The History of Reparations

we lay out the history of reparations. It's a big world and we can't mention everything, but we can focus on a few historic examples to give people an understanding of how long this battle has been going on. It's a really long and complicated story, and it has lots of heroes and villains, but it's also a story that's populated with people that we don't know, the people that were fighting for reparations and obscurity. But right now, I want to talk about a few people who I think

are really important to the movement. I'm thinking of Calli House, who was born into slave ree and then mounted a major push for pensions for the formerly enslaved in the eighteen hundreds. Then there's Queen Mother Moore, who is a major figure in the reparations movement in the middle of the twentieth century. And Robin Ruth Simmons and Alderman from Evanston, Illinois. He's making history today with the first tax fund reparations program in US history. Oh it's awesome. I'm excited. But

the phrase history lesson is a snoozer. So let's make this fun for ourselves. And here's where my film and television background, You're welcome may be useful. Okay, how about this? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe we can do like an Uncle Remus sketch in Song of the South, you know, only this time you play Uncle Remus talking to the Blackbird explaining the history of the reparations movement. Oh yeah, how's your Southern accent? You want me to play the Uncle Remus of reparations?

Have you heard of cancel culture? Okay, all right, I mean look, I mean, hey, I was you don't have to play Uncle Remus. I was trying not to typecast. You probably can't even hummaton, but look I got it. Oh this is it. Have you ever seen Jurassic Park? The first one I have? But now I'm really confused Erica about where this thing is going. Listen. Okay, this

is awesome. Let's use this technique that they used to teach the visiting scientists Jeff gold Bloom, Sam Neil and Laura Dern how the Jurassic Park science team rebread those big old dinosaurs from the DNA samples locked in amber fossils. So you play the part of Richard Attenborough and he's very charming, so you have to you know, you'll make do. But okay, um and um, we'll get ah, I know, creased summer to play the part of the know it

all reparations mosquito, creased summer. Okay, in that case, I'm in. But God help me. Hello Whitney, or should I say Professor Dow Hello reparations Mosquito, and please call me Whitney. So today we're going to be learning about the history of reparations. Indeed, I'm difficult, yet worthy conversation told within the rich, painful tapestry of America's failure to acknowledge the sin of slavery and the debt owed to its formerly

enslaved people and their descendants. Here. Wait, that was exhausting. I quit. Oh no, you don't. Reparations Mosquito, no backing out now. Talking about race in America can be exhausting, But trying to get reparations, that's like shake up a snow globe in Boston expecting it to bring in Cleveland. Sadly, I'm sure they had made perfect sense to you, Whitney. Let's get started. Everyone's a critic, I know, Okay, I'm

all yours. This is the cliff Notes version, right. Well, we can't talk about reparations without identifying the need for it in the first place, and that all comes down to the sin of slavery. A complicated discussion that takes more time than I got, so yes, please google that, but suffice it to say, the profits and progress made from the unpaid labor of slaves transformed America's economy and made America the most powerful country in the world in

record time. Thank gad he didn't last. Soon came emancipation and a bloody Civil War. Long story short, they lost, we won, and a period of reconstruction began. Entered General William to come to Sherman. Sherman meets with a group of freedmen who asked Sherman to create a way they

could benefit from their own labor. Their request land In response, General Sherman issues Special Field Order Number fifteen, four hundred thousand acres would be given to the freedman for settlement or to break it down for their acres and of you. Hence the famous phrase was born. But that didn't last long. President Link was assassinated and the new President, Andrew Johnson vetoed the bill mean while the Southern Homestead Act of

eighteen sixty six was created. It gave black people six months to buy land at low rates, but no one could afford the land, so the program failed. There were some bright spots. Callie House started the National ex Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Tension Association, but the group was investigated by the Department of Justice and Cally was introduced

to the newest legal form of slavery, jail. Marcus Garvey believed all black people should return to their rightful homeland, Africa, so he started the United Negro Improvement Association, but the FEDS infiltrated at and he wound up in jail. Two m yep. That whole lacking of black people for fighting for injustice never fill out of vogue. See also segregation, lynching, Jim Crow, but Whitney a lot has happened in between, so let's fast forward to the nineteen sixties. I never

leave a man behind you. Good cool, Let's continue. Jim Foreman, you know him. He made big headlines when he interrupted the service at Riverside Church to demand five hundred millions in reparations from predominantly white religious institutions for their role in perpetuating slavery. Queen Mother Moore kept the pressure on and petition the government for compensation for slavery, but reparations.

