[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 92 (Friday, June 20, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1316-E1317]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO CAMILLE FIELDS

                       HON. STEPHANIE TUBBS JONES

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 19, 2003

  Mrs. JONES of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, on Saturday, June 14, 2003, at the 
NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner in Cleveland, OH, Camille Fields, the 
daughter of Helen and Darryl Fields and the granddaughter of Mary and 
George Forbes, President of the Cleveland Chapter of the NAACP, 
delivered the following address:
  ``Imagine 250 years ago: you must get up at 5:00 a.m. to go to the 
fields and farm. After farming, you go home at about 7 or 8:00 p.m. 
Can't imagine it? Well this was the normal life of an African-American 
slave during the antebellum period. Day in and day out, African-
Americans worked harder than anyone of us will probably ever know. 
Enslaved in the slave trade, black slaves brought to the Americas spent 
their days working, picking cotton, farming and cooking for their white 
masters. Despite their everlasting work and the building of America, 
African-Americans were never paid the dues that they were owed. 
Payments or reparations should be given to African-American slave 
descendants for that painful period in history that some people want to 
forget, but should always remember.

[[Page E1317]]

  ``Reparations are payments to repair or right the wrongs of past 
injustices. African-Americans are owed reparations because of the work 
and pain that they had to endure during and after slavery. Reparations 
have been around since emancipation. A form of reparations was the idea 
of 40 acres and a mule. This was the idea that all slaves would receive 
40 acres and mule after slavery to get them started for their own 
lives. Slavery and its benefactor, the white masters hurt black 
Americans. To this day, black Americans are living the legacy of 
slavery. In slavery, if blacks were to refuse to work or proceed to run 
away, they were punished. The form of punishment was almost always 
beatings or being whipped. Slavery was a horrible time for the black 
race, there were 250 years of pain and labor with no compensation for 
it and that is not fair. Slavery was, `America's Black Holocaust.' 
Because of the effect slavery has brought on to African-Americans, 
blacks deserve to be compensated. After all, everyone else has.
  ``In 1987, people began to hear the word reparations a lot, but the 
discussion was not directed towards benefiting African-Americans. 
Instead, the United States government passed a law to conduct a 
national apology to Japanese-Americans and to pay them $20,000 apiece 
for their internment during World War II. The Japanese-Americans are 
not the only ones who received reparations. Last year, European 
insurance companies were allowing Holocaust survivors to apply for 
reparations; $275 million are being split up into accounts. Of this, 
100 million will be for expenses and other 175 million will be 
available for Holocaust survivors and charities. This agreement will be 
fully enforced at the end of next year. Seven-thousand, eight-hundred 
forty-four people have made claims for Holocaust reparations in Germany 
and 18,200 people have made claims in other European countries. Israel 
Singer, the chairman of the World Jewish Congress stated, `this is a 
great victory for justice. This is part of a massive effort at 
restitution that is very late, but fortunately not too late for 
hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors still alive, many of whom 
are in great need.' Jewish and Japanese people have been compensated 
for the past injustices done against their religion and race, so many 
African-Americans are raising the question, `Why haven't I been 
compensated for slavery?' So as a result many African-Americans go to 
court.

  ``Reparations Activist Deadria Farmer-Paellman has been the 
spokesperson for African-Americans who are suing various corporations 
for their part in slavery. She files lawsuits against companies and as 
Paellman states, `These are corporations that benefited from stealing 
people, from stealing labor, from forced breeding, from torture, from 
committing numerous horrendous acts and there's no reason why they 
should be able to hold onto assets they acquired through such 
horrendous acts.'
  ``In one lawsuit, Aetna Insurance Company is being held accountable 
for the act of insuring white masters, if their slaves ran away. They 
have apologized for insuring masters with money for their slaves. In 
1998, Imari Obadele and two other people filed a claim that slavery was 
worse than Japanese internment and blacks should be paid. Their claim 
was turned down. The judge ruled against them, Chief Judge Lawrence 
Baskir of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims wrote `make no mistake, the 
plaintiffs have made a powerful case for redress that could form the 
basis of future legislation providing for reparations for slavery.' In 
the late 1990s, President Clinton played with the idea of reparations 
and an apology, but he rejected it.
  ``Every year, the government does nothing to help out and further the 
idea of reparations, but one city is making a change toward the better. 
Last year on October 2, 2002, history was made in Chicago. The Chicago 
Council passed a law called the Slavery Era Insurance Disclosure. This 
law was the first one of its kind for a well known city. With the law, 
before they do business with the city, companies will have to disclose 
their ties with slavery. This law could affect anyone's company who can 
trace their ties back to slavery. Here in Cleveland, NAACP president 
George Forbes wants to have that same law passed here. His proposal 
wasn't asking for money, but as he states, `We're not advocating 
reparations, we just want to discuss it. We want to take it out of the 
emotional context and show how slavery goes into all corners of 
Cleveland life.' Many people are advocating and pushing the need for 
reparations, because so many people need them.

  ``Some people might raise the question, `is black poverty the legacy 
of slavery?' Well it is. After slavery, African-Americans had to start 
their lives from scratch and they were poor and uneducated. So the 
cycle continues from one generation to another. The poverty rate is 
higher for African-Americans than for other minorities. The rate has 
stayed the same since the last census. Twenty-two point seven percent 
of African-Americans are living in poverty. While the poverty rate for 
whites is 7.8 percent. Black people still suffer from economic, 
political and social falls from slavery. Martin J. Katz, author of The 
Economics of Discrimination says, `Whites will be allowed to retain an 
advantage, which they did not earn and blacks will continue to lag 
behind as a result of acts which, although they may not be amenable to 
documentation, no one denies were performed in contempt of 
individuality. Racism has made race relevant to productivity. Treating 
race as if it were irrelevant will not help to make it any less 
relevant.' Slavery's everlasting mark is black poverty, so therefore, 
because of slavery and its dent on society, African-Americans deserve 
reparations.
  ``The saying `let bygones be bygones' is often referred to the 
subject of reparations and slavery. The excuses include `it ended 140 
years ago before any of us were born,' or `There's nothing I can do 
about it; my family never owned slaves.' But did people say that in 
1987 when the government had to pay Japanese Americans? Would anyone 
say, `I was never really there when the Japanese were interned, so why 
should I have to pay them.' I believe the answer would be no. And no 
one has actually taken the heat for slavery. No one has even 
acknowledged the aftermath, even today. Some people just don't know how 
to go about giving reparations. Some ideas were to setup a trust fund 
that would be used for economic and educational resources. Whites 
benefited from slavery while at the same time, blacks didn't. In a 
recent poll conducted by blackvoices.com, 75.4 percent believed that 
reparations should be given to African-Americans.
  ``Reparations are a growing movement in today's society. The 
government should pay African-Americans the money that they are owed. 
Even though millions of dollars will not make up for the past 
injustices of America, reparations is a start toward the better. 
African-Americans went through hell 250 years ago. America needs to 
understand that. Reparations should be an obligation to America, not a 
privilege for African-Americans.''
  Camille is a student at Hawken school. She prepared this presentation 
for her chapel talk.

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