[cure-news] Watson to address Reparations before Congressional Hearing

[Ida Hakim]

Watson to address Reparations before Congressional Hearing
http://www.michigancitizen.com

For Detroiters the word is linked not only to justice but to 
?Reparations? Ray Jenkins, the city resident who has struggled for more 
than 40 years to bring the issue before the nation.

At his request Detroit City Council Member Jo Ann Watson will address a 
hearing before the United States House of Representatives Judiciary 
Committee on Thurs., Dec. 6, in the Rayburn Building in Washington, D.C.

Dean of the Congressional Black Caucus and Chair of the House Judiciary 
Committee Honorable John Conyers, Jr. has sponsored H.R. 40, the 
Reparations Study Bill every year since 1989 at the behest of 
?Reparations? Ray Jenkins, and in support of the National Coalition of 
Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA), among others.

?This is historic,? Watson said in an interview with the Michigan 
Citizen of the hearing. ?It is historic and will lay framework for 
action that I know is forthcoming. Historic because first of all people 
like Reparations Ray Jenkins and NCOBRA that have been fighting for 
reparations for years, particularly since 1989 when the Congressman 
first introduced H.R.40.?

Watson said she is one of eight reparations activists that will testify. 
The first President of the Republic of New Africa Omari Obadele, Yale 
Professor Charles Ogletree, Chicago Alderwoman Dorothy Tillman are included.

?This country acknowledges in very significant ways when it wants to, 
the tragic part of U.S. history. It has paid reparations to former 
Confederate rebels. They received reparations?those who thought they 
owned Africans?from the U.S. government for their economic losses,? 
Watson said. ?The Japanese received a ton of legal reparations. Those 
who still suffer a boatload of tragedy?the descendents of Africans 
formerly enslaved and still suffering?will be documented, the prison 
industry overpopulated with people of color and a lot of it due to 
institutional racism.?

Many Detroiters have been working for decades for reparations, Watson 
said, noting she was trying to see if C-Span will broadcast the hearing.

?Detroit is at the center of the modern reparations movement,? Watson said.

Watson noted that the United Nations declared the trans-Atlantic slave 
trade a crime against humanity.

?A crime against humanity has no limitations,? the Councilwoman said. 
?There must be Redress, remediation, and reparations.?

Council Member Watson is a longtime member of the NCOBRA National Board, 
and was a keynote speaker during the NCOBRA 20th Anniversary Celebration 
held in the nation?s capital last month.

Council Member Watson is a contributing author in the 2003 publication 
on Reparations, Should America Pay? and in 2002 she authored 
Reparations: Ray Jenkins and His 40-Year Quest for 40 Acres and a Mule.

She is a former Public Liaison for Congressman John Conyers, where she 
was a policy expert on Reparations, Hate Crimes, Racial Profiling and 
Prison Disparities.

The only woman to serve as Executive Director of the Detroit NAACP ?the 
flagship branch for the nation, Council Member Watson worked to gain 
national approval for the passage of H. R. 40 as a national priority for 
the organization.

In 2001 Council Member was a delegate to the United Nations World 
Conference Against Racism, where she worked with others to support the 
global declaration that: ?The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade was a Crime 
against Humanity?and should always have been so.?

Watson is National President of the Center for Democratic Renewal, also 
known as the National Anti-Klan Network, and works closely with Board 
Chairman Rev. Dr C. T. Vivian, Martin Luther King III, and Beni Ivey to 
address hate crimes around the nation.

Watson has addressed the Chicago City Council to support the Slave-Era 
Ordinance legislation sponsored by Alderwoman Dorothy Tillman, and has 
been a presenter at more than a dozen Reparations National and 
International Conferences.