After this say we need and deserve federal restitution. In ninety nine, Congressman John Conyers introduced a bill just to study proposals for reparations for Black Americans, and he had to reintroduce the bill each congressional term until he left office in two thousand seventeen. The Bill family made a decision two years later, thanks the Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. Unfortunately, it is still waiting for approval from the House Judiciary Committee.

So let me begin. America is a place and welcomes the diversity of thought. We even welcome the diversity of thought among the multicolored chocolate people that are African Americans. Good luck, sister Sheila, who jee whiz Whitney. Reparations ain't easy. There, I told you, wait a minute, I'm a guy. Reparations has seen a huge wave of renewed interest over the years.

America Civil and racial unrest, mixed with a global pandemic in twenty twenty made crystal clear the disparity, suffering, and terrorism that continue to plague all communities of color, poor people, and especially black people. And though George Floyd's murder was a rallying call for action, the ugly, mostly white mob of insurrection Is swarmed America's capital in January six, twenty one. Oh sometime it seemed like we live in constant sorrow,

in a world without end. A man, Oh, I forgot to tell you something, Okay, I think I know what's coming here. In two thousand and ninet, four hundred years after the first enslaved Africans arrived, something wonderful, something extraordinary

happened in Evanston. Against all odds, with a mostly white council, Alderman Robin Ruth Simmons successfully passes America's first Referations's Bill, which assesses a three percent tax on leal cannabis sales to create a fund to make cash payments to qualified black Evanstonians. That's amazing, right, I'll say. And I know this revelation may have many black folks asking where in the hell is Evanston. It's in Illinois, just in case

you're plotting a move. Well that's all, folks, bravo. This is absolutely the best history lesson I've ever got from a Mosquito. Thank you, You're welcome. Unfortunately, this is the worst gig I ever had. Ain't got no sempor trailer my makeup or that's no massus. This dude that used to bring me what I need when I needed it, quarantine blocking all my connects. But now you know more than you did about the wonderful world of reporations. So long Whitney hugs the Erica. Yess my girl, she's such

a cute pack. So long Creed, I mean, so long reparations Mosquito. Wow, Erica. That didn't sting at all. Oh that was freaking terrific. Oh, thank you, thank you Chris Summer for lending her master voice to this piece. She's amazing. Um A little jealous you two got to play, but I think it's something cool to do later. To even the score. Bill Whitney, you did a good job too. I appreciate the props Erica. You know, so my first

conversation with Mosquito, but hopefully my last. But now you know, I love the story of Kelly House, and I love that we got a chance to talk to historian Mary Francis Barry, who wrote the book on this. Amazing woman, Mary Francis Barry. She's fantastic, she's smart, beautiful, in great shape. She's eighty two. Okay, I want to be here. Cally House was a black woman who had been a slave. You know, her mother had been a slave, her father had fought in the Union Army as a runaway slave.

And she was at church and she heard about some white guy who had asked the federal government for pensions for slaves on the brow ex slaves, he called them on the grounds that the money would go into the pockets of the white people on the plantations where they were all still working, and that this was an indirect way to help white Southerners after the Civil War, and we can struction. But when she heard about it, she said, well, I don't understand why we can't do this for ourselves.

