Texans were among the hundreds of Black people who rallied in front of the U.S. Capitol last to demand reparations. The most significant thing about the rally was that it was not a star-studded affair. Most of the participants were ordinary men and women who made a strong case for compensation for the slave labor that built this great country.  “It seems that America owes Black people a lot for what we have endured,” Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan told the crowd of people, who were young, old, middle class, lower class, the whole spectrum of the Black community. “We are not begging White people,” said Farrakhan, “We are just demanding what is justly ours.”

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., who has proposed a commission to study the institution of slavery for the last 13 years, urged the crowd to pressure Congress. “Only the Congress can do what we want done,” he told the crowd. The Houston City Council recently incurred the wrath of African-Americans by voting down support of the reparations study bill.
But the issue and the movement around it continue to gain momentum. Earlier this year, a group of slave descendants sued three companies, claiming the companies– or their corporate predecessors – unjustly profited from slavery. A group of distinguished attorney and legal scholars that includes Johnny Cochran and Charles Ogletree is working on a lawsuit against the federal government.
Opponents of reparations argue that taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for past actions over which they had no control and that the country has atoned for the sin of slavery in other ways. Cited most often by opponents is affirmative action, which for all practical purposes provided the most benefit to White women.
And for all intents and purposes, affirmative action is on its death bed and, frankly, benefited mostly middle-class people. Affirmative action did not relieve America of its moral responsibility to compensate African- Americans for their stolen slave labor which built this country. Descendants of those men and women spoke at the D.C. rally. And, not all of them were talking ancient history.
One woman recalled her sharecropper father frequently cheated out of his earnings after the crops had come in. The woman was young—only 50. Sharecropping was a byproduct of slavery, thus people like her don’t have to go back too far to show their losses and to stake their claim for reparations.
It is unlikely that African-Americans will receive direct financial compensation from the U.S. government. And, frankly, that is not what would do the most good for the most people.

Some of the ways to provide meaningful reparations could include returning the land that has been stolen from Black landowners over the years, relief from taxes, a guaranteed college education, guaranteed medical care. The ideas are endless.
And, for those who contend that the troubled economy wouldn’t support reparations right now, I have a suggestion: the President could kill his tax cut to the richest two percent of Americans and steer that money toward reparations.
After all, a significant number of the richest two percent of Americans are likely the same people who benefited most from the toil of slaves.