Ever since the September 11th attack on the United States, the term “freedom” has become a one of the most highly coveted, manipulated and misrepresented terms in American socio-political culture: the Al-Queda network supposedly hates America’s “freedom” more than any other American characteristic; in protest of France’s foreign policy, Americans now eat “freedom” fries instead of French fries; and we have seen how so-called news stations such as Fox News preferred to call the 2003 bombing raid on Iraqi people “Operation Iraqi Freedom” rather than “Shock and Awe,” the military’s original plan to drop more bombs on Iraq in 48 hours than all the bombs dropped in over a month of Desert Storm.
It has been said that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Much like the ironies of World War II, we must ask why we are waging wars for the so-called freedoms of people abroad when we have yet to “let freedom ring” for all people in America. We live in a country whose very Statue of Freedom (on top of the United States Capitol Building) was erected by slave labor. Symbolically, the foremost icon of American freedom resembles a European woman and was fashioned by the labor of African people who were not free. Today, while one-third of Harvard’s yearly freshmen class is reserved for the sons and daughters of wealthy alumni, African Americans are criticized for using affirmative action programs to attain college educations. Still, we say little when black and brown people are overrepresented in U.S. prisons, electric chairs and on war’s front-lines, all states that question the very definition of freedom.
This paper will attempt to reclaim and redefine the term “freedom” with regard to black socio-economic empowerment. It will examine James Forman’s Black Manifesto of 1969, the first major call for black reparations in the twentieth century, as a reparations prototype for the Twenty-First Century. If black reparation is to truly repair black America in the future, reparations proponents must learn from the Black Manifesto. Contrary to public discourse, reparation does not mean simply putting a check in black hands just so black people can spend it at white businesses. This does nothing to ensure collective black freedom and control. Through its strengths and shortcomings, the Black Manifesto presents an alternative to cutting checks to individual people and programs and is a timeless and extremely important model.
Reparation for the legacy of chattel slavery is one of the most important issues to emerge in public discourse today. This is the first time in history that major scholars, legal and political leaders and publishers have seriously considered and supported this issue. Since 2001, some of the nation’s most respected legal scholars have filed suits against railroads, insurers, financial institutions and tobacco companies that have benefitted from slave labor.
Forced, unpaid labor established some of the finest educational, economic and structural systems in America today. For example, Yale University’s first scholarship, first endowed professorship and first library were established with slavery profits. Even now, eight of Yale’s twelve schools bear the names of wealthy slave owners, and Yale is not alone. Rhode Island slave trader, John Brown, used his profits to create what was later known as Fleet Boston Bank and what later became Brown University, another one of today’s most prestigious Ivy League schools. Many of our country’s businesses have also profited from the objectification and commodification of African people. Aetna Insurance Incorporated, the largest insurer in the U.S. today, began issuing insurance policies to slave owners in 1853 for “property” losses and damages; CSX railway cars run on rails that were constructed by slaves. Slave laborers also built our nation’s White House, Capitol Building and even the wall for which Wall Street is named. In fact, African slaves were the first “stock” sold on the New York Stock Exchange.
It is important to note here that black people helped establish an infrastructure that ensured the financial freedom and stability of wealthy white people in America, which has been passed down from generation to generation. America is not a meritocracy in the fundamental sense of the term. Many of the people who enjoy the most wealth today are the direct descendants of yesterday’s elite. Statistically, the wealthy in America have reproduced and maintained their wealth with alarming success. In 1900, 39 percent of the wealthiest men in America came from wealthy families; by 1950 this percentage had jumped to 68 percent and had risen further to 82 percent in 1970. Today it is estimated that up to 80 percent of one’s lifetime wealth accumulation results from gifts in one form or another from past generations of relatives. These gifts can range from the down payment one’s home, to payment for college education, to a bequest upon the death of a parent. While the privileged in America passed down its assets from one decade to the next, because blacks had no infrastructure of their own to correct for the ills of slavery and because they were kept outside of the white infrastructure, black folks passed their woes on from generation to generation.
Since slavery began, our country has created a number of programs to restrict black economic and social mobility. Though black slaves were denied the “40 acres and a mule” promised by the Freedmen’s Bureau, the U.S. used white reparations to separate white laborers from black laborers. In 1705, after great displays of lower-class unrest, Virginia, a prime slave state, began privileging white indentured servants over their black counterparts by giving them fifty acres of land, corn, money and a musket. Additionally, Virginia passed laws that sold black assets for the benefit of poor whites and legally allowed and encouraged poor whites to beat blacks with impunity. Since emancipation, obstacles such as the Black Codes, lynching, Jim Crow laws, and redlining kept black people from realizing the American dream while programs such as the Homestead Act, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, and the Servicemen's Readjustment Act helped encourage white socio-economic stability and mobility. Today white households in the United States possess between five and ten times the net worth of black households and hold twice the earnings of black households. Still, the makeup of today’s elite reflects the racial privileges of our forefathers; there are only two African American people (Oprah Winfrey and Bob Johnson) on Forbes list of the wealthiest 400 people in America, and they are at the lower end of the list.
