Why Now?

cash payment. I don't want no government and though reparations should be welcomed by all, some folks may want checks, but what we're really talking about is closing that wealth gap and making people whole. Let me tell you justice. It's just uh. Here we are on the corner of Wall and Broad Street, one of the most like famous

corners in America. Right, it's the seat of capitalism. We're standing at the feet of George Washington, founder of our country, who's looking across Wall Street at the New York Stock Exchange. It this is it. It's smaller than I thought. It looks more impressive than pictures. I was doing a little research before we came down here. Erica, and you know the value of the company's contained in the New York

stock has changes over thirty trillion dollars. That's ten trillion dollars more than the nation's GDP every year thirty Amazon, and the value and the amount of trading that is done every day about of money that passes through there is I think, over a hundred and sixty billion dollars every day. When you think of Wall Street, what do you think of I think of this. I mean, it's

a little a lot of stone. There's all these really beautiful polished bronze doors with sparkling glass and a lot of really decorative iron work around, and it's kind of telling everybody, well, if you're a white man, you can come in, but everybody else stay out. Meant to intimidate, and it does. It's not only intimidating to New Yorkers, but I think it's meant to be intimidating to the world. What I didn't realize is that directly across the street

is Federal Halls. Walk up there a little bit America. We're standing in front of Federal Hall Memorial and that's another Gothic building, and out in front of it, there's a statue of George Washington, and it really struck me when I saw us. Here's the founder of our country, and he's looking across the street at the stock exchange age as if he's looking at the capitalist foundation of the country. But this is where he took the oath

of office upstairs in this building. Wow, they really did a nice job on the bronze work near his crutch, and it matters because you're looking up at him and you're meant to see his penis first and then go up to his face and follow his eyes to the stock exchange. At least that's not what I see at our back is George Washington. If we look to our right, we can see Trinity Church, the oldest church I think's one of those churches in the country, all these church

in New York. If you look across the street directly in front of us as a stock exchange, and then if you look down the street to the water, do you know what's down that street The location of New York's first slave market that was founded in seventeen eleven. So if we're should have like the four points of the compass in America, we have politics, money, religion, slavery. That sounds right. Black people will always make up the four points. And in fact, none of these things could exist,

these politics, that religion, or that money without slavery. And that's the unfortunate part. For them to have white freedom and white success, they needed black bodies. You know, when I met you, Whitney, I had no idea that I would be stuck with you for this long. We've been talking about reparations for two years. It's only been two years for us, but it's been a hundred and fifty

years for our country. Did you ever imagine yourself making a project about reparations with a guy named Whitney Burton Dow from the colony of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Like you often point out a look the drawing of a wasp or a colonist. Well, yeah, I guess if you come from Cambridge, Massachusetts in your name Mats Whitney Burton Dow, you look a little whitish. So yeah, but who better than you represent for your people if you're talking about white people, Yes, yes,

white people. Yeah, you're the guy white people in America. That's you. Well, Hams Hollywood, you know you're no pauper. I've seen your house. If you did, you wouldn't be saying that I need reparations just as much as anybody. I am no Cambridge Whitney Dow and I didn't just pop into people's movie screens and on stages and in theaters all over the world. I have an origin story. We all have origin stories, and origin stories are how

you live. They don't hopefully determine who you are. It's about the stories we tell ourselves, and I guess story shape our present reality, and I think that's where every story starts. Every good story is between reality and myth, Like, what's possible telling the truth? Well, you're setting a pretty high bar that you and I are going to get to the truth. Everybody loves different truths, and I think your truth is mixed with a lot of lies. Thanks

for that. Are you talking about me personally, Erica, or collectively as the white guy here? Both reparations. It's a complicated issue, and I'm not sure if I'm the right person to tell the story with you, Erica. Yeah, I might be too white. Well I'm extra black, I'm extra crispy black. Does that offset some of my whiteness? Is that what you're saying no, No, you're white. You white, you gotta live with it, any of my problem. I'm gonna coattail on your blackness here. By the way, this