Why can't we start some and ask the federal government to give us some pensions that we use for ourselves, After all, we were the ones who were slaves. And so she went around organizing herself in churches, and she would get people to if they couldn't write, somebody would write down their name and put what plantation they were on and so on, and they would put an x

bot and sent them off to Congress. And eventually it grew and grew and grew, and she started traveling all of the plays, collecting petitions, listening to people's stories and all that, and the federal government got concerned. They decided because letters were coming from white people saying, the Negroes are meeting in churches and they come out saying and talking about someday we're gonna get something, and we know that I don't get anything, and we're scared of them.

So you need to do something about that woman who's going around there stirn them up. And so they decided to go after her. They said the fetes did that. She had about three hundred thousand dudes paying members the dues of cents a year, and she was laughed at by middle class negroes because she was not very well educated. She had only been like, you know, the sixth grade, and the government decided that they would get after her

for using the mails to defraud. Some of you may remember that that's what they did to market Garment later, and they said that she was using the mails to defraud because she was telling black people that she was going to negros, that she was going to try to get the federal government give them some money. And she should know the federal government is never gonna give negroes any money. That's the way they put it. So it

was fraud to be organizing people. And they ended up prosecuting her, but all white jury in Tennessee, and they put in prison for her trouble. After that, there were branches who had There were black folks all the south. One was in New York City. They were all out in the black towns. And then there were people like Queen Mother Bore who was in the New Orleans chapter,

all of whom became Garbagates. And so you can trace the present day reparations movement within Cobra and the other organizations all the way back to Callis House and her ex lay pension movement. A remarkable woman. And I think the people who say had their names on there at a time when they were attacked, when they were under attack and could be abused and everything else, their descendants ought to get something Malcolm X talks about. If you stick a knife in my back nine inches, pull it

out six inches, that's not progress. If you pull it all the way out, that's not progress. The progress comes from the healing the moon that the blow made. You're talking about the loss so many hundreds of years of human potential. How would reparations impact of progress on issues? If we quality the reparations are the most direct way to target money to ease the disparities and let black

people decide how to spend the money. But first the country has to acknowledge the disparities, and if people refuse to then that means that they're ignot acknowledging that slavery was an institution that did not benefit slaves. Once you accept what happened, then in fact, demanding reparations is easy. We should go after local city councils, local mayors, local government and organize the way Kelly House did, and better because we have better communication now to organize and demand

that local communities pass measures to do this. The Cally Howd story is really interesting because it's both inspiring and completely depressing at the same time. You know, it's inspiring what this woman managed to accomplish at the height of the white terror and post reconstruction America, but it's really depressing because she did this, build a incredible organization and trying to get reparations for the formerly enslaved, and the

response of the government was to thrower in jail. Now, I keep getting the feeling that white Americans feel that if they just open this reparations doors just a crack, they're not gonna be able to contain what comes flooding through. So they keep barring the door, and the pressure just keeps building and building. Yeah, it's funny that to me,

it's not a door, it's it already exists. They either keep going and not talking about it, or they, you know, look at it and they face it, because it's kind of like an energy that's already out there. But whether they realize it or not. You've been telling me about CALLI House for a while, and I am a new fan. Look, I'm a believer. Dr Barry, Thank you, thank you you are river to your people. Thanks for educating us about

who in what really matters, you know. But Whitney, I just realized that the pioneers were talking about today are all black women, and they all, all of them paid an emotional price for their work in the struggle. It's kind of like the same thing today right Erica. There's lots of strong black women leaders and they're taking a lot of shots right now. Look at Stacy and Georgia. Yeah, Stacy, Ayana ill han Omar, You've got Natasha Brown. I mean yeah,

I could go on and on and on. There's amazing black women that have always been there doing their thing, and it's time for them to get their flowers. Speaking of which, I'm a bit competitive and I want to do something cool like your Jurassic Park history mash up. So I'm gonna use my black wizard skills. You didn't know I had them to do something I know you cannot do. I am an actor with access and so you're you. But look I'm going to um, yeah, I'm gonna do something cool. So what are we gonna get?