Major philosophical scholars have examined the role that the state and its institutions play in restraining the freedom of the individual. French philosopher and historian, Michel Foucault examined the way in which governmental power was rooted in the totalizing effects of institutions. He observed how governmental powers were rooted not in a centralized state power but in diffuse institutions that acted upon and through individual subjects. He saw that the state was the sum total of varied power relations. To Foucault, the freedom of the individual self was a product of particular arts of government. Another philosopher, Louis Althusser, deduced that the primary function of any institution is its own reproduction. In this regard, many economic, legal and even ideological systems are theoretically immortal. They don’t die, they transmogrify. If such systems live on then the restrictive powers exerted by past governments may as well.
The examples above have illustrated how historically, philosophically, and programmatically wealthy people and institutions have reproduced themselves from one generation to the next often at the expense of black social and economic freedoms. This gives us a basis to understand and appreciate the intent of the Black Manifesto more holistically and examine it as an alternative to dominant political and economic systems and as a lesson for future reparations claims.
The Black Manifesto: Its Genesis and Meaning
The Black Manifesto was first revealed at the National Black Economic Development Conference (NBEDC) held in Detroit, on April 25 to 27, 1969. A group called the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) sponsored the event, which was attended by over 400 people. Speakers such as James Boggs, Lucius Walker, and Robert S. Browne led discussions on the economic empowerment of the black community. During the second evening of the conference, James Forman, a former member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), presented the Black Manifesto for the conference’s approval.
James Forman argued that economically, black people were the most oppressed people in the United States. To him, freedom for black people throughout the diaspora was an issue of control. It meant breaking out of the systems that were based on black exploitation and creating alternative systems based on black self-determination. Against the backdrop of the government's failing War on Poverty and Martin Luther King's stunted Poor People's Campaign, the Manifesto called on the nation’s white churches and synagogues to donate $500 million dollars to help build black-controlled institutions and strengthen black communities.
The Manifesto’s primary intent was to transfer historically white-controlled wealth to black hands and black structures with no white strings attached. This was so central to Forman's plan he entitled the introduction to the Manifesto “Total Control as the Only Solution to the Economic Problems of Black People.” According to Rev. Calvin B. Marshall, chairman of the Black Economic Development Conference, the organization made its appeal to religious organizations because "...the church is the only institution claiming to be in the business of salvation, resurrection and the giving and restoring of life...General Motors has never made that claim." James Forman saw churches and synagogues as one of several major capital holders in the United States; others included government, banks, corporations, foundations and people. He called the church a powerful second government, the “jugular vein of the country” and said, "We have taken on the total government by taking on the church...” He further added, “We must commit ourselves to a society where the total means of production are taken from the rich people and placed into the hands of the state for the welfare of all the people.” Through institutionalizing black agency in numerous ways, Forman hoped that blacks could “…break some of the control mechanisms operating upon us in some small way."
Forman proposed a plan of action to support the reparations initiative and asked white people to support the reparations movement by working under black leadership to implement the demands of the Manifesto. Forman also asked black people to protect their interests by assuming as many leadership roles in the U.S. as possible. Overall, the Manifesto modeled itself after Jewish institutions and focused on independent economic development along Socialist and Black Nationalist lines. The following is a copy of the original ten-point “program demands” outlined in the Black Manifesto for the spending of $500,000,000 in reparations monies:
1. We call for the establishment of a southern land bank to help our brothers and sisters who have to leave their land because of racist pressure and for people who want to establish cooperative farms but who have no funds. We have seen too many farmers evicted from their homes because they have dared to defy the white racism of this country. We need money for land. We must fight for massive sums of money for this southern land bank. We call for $200,000,000 to implement this program.
2. We call for the establishment of four major publishing and printing industries in the United States to be funded with ten million dollars each. These publishing houses are to be located in Detroit, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and New York. They will help to generate capital for further cooperative investments in the black community, provide jobs and an alternative to the white-dominated and controlled printing field.
3. We call for the establishment of four of the most advanced scientific and futuristic audio-visual networks to be located in Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland and Washington, D.C. These TV networks will provide an alternative to the racist propaganda that fills the current television networks. Each of these TV networks will be funded by ten million dollars each.