is a conversation. If we're going to go on this journey about reparations, it ain't about you. Know, you would say it is about you, But I'm Harry, it's child you hear me. I'm here to rescue my people. And the last time I checked, we just got a new black woman VP. So right now I'm feeling like, ain't nothing too big for me? And if not you Whitney, then who step up? If we're gonna do this, We've

got to make a plan. We gotta find experts. We gotta you know, find people who actually know what they're talking about. Just goose your eyes and make a wish count to three. Yeah, that's come on, that's Sheila Jackson Lee. That's Congressional hearing on hrd. America is a place and welcomes the diversity of thought. We even welcome the diversity of thought among the multi colored chocolate people that are

African Americans. Did you hear that multi colored chocolate? Do you see how she got down old old girl as a warrior if we were to pay reparations today, we would only divide the country further about to turn on him like Mr Colored Purpose. Reparations by definition, are only given to victims. Victims had no consent. What you're supposed to say? I give you permission to rid Maddin me

massa who here comes down? Mr Wakanda buck up. We recognize our lineage as a generational trust as inheritance, and the real dilemma posed by reparations is just that, a dilemma of inheritance. Yep, that's what's happening in d C. I guess that's why HR forty, a built to discuss reparations, has been stuck in committee for thirty years. Meanwhile, on these mean streets here we are out here, man, it's crazy. The remnants of this history is all around us. Oh snap,

the New York's Municipal slave market. There's a sign here are we less than two feet across and just over one ft high. It's drawing on it and has a green New York Parks emblement. It says our Wall Street between Pearl and Water Streets and market that auction enslave people of African ancestry is established by a Common Council law on November thirtieth, sev eleven. This is the New

York's municipal slave market sign. But you can look up from this site and see Trinity Church, and you can see the New York Stock Exchange and the foundation of it all. American slavery gets a two by two plaque. You know, I've been here before, but this is the first time I'm seeing this. Some I'm a little piste off. I don't know why it's not more prominent. I don't know why it's just a sign. Look, there's a big

old statue George Washington over there. Big buildings that we talked about with stones look like it should be here, and this looked like it'd be. It could be knocked over by a hard wind. How does it make you feel thinking about all this? You're visibly upset, You're shaking, you know much shaking. I'm upset. I mean, I really wish I could rip that sucker out. It's not even worth it being there. And then also I'm kind of mad because I have been here before, I didn't see it.

There are people walking through, their immigrants, got their children, they've got all their families, They should be able to see it. There should be the stain of it in New Yorkers should have to live with it, they should have to learn about it, they should be confronted with it. I want them to really acknowledge slavery. I want them to give us justice. Black people want justice. We deserve it.

We should have it by any means necessary. And part of that justice is that you should not be able to come and walk by a slave market marker and not be moved by it, or at least have to reckon with it or see it. That was so brutal. Being there with you, Erica, someone who I care about, and seeing the vistal reaction, the pain that it caused you to be there, it left me feeling kind of helpless.

And I know that if I've been alone, if I had been there by myself, I would have find some way to push myself away from it and the absurdity of it and just kind of intellectualize it. Where being there with you forced me to own it a bit. But that's my problem, not yours. It is your problem and black people's burden to bear. I mean, we gave you money and paid the big on your loan. Who needs bootstraps when they've got friends like you, Whitney. That's what I mean earlier when I said your truth is

filled with a lot of lies. These realities, they show it for me every day. Meanwhile, you're underwater thinking your real estate has value. What I'm thinking about is solutions. And I really believe the only way towards a true reconciliation is to create a funded reparations program. And white Americans you have to decide if they want to rise with Black Americans or fall with them. I see you, Whitney down you're doing something. I mean, you're here, you're

working on it, you're talking about it. But don't expect the parade or props are shown up to clean up the mess you've made. Yeah, it is a big mess. And Erica, you've told me in the past that you feel like James Baldwin or Tattenhassi Coates has said that you don't really believe, you don't really have faith that