Watson?s presentation will focus on the legal precedence already 
established by the U. S. Government with respect to remedies and 
remediation; such as the Civil Rights Redress Act.
>From hakimida at reparationsthecure.org  Thu Nov 29 14:10:52 2007
From: hakimida at reparationsthecure.org (Ida Hakim)
Date: Thu Nov 29 14:10:54 2007
Subject: [cure-news] 40 Acres and a Mule
Message-ID: <474F1CCC.2010709 at reparationsthecure.org>

40 Acres and a Mule
by Gerene L. Freeman

Did you know that "40 Acres and a Mule" was not actually promised to 
freed slaves after the Civil War? Well here is the real story of what 
happened and how the phrase "40 Acres and a mule" became such a catch 
phrase for African Americans?


On March 3, 1865, just weeks before the end of the Civil War and almost 
a year prior to the ratification of the 13th Amendment the Freedmen's 
Bureau was created by Congress. Originally the Bureau of Refugees, 
Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, the Freedmen's Bureau was responsible for, 
among other things, "the supervision and management of all abandoned 
lands . . . ..the control of all subjects relating to refugees and 
freedmen from rebel States."

Also according to Section 4 of the First Freedmen's Bureau Act, this 
agency "shall have authority to set apart for use of loyal refugees and 
freedmen such tracts of land within the insurrectionary states as shall 
have been abandoned or to which the United States shall have acquired 
title by confiscation or sale, or otherwise; and to every male citizen, 
whether refugee or freedman, as aforesaid there shall be assigned not 
more than 40 acres of such land."
Introduced into Congress by Thaddeus Stevens this portion of the 
Freedmen's Bureau Act was defeated by Congress on February 5, 1866 "by a 
vote of 126 to 36." Lands which had been distributed to freedmen were 
reclaimed and returned to the previous owners.

It should be noted that there is no mention of providing the freedmen 
with a mule (or any other type of animal) in any portion of this 
legislature. So the question remains in part unanswered. What is the 
origin of the promised 40 acres and a mule?

The second possibility for the basis of the 'promise' has to do with the 
efforts of the War Department to furnish accoutrements for the thousands 
of freedmen who assisted General Sherman in his triumphant march across 
Georgia. According to Claude F. Oubre in his book Forty Acres and a 
Mule, General Tecumseh Sherman, acting under an edict from the War 
Department, issued Special Field Order No. 15. Promulgated on January 
16, 1865, after Sherman had conferred with 20 black ministers and 
obtained the approval of the War Department, Special Order No. 15 
provided that:

"The islands of Charleston south, the abandoned rice fields along the 
rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering St. 
Johns River, Florida, are reserved and set apart for the settlement of 
[N]egroes now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the 
President of the United States."

The land was then divided into 40-acre tracts. Sherman then issued 
orders to General Saxton to distribute the plots and processory titles 
to the head of each family of the freedmen. There were no mules included 
in the order, so where did the "and a mule" come from? Shortly after 
Stanton left, Sherman's commissary man came to him complaining that he 
had a large number of broken down mules for which he had no means of 
disposal. Sherman sent the useless animals to Saxton for distribution 
along with the land.

"By June, 1865 approximately 40,000 freedmen had been allocated 400,000 
acres of land." However, by September, 1865 former owners of the land 
reserved by Sherman "demanded the same rights afforded returning rebels 
in other states."

After Lincoln's assassination, Andrew Johnson became President. One of 
his first acts was to rescind Special Military Order No. 15 because of 
the constitutional violations that it created. Former slave owners were 
then exempted from the initial general amnesty given to them, and 
instead secured special pardons from President Johnson, who broke the 
promise made to the freedmen when he ordered the processory titles 
rescinded and the land returned to the white plantation owners. Johnson 
gave little or no regard to the fate of the former slaves

 From the viewpoint of the former slaves, who believed that they were 
owed this property, their eviction from land was seen as another example 
of ill treatment. The illegality of the promise was not their concern, 
but from that late war incident grew an urban legend that survives into 
the present day.