4. We call for a research skills center which will provide research on the problems of black people. This center must be funded with no less than thirty million dollars.
5. We call for the establishment of a training center for the teaching of skills in community organization, photography, movie making, television making and repair, radio building and repair and all other skills needed in communication. This training center shall be funded with no less than ten million dollars.
6. We recognize the role of the National Welfare Rights Organization, and we intend to work with them. We call for ten million dollars to assist in the organization of welfare recipients. We want to organize welfare workers in this country so that they may demand more money from the government and better administration of the welfare system of this country.
7. We call for $20,000,000 to establish a National Black Labor Strike and Defense Fund. This is necessary for the protection of black workers and their families who are fighting racist working conditions in this country.
8. We call for the establishment of the International Black Appeal (IBA). This International Black Appeal will be funded with no less than $20,000,000. The IBA is charged with producing more capital for the establishment of cooperative businesses in the United States and in Africa, our Motherland. The International Black Appeal is one of the most important demands that we are making, for we know that it can generate and raise funds throughout the United States and help our African brothers. The IBA is charged with three functions and shall be headed by James Forman:
a. Raising money for the program of the National Black Economic Development Conference.
b. The development of cooperatives in African countries and support of African liberation movements.
c. Establishment of a Black Anti-Defamation League which will protect our African image.
9. We call for the establishment of a black university to be founded with $130,000,000 to be located in the South. Negotiations are presently under way with a southern university.
10. We demand that IFCO allocate all unused funds in the planning budget to implement the demands of this conference.
Forman arrived at the financial estimates above by approximating that at least 30,000,000 black people lived in the United States and asked that churches and synagogues pay fifteen dollars per person. Even critics of the Manifesto called this amount conservative. In response, Forman later raised his monetary demands from $500 million to $3 billion to include funding for education.
It is extremely important to note that reparations monies were to be given to and disbursed by the BEDC and IFCO much like historically white charitable foundations. This would ensure that organizations would meet the central mission of the Black Manifesto--shifting the power paradigm.
When the Manifesto was first proposed, some considered it idealistic or even utopian, however its plan mirrored many real and practical programs. To understand the document’s true potential we should be familiar with similar initiatives. Some of the most noteworthy ethnic institutions today, can be found in the Jewish community. Three examples of this include the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). AIPAC was established in 1950. It has 65,000 members throughout the United States and, as of 2002 had an annual operating budget of $19.5 million. “The New York Times has called AIPAC the most important organization affecting America's relationship with Israel, while Fortune magazine has consistently ranked AIPAC among America's most powerful interest groups.” In 2001 Fortune ranked AIPAC as the fifth largest lobbying group in America. It helps pass more than 100 pro-Israel legislative initiatives in the United States every year.
James Forman called for an International Black Appeal (IBA) and a Black Anti-Defamation League, which are, word-for-word, reproductions of the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The UJA, founded in 1933, conducts annual campaigns and a number of philanthropic programs to meet the social needs of the Jewish community throughout the world. This supplies everything from domestic abuse centers and day care centers to hospitals and universities. The UJA has merged with the Council of Jewish Federations and the United Israel Appeal to form the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which has an annual budget of $150 million.
The immediate objective of the ADL, formed in 1913, is to protect the image of Jews throughout the diaspora. Through appeals of reason and law it works to ensure justice and fair treatment of all peoples and to end discrimination. Its annual budget in 1999 was $40 million. All of these programs have been extremely successful and they function on budgets whose total is less than the $500 million requested by the Manifesto in 1969.
Shocking the Spiritual: The Riverside Church Interruption
The NBEDC approved the Black Manifesto, and on May 1, 1969 James Forman and other IFCO members began presenting it to churches across the nation. During that week they shared the document with Episcopal Church leaders, the National Council of Churches and finally--and most infamously--the Riverside Church on May 4. Until that day, the press (and therefore the public) had been relatively disinterested in the Manifesto’s decree. That day Forman interrupted Riverside Church's 11a.m. communion service, walked up in front of the congregation and presented the NBEDC’s demands, shocking churchgoers. After Forman began his declaration, nearly two-thirds of the multiracial congregation left, including the church's reverend, Ernest Campbell who expected Forman only to distribute copies of the Black Manifesto outside of church, after mass.
Forman's action was appraised as one of the most unforgettable occurrences in the religious community of the 1960s. According to Randall Robinson, Forman's forthright manner astounded the nation’s mainstream press who criticized his word-choice and political loyalties much more than his actual reparations plan. According to Robinson, “The American white community had turned a deaf ear almost uniformly.”