white people of the ability to change. And I totally understand that if I were black, I imagine I would feel the exact same way, and especially looking at the events the last you know, a few weeks and we've had three or four thousand white people storming the Capitol and it looks horrible. Those images were just like atrocious. But at the same time, we've also had millions of white people in the street marching alongside black and brown people protesting police violence. So that does make me a

little optimistic. I hope it doesn't sound corny that I do believe we can change, right, Maybe I feel like I kind of have to believe we can change. Like in Evanston, Illinois, things are changing. I've known his reparation robbin and rolls of parks now, so that's different. How about that she's a rock star. Four hundred years after the first enslaved Africans got off the boat, Alderman Robin Ruth Simmons passes the first reparations bill in America. Oh Man,

talk about the long arc. We gotta keep an eye on her. We will. But I want to show you something first. So Erica, tell me what do you see here? What are we? What were you walking up to? Oh? We're Duyne in Elk Street and it says African burial ground a way. So they're building a federal building at two hundred fifty six million dollar building and when they broke ground on they discovered this burial ground. What does

this say here? Changing landscape obscures the past. The African burial ground was labeled Negroes Burial Ground on the seventeen fifty five map at right. Colonial New York laws banned African funerals and officially consecrated graveyards, prohibited gatherings of large numbers of enslaved Africans, and decreed that funerals had to be held during daylight. Nonetheless, Africans and their descendants held burial ceremonies in a cemetery outside the city wall, near

a ravine. As New York City expanded northeast, the burial ground was closed in seventeen nine and eventually divided into lots for sale. The land was filled in and buildings were constructed on top. For almost two centuries. New York City's growth obscured the graves and the African burial ground was nearly forgotten. So we tried to put a Starbucks on it. It's a metaphor, right, The foundation is African

Americans Americans both on top of it. They turned their barrel ground into real estate, but that foundation wasn't paid for it was paid for in blood, guts and suffering. I think of the people buried here were children. So we talk about reparations for work and value created, but what about reparations for all the people that were destroyed by it? It as children, the people who actually never

had a life. So this is showing the levels of different centuries and what they built on top of those coffins. It's a diagram. We're ground level, right, Yeah, we're ground level. So the on top there's three different centuries. In the lowest right, or at least, is the seventeen hundreds. People were buried in individual coffins up to three deep. But that looks exactly like the slave ship diagrams coming across. That's interesting from Africa. So they went out like they

came in. That's a cold, cold thought. Let's walk up to the next marker. This one is says Africans in early New York before the American Revolution, York had more enslaved Africans. It's most valuable commodity than any other colony in the North. You're leaving out the most important thing here. It's not that these people were just here, they say, and they give an account of their work. Women sewed,

cooked harvests, didn't care for owners children. Labors tore up cobblestone streets, dug trenches late and joined the pipe sections, and filled in the trenches. Pay one dollar a day in slave workers wages went to their owners. That's real, and you know the real One of the reasons why the slave market was established down on Wall Street was because there were so many enslaved Africans here and the actual way the labor pool was structured wasn't really structured.

There to sending people out in the street to like earn money, and they wanted to sort of like codify into something more structural. By the way, this whole thing is about white fear. Yeah, you should be fucking afraid because if we ever get what we deserve and if we ever start to balance those books, there ain't no stopping us, and it's over. It's not just the rebrowning of America, it's the black nation coming into its own. So yeah, they try to bury us too black, too strong.

From eighteen nineties and estimated fifteen thousand enslaved in free Africans were laid to rest in African fifteen thousand bodies are here seven burial mounds mark the locations of the re internments. Here. They are over here, So this is it. Look at the mounds here. Oh my god. Now to me, this is significant. My god, look at that. What does it make you feel to stand here and look at this? Well, I'm very proud. I'm glad to see them. And I don't know I gained comfort from them being here. I'd

come out here and eat my lunch with them. What do you think? It's funny because you know, you look over at the stone and it's all representational. This is so much more concrete. These are real burial mounds. And knowing that the remains lie underneath it, and knowing that they're aligned in a certain way with their heads facing Africa. I think it's beautiful. It's beautiful and they shall rise again. Oh hey, you know they give tours of this stuff.

