Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

The fourth essay in the collection details the history of the movement for reparations. Though this term means different things to different people, at a fundamental level it refers to efforts to compensate Black Americans for the compounded economic losses arising from hundreds of years of slavery and segregation. The essay covers debates around reparations within the Black community over time, beginning in 1854, with a focus on “the historical vision and imagination that has animated the movement since the days of slavery” (114).

In a section entitled “Forty Acres and a Mule,” Kelley describes the attempts at reparations in the aftermath of the Civil War, during a period typically known as Reconstruction. In 1865, Union General William Sherman issued an edict distributing 40 acres of land and farm animals, including mules, to families of emancipated people. This land had previously been held by plantation owners. Congress likewise passed a similar law. However, President Andrew Jackson reversed the order, and eventually all of the land was given back to the plantation owners. Radical Republicans and Black leaders continued to advocate unsuccessfully for land redistribution as a compensation for slavery. Meanwhile, the plantation owners lobbied Congress and succeeded not only in keeping their land but also in getting compensation for former enslaved people through the Southern Claims Commission.

Later, white Alabama Democrat William R. Vaughn proposed legislation to create pensions for emancipated people, both as a form of justice and also to make them less of a burden on the state. The laws were never passed, but pension clubs were set up around the country. Unfortunately, many of these pension clubs were hotbeds of fraud, charging fees for certificates that they falsely promised would entitle formerly enslaved people to future pensions. Black leaders of these pension clubs, such as Reverend Isaiah H. Dickerson, were later imprisoned for the fraud, but William R. Vaughn was never indicted. In 1917, the last pension club was closed down.

In a section entitled “Free the Land, Reparations Now!,” Kelley traces the reparations movement following World War II. Like the earlier phase of the movement, it was focused on land acquisition using the historically resonant phrase “Forty Acres and a Mule.” One of the leaders of this movement was “Queen Mother” Audley Moore. She was involved in many of the groups already discussed, including the Garvey movement, CPUSA, and RAM. In 1962, she formed the Reparations Committee of Descendants of U.S. Slaves, Inc., which demanded $500 trillion in reparations. Moore wanted the money to be distributed based on a collective democratic process to help the whole community, rather than to individuals. The Nation of Islam and the BPP also issued calls for reparations around this time, although they were less detailed.

In spring 1969, Black radical activists took over the mainstream Black Economic Development Conference meeting and created the “Black Manifesto” which called for “five hundred million dollars in reparations to be paid by white Christian churches (later they included Jewish synagogues)” (121). They wanted to use the funds to create a land bank, a strike fund, media apparatus, an anti-defamation league, a research and skills center, and a university. The “Black Manifesto” inspired a new generation of activists to advocate for reparations, such as the Republic of New Africa (RNA) in Detroit. The focus of these calls was for land, because territory is an important source of wealth, freedom, and self-determination. In the late 1980s, leader Imari Obadele, formerly of RNA, which had reconstituted as N’COBRA, issued another demand for territory where the Black community could secede from the United States should they demonstrate their desire to in a plebiscite. On May 19, 1999, the (symbolic) plebiscite was held to raise awareness of ongoing demands for reparations.

In the final section of the essay, entitled “A Case for Reparations […] and Transformation,” Kelley makes an argument for why Black people should get reparations and what form those reparations should take. To explain the need for reparations, he details the economic impact of racial discrimination. One example he focuses on is the poor quality of Black schools during segregation where, as a result of underfunding, Black taxpayers were ultimately subsidizing white schools. Kelley argues that the focus on reparations highlights the importance of labor rather than the “magic of the so-called free market” as an engine of wealth creation under capitalism (131). He further argues that reparations would benefit the United States as a whole, not just the Black community.