Political Versus Legal Strategies for the African Slavery Reparations Movement

Abstract

I fully believe that there are legitimate moral reasons for the payment of reparations to African peoples by those who were responsible for the instigation of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. During the barbarous period of the slave trade, at least thirteen million Africans were illegally transported from the shores of West Africa to the Western Hemisphere. Of those thirteen million, approximately 11, 3 2 8, 000 were delivered to the New World, amounting to the trans-shipment murder of approximately 1,672,000 persons of 13% or the cargo(1). These are extremely conservative figures that do not truly account for the murders entailed. I want to go beyond moral arguments for reparations to the discussion of legal and political strategies for the reparations movement. I believe that we need to move from the discussion of legitimate claims to the development of strategies to satisfy those claims. In my discussion, I will reflect upon the successful reparations movement undertaken by Japanese Americans in the United States.