M Black Gotham, thirty books, Totally worth it. Definitely buy several tickets. I gotta take my mom and show her all these hidden gyms, because she's the greeno in the family. Oh man, it's a shame because no matter how hard she worked with me, it wasn't enough, and she won't live to see a new world that's created through the application of reparations. So like the Africans, underneath those buildings, it's going to be beyond her flesh and bone. But

that means it's fertile ground. It's very fertile. My mother's in it. It's blessed and highly favored. What really strikes me about it, Eric because that it's called the African burial ground. But it's not just African history. It's white history too, and it's history that's layered across generations. And it's not just about what happened before it happened hundreds of years ago. You can also see in it how it's impacted what's happening today and how you and I

how our own families are living within the legacy of slavery. Yeah, no, I get it. I mean my brother is a Philly copp and my sister is a social worker, and they worked within the racist system that we're talking about every day. You know, that's how they make their living. And the weird part is if systematic reformation is needed and reparations is part of the cure, we have to get ready because there's a whole lot of black folks that are

baked into the current architecture and they ain't gonna get out. So, I mean, it's a rough ride. It would disrupt everything. So we got to be careful what we wish for first, do no harm. Maybe we need to step out of our current reality from all Reven Barber says that we're in the third reconstruction. So Whitney, this is our opportunity to map out a blueprint, to chart a new destiny, to decide who our builders are. Our architects are machinists.

You would probably need a few arsonists. We're gonna have to tear some things down along the way. But first we need vision. Imagination, you mean a reimagination. That's a little change. Oh, it's amazing what a good composition can do to carry us away. Okay, I'm ready. I think. Well, let's be real. You always feel your best at the beginning of the marathon. I hope, I'm ready, Yeah, I hope. I bought a black power bar this season on Reparations, the Big Payback. I didn't have a lot of skills.

I was a bad student. That was kind of this histof Charlie got thrown out of schools. I was always getting good fights. So that's why you got into race work, because you were a mediocre white man anywhere anywhere, exactly what you're saying. I failed everywhere else, So race took me in it. I made a career out of it because that's what we needed. This business. We need to rejects awesome. Look, we have to define reparations. Some people want to define reparations as a give me a check.

That's not reparations. They treat us like animals more or less than like human beings. And we are the ones who lost our lives building this country and got paid not one dime for it. But everybody else is reaping the benefits. That's album money. My life revolves primarily around my discovery that my ancestors were the largest slave trading

family in US history. When I looked at you, Wikipedia, my god brother, you're not playing you like the John Lewis of the Aristocrats, the inspiration for me and reparations. I know that the injustice and the discrimination in the racism is a shared problem, but which has to be confronted if we're gonna move on successfully together. My life would have been any different if I was black, because it's the core of who you are. Everyone has a burden. It's how you handle the burden, and so I truly

don't feel that there was a privilege. Absolutely not. Mom. What happened was we were standing in there and suddenly the window shatters. The policeman told me that he was trying to kill some blackbirds, meaning my children, who were standing at the window at and not been for a double pain windows, probably I would have that morning lost two of my children. If I had enough money to ease the disparities and enough programs directed run by black people to help us, then I would even be willing

not to have Chambel Harris Speed Vice President. What goes on your playlist? The reparations playlist? Well, what I play for my students at the end of the semester is

um when will we get paid? This podcast is produced by Eric Alexander, Dan Arnon and Whitney daw The executive producers are Charlomagne the God and Dolly s. Bishop, The supervising producers Nicole Childers and the lead producers Devin Madock Robins, the producer writer Serres Castle, and the associate producers Kevin fan With additional research support provided by Nile Blast original

music by dj d t P Reparations. The Big Payback is 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.