The United Nations recently took up the topic of reparations again for Africa and the Black Diaspora, with activists and advocates declaring it’s time to stop ignoring the subject.
That’s important. But any discussion about reparations must include Blacks in America and the Diaspora as major players, given our history and suffering.
What did slavery do to the Motherland? “Africa was under siege,” said Hilary Brown, who represented the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). “Her political, economic and social systems thrown into chaotic instability as Europe plundered the continent for her most valuable asset, her people,” she added.
The Black holocaust ripped millions from the Motherland during the transatlantic slave trade and dropped them into hell in the Western hemisphere.
Meanwhile, the massive displacement and destruction of African society allowed Europeans to colonize the continent, wax rich off of her people and resources—and maintain a vicious exploitation and neo-colonialism that persists today.
“Western extortion of Africa continues, as do wars within the continent, often fought with guns supplied by westerners wanting the cheapest access to vital raw materials,” wrote Marika Sherwood for revealinghistories.org.uk.
While leaders in the Sahel region are fighting to push European powers, corporations and the U.S. out, none of these blood suckers will go quietly. When they are quiet, they plot subversive activity and the deaths of the leaders of this movement.
In early April, three U.S. citizens were sent back to America after death sentences for attempting to overthrow the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2024 were commuted.
It appears they will face prosecution in the U.S. The release came as the DRC and the Trump administration are negotiating what has been called a multi-billion-dollar deal to exploit rare minerals in the country. The two countries are also reportedly working on a security deal as well.
So much for self-determination and self-development in 2025.
The Congo is ranked as the world’s richest country in resources, which are estimated at $24 trillion, Fox News noted. But Congo has yet to control and exploit those resources for her own development.
Much of the UN discussion centered on “greater collaboration between governments, civil society and regional organizations to create a system that would compensate Africa and the African diaspora for the enduring legacies of colonialism, enslavement, apartheid and genocide between the 16th and 19th centuries,” UN News reported.
The theme for a joint 2025 effort between CARICOM and the African Union is “Justice for Africans and the People of African Descent through reparations.”
Ms. Brown argued, a “clear, diplomatic and advocacy strategy to advance the agenda through joint action in the United Nations, the Commonwealth, and other intergovernmental bodies” is needed.
She stressed the need “to negotiate with all the entities that benefited from African enslavement: the governments, the universities, the church, the private sector.”
Nkechi Taifa, longtime reparations activist and director of the U.S.-based Reparation Education Project, stressed it was “not governments but the unstoppable fire of the people that ignited the global movement for reparations.”
She added that UN forums “must and can continue to be a space where civil society and government meet as equals helping to shape, not shadow, global reparations agendas.”
Slavery and the transatlantic slave trade are crimes against humanity, according to the United Nations, which has called for reparations to undue its harm and fight ongoing racism.
What did the transatlantic slave trade do to Blacks torn from the continent?
“The abduction, abuse, and enslavement of Africans by Europeans for nearly five centuries dramatically altered the global landscape and created a legacy of suffering and bigotry that can still be seen today,”
The Equal Justice Institute pointed out. “The Transatlantic Slave Trade represents one of the most violent, traumatizing, and horrific eras in world history,” it added.
“According to the late, great scholar W.E.B. DuBois, a conservative estimate of Black lives lost in the Middle Passage was from 50 million to 100 million Black lives,” the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan said as he laid out the case for reparations in a legendary message delivered in Atlanta in 1990.
“Well, if 100 million of us lost our lives in the Middle Passage, add it up. What is one Black life worth? Three hundred years working from ‘can’t see morning to can’t see night’ for no pay. Three hundred years working millions of slaves for nothing. Add it up! Add it up! Add it up!” he declared.
“The killing of our fathers and mothers after mating them like animals, then taking the children and naming us after the slave master, stripping us of our language, our God, our religion, our minds. Add it up! Add it up.”
He pointed out how Blacks had fought in all of America’s wars and had not received freedom, justice nor equality.
“You brought us into religion, not to make us closer to Jesus, but to turn us inside out in Jesus’ name. You know Jesus was no White man. Look at him. The Bible says he had hair like lamb’s wool, and feet like brass burnt in an oven. But you make us White-minded and destroyed our love for ourselves. Add it up!” he continued.
“We developed leaders to help us. Marcus Garvey came and talked to us, but here in Georgia you trumped up charges against him and you brought him into court and you lied on him and you sent him to prison unjustly.
Then you deported him and broke his movement. Only later did we learn that Garvey was a good man, he had a good movement, he had a good program, but you destroyed it all. Add it up. Add it up. Add it up.
“In the 1960s, when Black folk began to move, we had CORE, SNCC, the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam.
All of these brothers and sisters were fighting for the liberation of Black people, but there in Washington, D.C., the government of America started plotting against our leaders, and we lost Whitney Young off the coast of Africa under suspicious circumstances.
We lost Medgar Evers. They broke up CORE. They broke up SNCC. They broke up the organization called Us (under Ron Karenga). They jailed the leaders of the Republic of New Africa. They murdered Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They weakened the NAACP and the Urban League.
“Everything that fought for justice for us, they tore it up and tore it down. I say, add it up. America owes the Black man. Add it up.
“What is the life of Martin Luther King worth? What is the life of Malcolm X worth? What is the life of our leaders worth? What is the life of Louis Farrakhan worth? You want me dead, but I say you don’t want that. You don’t really want that. If you know what I know, you don’t want that. No, you don’t want that.
“The way God looks at this thing, the present generation of Whites, they didn’t do this to us. The present generation of Whites are innocent of what their grandfathers did, but they are in a privileged position because of what their fathers did; and we’re in a hell of a condition because of what their fathers did,” Minister Farrakhan continued.
“So, if you, the present generation of Whites, want to escape what is justly due, then they’ve got to do the right thing. They’ve got to do justice by the Black man,” he said.
“Now what does justice look like? If you add it up … if you add it up White folks, you are going to have to give us the whole country. Add it up, White man. The whole thing belongs to the oppressed, if you add it up.
We’re not asking for the whole thing, but we do deserve the whole thing. Just give us some of it and let us go to build a nation for ourselves,” Minister Farrakhan continued.
“When I ask for reparations, I’m asking you to save your life. But if you don’t want to save your life, then leave it to God. He’ll settle it.”
Naba’a Muhammad is editor-in-chief of The Final Call newspaper. He can be reached via www.finalcall.com and [email protected]. Find him on Facebook. Follow @RMfinalcall on X and Instagram.