A song? Like a morality play? Maybe some a cappella. Nope, I'm gonna go back in time. I'm going to talk to a queen, a pioneer of reparations whose life story led her to become a force of nature in the struggle. I'm gonna talk to Queen Mother Moore. How are you going to do that? I use a little bit of magic to do it, and I believe if I listen, well, I'll come back forever changed. So here, let's do this. Let's adjust the volume a little bit, Mr Pop Okay, I just know I needed to get on the right

frequency and always works in the movies. Oh gosh, you're here. It worked. Oh you don't know how I but I got to go through to kid here own. Okay, chill Erica, you know she ain't got time for that. Welcome Queen Mother. I'm glad that you're here. Thank you so much, and thank you for blessing us with your story. Yes, no, thank you, ma'am. You know where I come from, this homeless of people to call themselves queen Charlemagne, the god Queen, Queen, Queen.

He calls me queen. But you know what, how did you become the queen? Mother? Mea was restored upon me by the African students. First of all, as a result of my years of activities in this country. African students, well, they gave it to me. And when I went to Africa to dr and crew mass funeral, they chief heard about me and he sent for me to come to him and I went and he said, I'm going to make you a fishery queen mother, queen mother of the Ashanti, and he initiated me the queen mother. But I was

queen mother before I went to Africa. We know you did amazing things in Harlem, but you're actually from the South right. But yes, I was born in New Iberia, Louisiana, seven ninety. I grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana. My parents came from New all into Louisiana. My grandparents came from New Iberia, Louisiana. My father worked for herself. My mother was a housewife. I had two brothers and five sisters.

I was the sixth one in the family, Queen of the more Where would you say that your story starts? What was life like growing up for you? My mother died when I was five years old, and after Papa died, my brother sold the house that papa had left. And mind your papa had told him that told me that brother Henry would take care of us. Well. He took care of us all right. The moment he came from the funeral, he said we had to move, and I

had my little sisters. So I took a few of Papa's moves to the auction and sold them and readed an apartment. I left New Orleans during the war. I left and went to Muscle Shoals m Muscial Souls well Wreatha did a lot of recording there. Yes, really difficult to listen to you tell your story, but you made it through. Yes, So how did you get started with your work? We talked a lot about origin stories. What

was the origin of your work? Within that cause? My face encounter with the real struggle was with the Red Cross, who discriminated against the black recruits. They gave the white recruits coffee and doughnuts while they were mobilizing them, and they didn't give anything to the black recruits. And I mobilized the people around to make what we used to call hook cakes and coffee and gave it to the

blacks who were congregated waiting to be shipped off. And my sister and I we found a place where the soldiers could come and we got an old phonic have and a lot of scratch records. Well, it was a place where the men could come in and play cards or checkers or something. So we consider ourselves having to face USO among black Oh wow, so you've been organizing around the black community for a while, But how did you get to the liberation movement like your work with

the great Marcus Garvey. Well, I was face brought in turned Marcus Carvey movement by the fact that he I understood that he was to come and speak to us in Louisiana. And we went to the meeting and low and behold, he didn't come, and we had the mayor refused to allow him to come. So we were very incensed about it and got a delegation to go see why. Then it was guaranteed that Marcus Carvey would come. The next night, the hall was packed with people. Everybody went

with ammunition, had guns. Everybody had guns, Black people with guns. Blue Steve Smith and Western's German lugers. Really and uh, I had two guns with me. Y'all showed up and showed out, that's what's up. Amazing and ammunition, a bag of ammunition. Everybody had what you call a suitcase today because we was afraid the police would stop him from coming again and we wanted to protect him. Wow, in the night that he did come, what happened, thirty people

was in that hall. So when God came, reapplauded very much, and he said, my friends, I wanted to apologize for not speaking to you last night. But the reason I didn't speak to you because the mayor permitted himself to be used as a stooge by the police department to prevent me for speaking to you. And when he said that, the police jumped up and said, I'll run you in. And when the police did that, everybody jumped up on the benches we had benches then and took out their

