Aug. 11, 2002, 11:14PM

Reparations debate heats up

Push for slavery compensation enters political mainstream

By KRISTEN MACK Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle

Houston lawyer Angela Matthews, 34, was a hesitant convert to the fight for paying money to blacks whose ancestors once toiled as U.S. slaves.

A California native with parents from Jamaica and no known slave ancestors, Matthews had trouble at first answering the question: "How does this directly affect me?"

As she studied the issue, however, she concluded that many modern-day disparities are the legacy of slavery, that years of unpaid labor unfairly shifted wealth from blacks to whites. She further decided that slavery's lingering effects on black America -- such as limited health care, housing and educational opportunities that echo through the generations -- entitle all blacks in this country to compensation from the government.

As she prepares to join an estimated 200 other Houstonians for a planned march in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, Matthews' conversion represents the transformation of the reparations movement from the fringe to the mainstream.

The movement promises to be divisive, as seen July 31 when the Houston City Council voted 8-7 not to support a House bill that would study slavery and the possibility of reparations.

"Very little surprises me in Texas," Matthews said of the vote. "People seem to be living more passive."

But a group packed council chambers the day before the vote to argue in favor of the resolution. And protesters over the weekend picketed the home of Councilman Michael Berry for voting against it.

Kofi Taharka, chairman of the Houston chapter of the National Black United Front, said the movement's tactics are typical of grass-roots organizations.

"It's not unlike many social movements, where it's the African-American press and word of mouth that energize our people," Taharka said. "People get to moving, and the so-called mainstream leaders try to catch up with the issue."

Once championed by fringe groups, the idea of compensating blacks for slavery is gaining support in the establishment realm of law and politics. It is seeing a national resurgence, with high-profile lawsuits filed or planned. The names behind the movement include lawyer Johnnie Cochran, Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree and U.S. Rep. John Conyers.

Some say seeking reparations as a remedy for the United States' racial problem is misguided and a prescription for more racial tension.

But those in favor envision reparations money being used to fund education, improve health care, create cultural facilities and buy and expand businesses.

At the very least, they hope the government will issue a formal apology for the institution of slavery.

Already drawing attention and fanfare is the Reparations Coordinating Committee, an elite group of lawyers, scholars and public officials.

Called upon by Randall Robinson, author of The Debt: What America Owes Blacks, the committee includes Cochran, Ogletree and others who had not previously been calling for reparations.

"It began to give this issue the credibility it didn't have before," said committee member Ronald Walters, a University of Maryland political scientist.

Those against reparations say you can't attribute problems of today to slavery. Besides, they argue the government has already spent a ton of money trying to solve such social ills as poverty and poor education.

If welfare and other social programs have not worked, asks David Horowitz, author of Uncivil Wars: The Controversy over Reparations for Slavery, why would reparations be any different?

Horowitz said seeking reparations will needlessly divide black America from the rest of the country.

"It's become a constant blame game," he said. "We've run out of people to blame."

Still, Horowitz said he thinks it will succeed in either Congress or the courts, because politicians will succumb to guilt and racial paranoia.

Walter Williams, an economics professor at George Mason University and nationally syndicated columnist, disagrees.

"No president or Congress is going to agree on paying reparations to blacks," Williams said. "I find it amazing that black people can buy into the whole notion that someone is going to give us reparations."

To him it is just pushing a handout mentality. Besides, he said, ethnic groups that were not in America during the slavery era should not be held accountable.

Reparations aren't unprecedented. Japanese-Americans who were held in internment camps during World War II received an apology and $20,000 each. To build the case for blacks, advocates also point out redress given Holocaust victims and American Indians.

The difference, opponents say, is that those reparations were for actual victims and not their descendents.

"The rules are changed for everything when it comes to us," said Walters, of the reparations committee. "People want desperately to invalidate the claim."

The group plans to file suit later this year. Walters was mum on the logistics behind building a legal case, such as defining plaintiffs, how to prove specific victims suffered wrongdoing and the statute of limitations.

All are difficult to prove nearly 140 years after slavery was abolished. But proponents hope to have American slavery declared a crime against humanity, which has no statute of limitations.

Organizers also must combat a persistent myth that they are seeking checks for individual descendants. One urban legend alarmingly says individuals would split a $1.2 trillion settlement.

"None of us are talking about that," Walters said. "That's a simplistic notion of reparations. If you make it stupid enough, you invalidate the claim. People will say, `Let's close down the discussion.'"

Instead, the organizers want money spent on rebuilding black communities.

Conyers, D-Mich., has been introducing a House bill that would establish a commission to examine slavery and recommend remedies, including the possibility of reparations, during every session since 1989.

Within the past few years a number of cities, including Dallas, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago and New York, have passed or considered supporting Conyers' efforts.

The Houston City Council voted down a similar resolution. Taharka said that if enough pressure is placed on the "establishment" and multiple tactics are used, eventually it will lead to results.

"History," he explained, "teaches us that the way we get it is through struggle."

-- Anonymous, August 12, 2002