Reparations advocates link their work with Black August struggles

The discussion over reparations found an ally in the Black August movement at a July 29 press conference, where the Why We Can’t Wait Reparations Network discussed the concept alongside the continuing fight to free Black political prisoners as the movement began its monthlong commemoration.

The network is a national coalition of reparations advocates. Speakers at the press conference spoke of how important it was to prove that reparations are not a form of charity but rather are the only valid way to respond to centuries of enslavement, Jim Crow, racial terror, state violence, political repression, and segregation.

Kenniss Henry, national co-chair of N’COBRA (National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America), noted that her organization’s reparations organizing started in 1987 with Dr. Imari Obadele, a political prisoner and Republic of New Afrika leader who later earned a doctorate and helped build an organization dedicated to “full reparations” for Black African descendants.

“One check cannot repair centuries of harm, nor the ongoing vestiges of those centuries of harm,” Henry said. She said N’COBRA’s five areas of injury include health, education, criminal punishment, wealth and poverty, and the loss of peoplehood and nationhood. She argued that the movement’s work has pushed reparations “from a whisper to a conversation” heard across dinner tables and public life.

In June, when N’COBRA held its national convention at Howard University, Henry said they held a debate around the ongoing question of who should receive reparations.

“There are those who declare that reparations should be just for a few people, and it is dubbed as lineage-based: you have to prove who you are, who your ancestors were, and maybe you can get some reparations. And then N’COBRA on the other side, of course, there’s this full reparations for everyone who is in the diaspora and also in the surrounding areas of the diaspora that belong to this country.

“Everyone was, of course, concerned because we had no idea how this would play out, whether it would become World War Five or whether or not we could pull it off,” Henry said. “We had an amazing debate, we had an exchange of ideas, and of course, we did agree to walk away, agreeing to disagree, but we did it amicably.”

The Why We Can’t Wait press briefing marked the same date when in 2008 the U.S. House passed H.Res. 194, apologizing for slavery and Jim Crow. That nonbinding resolution, though, did not lead to compensation or legal redress. H.R. 40, the federal bill to study and develop reparations proposals, was voted out of the House Judiciary Committee in 2021, but never received a floor vote.

Dreisen Heath, executive director of the network, said the press conference was part of a long-term campaign. “Our focus right now is on getting this through the House politically, and then you know, focusing on what type of executive action looks like thereafter,” Heath said.

Black August, created in 1979 by incarcerated organizers in California prisons, honors fallen Black liberation fighters like George Jackson, who was killed at San Quentin in 1971. Its practices of study, fasting, discipline and struggle have long connected prison resistance to the broader Black freedom movement. This year’s remembrances, speakers said, must also highlight those still living with the consequences of political repression.

N’COBRA’s Henry lifted up political prisoner and organizer Baba Herman Ferguson, who devoted his post-prison life to supporting political prisoners. She also honored Queen Mother Audley Moore and Callie House, early reparations advocates who faced federal repression.

Lorne Runnels, executive director of Black Roots Alliance in Chicago, described local organizing around a Chicago Reparations Task Force and said community conversations show people want deeper repair. “Folks ain’t just looking for a check,” Runnels said. “Folks is looking for reparative justice and repair.” He invoked Black August by naming political prisoners and prisoners of war, including Mumia Abu-Jamal, Kojo Bomani, Sundiata Acoli and Sundiata Sadiq, saying organizers continue to work for their freedom and for the reparations vision they carried.

Roger Wareham, counsel and founding member of the December 12th Movement, stressed that administrations respond to organized pressure, not moral appeals alone. “Frederick Douglass was correct 150 years ago that power concedes nothing without a demand,” he said. Wareham urged reporters to help educate communities that reparations means institutional repair tied to healthcare, education, employment and community survival.

When asked about who is supposed to be eligible for reparations, Wareham argued that African people suffered “a collective injury” and that repair must be collective, including investments in institutions that serve Black communities. Heath pointed to other reparations and restitution programs that use place- or status-based standards, and said imposing burdens of proof could exclude elders who have been the most harmed by Jim Crow and segregation.

Wareham also noted that Aug. 29 marks the approximate opening date of the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, which produced the Durban Declaration and Program of Action, a global framework against racism that recognized slavery and the transatlantic slave trade as crimes against humanity.

He said gatherings in Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, Atlanta and elsewhere would commemorate Durban’s 25th anniversary while using Black August to renew organizing for reparations now.