guns straight up. The guns were straight up in the air. Speak Gorvy set and Gorvy said, And as I was saying, and he went and repeated itself, and the police filed out of their like little puppy dolls. Every police been filed out of the hall. And I can't forget that speak Garvey speak. Oh I wish I was there. And that was your first experience with Marcus Garvey. Amazing. Oh yes, I'm still a life member the Garvey movements, like to join the Garvey movement after that, How did this impact

your path as an activist? Well, after must have shown. I went back to New Orleans and stayed there a while until Marcus Garvey came on the sea in so then we came to HALLM. Well, anyhow, HALLM was waste than anything we had seen. They had for white only signs and only apartment houses in Hallm for white only, big signs outside, and we had to go upstairs in the lowest theater like we did in the South. Same thing, the white people sitting the bottom downstairs and we had

to go upstairs, and that kind of thing. So nobody could work in HALLM. No black place. And while you were in Harlem, you began working with Garvey's Universal Negro Improvements Association and uh the African Communities League. Oh yes, I had gone to his meetings and had was his guest divino on the Black store line. He bought some ships and they were very unsuccessful because they were sabotaged. You know. What was his plan for the ships to do export import from Africa, trade and so on. So

I was very impressed with that. So was Marcus Garvey who helped push you to look towards Africa with your work. Yes, well, it was to teach our people self esteem for one thing, and our history and pride in our nation. And the other thing was self sufficiency going into business and so on, and to think in terms of the development of Africa, to help free Africa from colonialism, that kind of thing. Okay,

So is that how you got into your reparations petition. Yes, the petition called for us to go back to Africa. So those who wanted to go back, and for those who wanted to stay here, they had to be certain indemnity given for the people who wanted to stay the people who wanted to go. I was asking for two hundred billion dollars for the injury that we have received as a result of our enslaveman. Okay, two under billionaire. That was a lot of money. Then in now, would

you say the petition was successful? I got very good response, and he told me that we needed a member nation to introduce the resolution since we were not officially remembers of the You and I'm sorry, Queen mother more, I'm having trouble here. I think we're losing our connection free Mother More. Hello, you were talking about the members that you needed someone to introduce the resolution. Oh, just one that was getting good? I think, Oh I lost her. M hm, that was amazing. Wow, what was it like

to talk to a legend? No, you know, I ain't got the words. I mean, Queen Mother More. She's a queen and you saw. I mean she suffered for her struggle work, as she put it, but she was unstoppable. She never quit and we have to celebrate her life. And when I think about all the soft handed complainers that we got, now me included, you know, battling racism one well written witty post at the time. But look, I just want to say this. I love black people.

I love you. We are unique on this planet. Why did the universe choose of US African Americans to tell this epic story? I mean to bear this poisonous thorny crown. I'm inspired by Queen Mother Moore and I salute her, and I will work harder and I think twice. I will think twice before complaining about the lack of gluten free treats at the craft service table. I'm changed, So Erica, this history is amazing. You know, we've been talking about

Cally House now Queen Mother Moore. But it also pulls up these other things for me as well, that there's another side of the story, and that's the white side of the story. The pressers in the story that we're hearing the people that opposed Cally House, people and lock are up the people that opposed Queen Mother Moore. It's complicated when you think about your legacy and how you're

connected to these things. You know, I want to celebrate people like Calli and Queen Mother more, but at the same time, I have to figure out how do I take ownership of the other side of the story. When you think about history, there's history being made right now in Ebste Illinois. Alderman Robin Ruth Simmons from the Fifth Ward has just passed the first tax funded reparations bill in US history. I live in a city that has acknowledged our collective wrongdoing and we have acknowledged that we

want to do something radically different in passing it. So that makes me hopeful. And the beauty of this reparation goal is it's in line with my highest priorities in my role as Alderman, I've known as reparation Robin and rolls of parks. Now, so that's different. I feel incredibly proud to lead in a community that allowed such radical

policy and uncomfortable conversation. People have been extremely nasty to me, and I really, you know, feel bad for them that whatever is happening in their life that is so miserable, that they are in so much pain that they want to share it and pass it all around. So I feel sad for them, and I forgive them and hope

that they find some peace. So when that happens, even you know, it's my faith that allows me to work past the pain that I received and take that pain and figure out how to turn it into some purpose. I would love for more people to take ownership of it and do the work. It's important. It's going to have to happen. We have officially started our public subcommittee meetings.

