THE NDABA MOVEMENT NATIONAL REPARATIONS PETITION CAMPAIGN

Whereas, we the undersigned people of African ancestry understand that various oppressed peoples have been paid reparations. Indigenous groups such as the Choctaw, Lakota, and Lambuth people have received reparations (and rightly so) for treaty violations that occurred before the emancipation of African Americans. Japanese Americans have received reparations for their inhumane incarceration in internment camps during WWII, as well as the Jews who received reparations after the Nuremberg trials.

Whereas, slavery and the slave trade are recognized by international human rights organizations, e.g., the United Nations, as “crimes against humanity” and as such there are no statutes of limitations against nations who are to pay for these crimes.

Whereas, we the undersigned understand that the demand for reparations for Black people in America is a demand for justice for years of injustice and inhumane treatment and not a request for a handout. Elected leaders and those seeking public office must recognize the elementary truth that slavery and historical patterns of discrimination, based on race, are the direct cause of continued increases in unemployment, substandard education, higher mortality, higher rates of incarceration, etc. for African Americans. Similarly rooted in slavery is the engrained psychosis of racism among White Americans.

We, above all others in America, have sacrificed the most for this country. It is clear at this hour in history that the major issue for Black people in the upcoming presidential election is restitution for a long standing debt of the United States Government owed to Black people in America since the end of the Civil War.

In 1898, one of the many petitions to Congress in support of slave pension (reparations) legislation stated,

“Whereas, It is a precedent established by patriots of this country to relieve its distressed citizens,

both on land and sea, and millions of our deceased people, besides those who still survive, worked

as slaves for the development of this country, and Whereas, We believe it is just and right to grant

the ex-slaves a pension”

It is in this spirit, as descendants of slavery in America, that we sign this petition in support of our just demand for reparations.

The Petitions will be submitted to the NDABA IV Meeting on October 29 and 30, 2004 in Baltimore, Maryland at Morgan State University. Following this meeting they will be formally submitted to the Congress of the United States.

PLEASE PRINT ALL INFORMATION CLEARLY

Our unity is old, before Europe and before America were born. The foundation of our political systems was rooted in the concept of consensus. For example, when important issues were called for in the Ashanti culture, the chief called a meeting known as the asetena kese, which means “the big-sitting-down.” In South Africa, among the Nguni, the practice is known as the “ndaba.”

The National Reparations Petition Campaign is a project of The NDABA Movement. The NDABA Movement is a Network of Organizations, Researchers, Scholars, Faith Based Institutions, and Activists representing the broad spectrum of the Reparations Movement in America. This network has been convening regularly over the last year to collectively intensify the Reparations Demand for Black People in America. The following is a partial listing of the growing NDABA Movement Participants: Nation of Islam, National Black United Front / NBUF, National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America / N`COBRA, New African Peoples Organization, Republic of New Africa, The New Black Panther Party, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Shrine of the Black Madonna, Jericho Movement, African and African Americans for Enslavement Reparations, Global African Congress, Africans United for Sanity Now, and Sehah Youth Inc.

For further information contact NBUF at 12817 South Ashland Avenue, Calumet Park, Illinois 60827, Telephone #: 708.389-9929,

Fax: 708.389.9819, E-mail: nbufchi@allways.net. All petitions are due in the NBUF office by Friday, October 15, 2004.

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