Dismayed, like many, Saxton wrote Oliver O. Howard (Commissioner of the 
Freedmen's Bureau) stating:

"The lands which have been taken possession of by this bureau have been 
solemnly pledged to the freedmen. The law of Congress has been published 
to them, and all agents of the bureau acting under your order have 
provided lands to these freedmen . . . . I sincerely trust that the 
government will never break its faith with a single one of these 
colonists by driving him from the home which he was provided. It is of 
vital importance that our promises made to freedmen should be faithfully 
kept . . . . The freedmen were promised the protection of the government 
in their possession. This order was issued under great military 
necessity with the approval of the War Department . . . . More than 
40,000 freedmen have been provided with homes under its promises. I 
cannot break faith with them now by recommending the restoration of any 
of these lands. In my opinion this order of General Sherman is as 
binding as a statute."

Saxton's pleas were to no avail. The freedmen were ultimately summarily 
removed from the land. There were however, numerous individuals and 
organizations which believed the freedmen were entitled to land. Their 
conviction in this belief was not easily thwarted. Between 1865-9 
countless alternatives for solving this matter were proposed and 
presented to Congress as well as President Johnson. The motivations for 
these proposals were as varied as the propositions themselves. They 
ranged from a sincere belief that the freedmen were entitled to land, to 
fear of violence, resistance to social, economic and political equality, 
concern about miscegeny, attempts to purge the country of the burden of 
freedmen on the doles, economic gain and to eliminate any competition 
they might present for employment.

For instance, quartermaster M.C. Megis devised a plan which would enable 
the freedmen to secure land in the South. Simply put he suggested that:

1) As a condition of receiving pardons, southerners, whose net worth 
exceeded $20,000 and were not recipients of an automatic pardon as a 
result of Johnson's amnesty proclamation, give to each head of family of 
their former slaves from 5 to 10 acres of land.
2) The freedmen would receive full title to the land with the 
stipulation that the land could not be alienated during the life time of 
the grantee."

President Johnson chose not to adopt this recommendation. However, 
according to Oubre, Megis' proposal may have been the inspiration for 
Thaddeus Stevens' confiscation plan (one of the many he proposed for 
black reparations). Just and well thought out I feel had it been 
approved Stevens' proposal may have provided a more equal distribution 
of wealth. The primary points of Stevens' 'confiscation plan' according 
to Oubre are as follows:

1) The government would confiscate the property of all former 
slaveholders who owned more than 200 acres of land.
2) The property seized would have been allocated to the freedmen in lots 
of 40 acres.
3) The remaining land would be sold and the monies would be used to 
remunerate loyalists whose property had been seized destroyed or damaged 
as a result of the war.
4) Any remaining funds would be utilized to augment the pensions of 
Union soldiers and to pay the national debt.

Yet another proposal suggested that the government transport the 
freedmen west and colonize them along the route of the Union Pacific 
Railroad. It was argued that to do so would prove beneficial for the 
railroad as well as the freedmen. The freedmen would have their land. 
The railroad would have both an accessible labor force and someone to 
protect the trains from Indian attack Additionally, adopting this 
particular proposal would also bode well for the government. permitting 
it to keep its promise to provide land for the freedmen. Simultaneously, 
according to Carl Schurz sand John Sprage, "this plan would serve to 
remove some of the "surplus" black [people] from the South."

The American Missionary Association requested, to no avail, that 
President Johnson reserve the land promised to the freedmen. If that was 
not a suitable option they further petitioned that the freedmen be 
provided with transportation to homestead lands in the west and provided 
with rations enough to sustain them until crops could be yielded.

Concerned with the burgeoning African American population in Virginia, 
Orlando Brown proposed, that some 10,000 African American soldiers 
stationed in Texas, might be provided with a land bounty in Texas if 
they remained there and sent for their families. A similar proposal was 
made by "Sergeant S.H. Smothers, an African American soldier from 
Indiana serving with the 25th Army Corps in Texas."

But President Johnson seemed to be determined to make sure that freedmen 
received no land. He mercilessly vetoed any proposal having to do with 
providing land to the freedmen that reached his desk. Finally, Congress 
overrode his veto and passed a bill to extend the life of the Freedmen's 
Bureau. However, it contained no provision for granting land to the 
freedmen, other than to provide them access to the Southern Homestead 
Act at the standard rates of purchase.