REPARATIONS, BLACK AUGUST AND 8/29

Black August is about liberation and repair.

For over three decades, the December 12th Movement has fought for reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans, and for those victimized by the ongoing legacies of the economic system which enslaved and trafficked our ancestors. 25 years ago we went to the 2001
UN World Conference Against Racism to establish the true criminality of the governments responsible for instituting slavery and the Trans-Atlantic slave ‘trade’.

Our work at the United Nations grew out of the demand of the “Freedom Now” Campaign for the amnesty of US-held political prisoners and prisoners of war, our brothers and sisters imprisoned because of their fight for the liberation of our people. We recognized that justice for them could not be determined by the same courts which legally upheld the chattelization of African people and organized broadly for their release as well as repair for human rights violations. From 1989 onwards we waged decades-long battles to bring international attention to the human rights violations suffered by Black people in every aspect of our lives, including the extrajudicial killings carried out in our streets and the acts of torture committed behind the walls of U.S. ‘corrections’ facilities.

The lesson we learned in 2001 at Durban was the crucial role that, even on the international level, an organized community, “civil society”, must play to represent ourselves in the absence of justice. We must “make them” do the right thing. Our organization, along with the National Black United Front, took 400 people to Durban to lobby countries on reparations. The result was the historic Durban Declaration and Program of Action.

In the U.S. 25 years later the debt owed is still unpaid and we still have political prisoners languishing in “deathcamps”. Our tasks remain the same. On August 29th, in cities around the country and the world, people will be gathering to commemorate the Pan-African victory achieved at Durban in 2001. But more importantly this day will be a call to action – to bring together our communities and reparations initiatives around the country to up the ante, to force the perpetrator, the U.S. government, to pay the debt owed our people and to “free em all.” Join us on 8/29.

THEY STOLE US! THEY SOLD US! THEY OWE US!
REPARATIONS NOW!