You've established the timeline, and we have prioritized the initialmity and we're gonna start with housing, you know, keeping our black community. We have a declining population as serving a very diverse community. Right of the population is black and the rest of the community is not black, and they don't understand as much. So at the same time as I'm working on the policy, building relationships, finding resources, I still have a huge piece of education. In the process

of this. I have been supporting the City of Chicago and the State of Illinois on their initiatives, just being an advocate, showing up to speak, sharing what was possible in Evanston, and hopefully giving some inspiration to the leaders at the state level and the city level. I'm also in full support of HR forty and supporting anyone that

is looking to get that passed. The amount of support that I have received from leaders and experts has really given me confidence to tenue the second leg of the work. We are likely to be the you know, not only the first city, but also in the first state in bordering, the first major city to have a local reparative policy, a local reparation They're going to be more actions that require,

you know, a majority vote. But right now, in terms of the direction, the thought, leadership, the intentions, I have said it, and I will continue nurturing it, and I will see it through. You Know, every time I hear Robin I start, I think about something that's always kind of in the back of my mind as a white person, is that I look at this community, Evanston, Illinois, and

who's committed to give reparations to their black residents. But the effort was really driven by this black woman who put this whole program together and drove it to the mostly white city council. And so I always wonder, if we owe this, why aren't we take king the lead on it more? But I think what's really interesting about Evanston, and something that you and Iraq I've talked a lot about, is that what does a world that has had reparations

pay it look like? And in Evsn, Illinois, in a few months, we're going to start to see three black women we never met locked together in their destinies. It's one long epic put on like the Odyssey or the Mahabarata, which I was in and did world tour the public theater long ago. But I digress. Anyway, Whitney, let's think about that world. But we need to give our history lesson the rock and heroes finale it deserves because of their work and others. One day we may finally get reparations,

and what would that be like? The narrative would get flipped in a world where reparations exist in America for

the descendants of African slaves. The human potential lost in the white capped, stormy seas, mixed with the blood and pain of centuries, is slowly regained and reanimated in the multi colored chocolate children who reclaim their destinies and God given potential, and ironically, American democracy is saved and finally realized, not by a caped, crusading billionaire bat or a greasy haired alien with a red s s on his chest, but by real life heroes of all colors, previously locked

into the villain roll, newly free to be the gods and earths they were always meant to be. During Alexander and Whitney dow as they battle for the soul of America in the new action adventure Buckbuster Reparations, The Big Payback next time on Reparations, the big payback, to paraphrase W. B. Du Boise on the subject of the history of slavery, of the exploitation and violence against African Americans in US history,

American people have been, as he put it, spoiled by sweets. Right, so we have too often got a nice nationalist dessert with a big old helping of American exceptionalism on top and to a large extent, it's not true, and we're not going to be able to face the future effectively, I think, if we continue to insist that the history of slavery and the history of land from Indigenous people are not the central realities of the first quarter millennium

of our history. This podcast is produced by Eric Alexander, Ben ar Noon and Whitney Dow. The executive producers are Charlemagne the God and Dolly S. Bishop. The Supervising producer is Nicole Childers, and the lead producer is Devin Mavock Robbins. The producer writer is Sires Castle, and the Associate producer is Kevin fan With additional research and writing support provided

by Nile Blast. Original music by d J D t P The Queen Mothermore audio was courtesy of the Tammament Library at New York University Reparations The Big Payback as a production of Color Farm Media, I Heart Radio and The Black Effect Podcast Network in association with Best Case Studios. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.