the U.S. in the past 40-plus years.

Just imagine the absurdity that according to the #ADOS blood lineage requirements Malcolm X, Shirley Chisholm, Marcus Garvey, Harry Belafonte, Kwame Ture aka Stokely Carmichael, Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, Marc Morial, Susan Taylor, Opal Tometi, Colin Powell, Vice- President Kamala Harris and President Barack Obama would not be eligible for any form of reparations!

In addition, as noted in the Preamble to NAARC’s 10 Point Reparations Program, the wealth of America was not only accumulated from the centuries of free labor that was brutally extracted from enslaved Africans, but the systematic, often violent repression, exploitation and deprivation of Black people after Emancipation under the American system of apartheid. This repression and exploitation continues to this day under a political and economic system infected with white supremacy and structural racism.

Therefore, it is important to emphasize that in addition to enslavement, reparations are due for the legacies of enslavement; the injuries/harms inflicted on formerly enslaved Africans and newly arrived immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean, Central and South America and the Diaspora after Emancipation through racially-exclusionary policies during the era of Jim Crow Segregation and right up to the present:

The Homestead Act – Signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1862, the federal government allotted 270 million acres of land that benefited poor and working-class Whites and corporations but excluded Blacks.

Theft of Land – Millions of acres of land owned by Blacks was stolen through trickery, fraud and discriminatory policies and practices with the sanction or complicity of state and local governments in the South. These harmful policies and practices were also rampant throughout the Department of Agriculture.

Department of Agriculture’s Discriminatory Policies – Lending programs and technical assistance provided to White farmers were systematically denied Blacks in the South, devaluing land and greatly contributing to land loss.

The G.I. Bill – Blacks, including recently arrived immigrants, fought in World War II, but the vast majority of Black soldiers never received the range of social benefits awarded to White soldiers.

Federal Housing Administration Act – Enacted in 1935, the FHA provided loans to families to enable them to own homes and generate wealth. While millions of White Americans were afforded the opportunity to realize the “American Dream” of home ownership via the FHA, millions of Blacks were denied the same opportunity.

Urban Renewal – Often referred to as the “Negro Removal Program” of the 20th century, with federal funds, local and state authorities deliberately built highways and streets that cut right through Black neighborhoods devaluing the value of homes resulting in loss of wealth and shredding ties and relationships which constituted the essence of “community.”

Redlining – With the support or complicity of municipal authorities, financial institutions deliberately starved designated Black neighborhoods of investment, depriving them of the opportunity to generate wealth and in many instances contributing to the blight and deterioration of communities.

War on Drugs and Criminal Injustice System: From the period of enslavement to the present, Black communities have been targeted and occupied as a calculated policy of control leading to mass incarceration, police violence and murders which have traumatized and thwarted the development of Black communities for generations. As the brothers and sisters in the hood say, the War on Drugs and the criminal punishment system is “A War on US.”

The point of this recitation of injuries/harms is to clearly demonstrate that gross violations of the human rights of people of African descent/Black people in America persisted long after the period of enslavement. By definition these harms warrant redress in the form of reparations!

The reality is that the oppression of people of African descent/Black people, be they originally from the continent of Africa, from an enslaved lineage in America, the Caribbean or elsewhere in the diaspora has been and is pervasive. Amadou Diallo from Guinea in West Africa and Abner Louima from Haiti were not spared from New York Police Department’s terrorism due to their status as immigrants. They received the same treatment as Eric Garner in New York, Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Sandra Bland in Waller County Texas and George Floyd in Minneapolis.  They were targeted because they were Black people!

Clearly it would be the height of hypocrisy and injustice to limit reparations to only those who can prove a direct lineage as victims of the enslavement era.  To reiterate, NAARC firmly asserts that reparations should not be restricted to people of African descent who can prove their lineage to what is being termed “American” enslavement. Our position is basic and clear: All Black people who were harmed by America in America, should be repaired by America in America.