In many ways, the Riverside Church disruption had become a double-edged sword for the reparations movement. Forman’s tactics raised a number of questions such as: would press coverage of the Manifesto be as extensive had Forman not resorted to such imposing means; was Forman’s blunt manner truly what startled the white majority; and finally, it asked whether it was possible to present such a program in a politically palatable manner and be as effective.
One news analysis helps us answer these questions. On May 2, 1969, two days before the Riverside incident, Bishop J. Brooke Mosley objected to what he called Forman’s “declaration of war,” calling his demands “unrealistic.” Such criticism suggests that the abrupt nature of the Riverside reading was not the only unsavory aspect of the Manifesto. Ultimately, however, the Black Manifesto became a household name only after the Riverside disturbance. In fact, the May 2nd New York Times coverage of the Manifesto appeared on page 46 of the paper, whereas, immediately after the Riverside incident, the Times detailed Forman’s actions on its front page.
There were a number of state and federal reactions to the Riverside incident. New York City’s Mayor Lindsay, who called the document a form of “intimidation,” publicly asked religious leaders to notify law-enforcement officials if such a disruption happened again. Forman responded to this by asking police not to interfere with peaceful matters. The Federal Government also intervened by extensively questioning many of the black leaders who participated in the National Black Economic Development Conference. As a result, many leaders distanced themselves from Forman. In addition to the NBEDC, IFCO was targeted under the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s COINTELPRO or counter-intelligence program and was audited by the IRS. IFCO eventually withdrew a great deal of support as well.
Economic and Structural Responses of the Church
Relative to the church’s total income the Manifesto had demanded a mere fraction of church revenues. Religious scholar Ronald Goetz contended that the church could raise $500 million in just one month of Sunday collections. According to Goetz, the combined wealth of the Christian and Jewish churches in the United States at the time was approximately $100 billion and was expected to increase at a rate of over $5.5 billion a year. Of that amount, Roman Catholics possessed about $53 billion in assets, Protestants $40 billion and Jewish synagogues $7 billion.
Due to the Manifesto’s well publicized and moral appeal even the most conservative religious organizations felt compelled to respond to it in some way. Robert Lecky and Elliot Wright offer an overview of these reactions, classifying responses into two main categories: The first “Type A,” response of churches rejected the Manifesto citing existing social initiatives as evidence of the church’s normal commitment to end poverty. Type A respondents included the Catholic Archdioceses of New York, the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church and the United Methodist bishops. Other organizations in this category, expressed their concern for poverty, and made no mention any anti-poverty initiatives but generally rejected reparations all the same. These responses included the American Baptist Convention, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the American Lutheran Church’s Council.
Lecky and Wright’s “Type B” responses rejected the Manifesto’s strategy and the BEDC as a funding agent. Respondents then offered to establish their own (usually black-directed) program for black development. BEDC supporters directly called upon many of these organizations in some way during their campaign. Such respondents included the Riverside Church, the United Methodist Board of Missions, the Union Theological Seminary and the United Church of Christ. Finally, despite the Manifesto’s effort to mirror Jewish institutions, Synagogues, remained wholly unresponsive to the document.
Contributions: Six Months and One Year Later
Six months after the Forman’s famous May 4 appeal, Rev. Calvin B. Marshall, chairman of the Black Economic Development Conference said that the "Jewish and Catholic communities have been wholly unresponsive to date." By that time the BEDC received approximately $20,000 from churches, which mostly came from collection plates rather than clergy-dominated bureaucracies. This “source of funding” reflected an interest shown by individual members of congregations rather than a concern by religious patriarchy.
Exactly one year after the Riverside Church occurrence, the BEDC collected nearly $300,000 from churches—a mere fraction of its three billion dollar call. More importantly, while the BEDC received a mere $300,000, churches actually donated millions of dollars in so-called reparations monies. The National Catholic Reporter estimated contributions amounting to $127 million. Riverside Church, for example, gave a three-year grant in the amount of $450,000 for what they called, "work among the poor". Many other groups followed suit, allocating monies to programs with ambiguous aims such as "poverty work," "minority group work," and "self development of people” unlike the specific structural parameters set by the Manifesto. Had the church invested its $127 million in a centralized program, much like the Jewish programs noted above, we could only imagine how successful black America would be today.
Conclusion: What Really Repairs? Beware the Term “Reparations”
The reparations debate, both yesterday and today, has failed to adequately discuss the institutional causes of African American oppression or any effective alternative reparation programs. Ultimately, moral rhetoric, self-serving monetary donations and ineffective, symbolic social programs forestalled any fruitful reparations effects in 1969. Ultimately, churches who instituted reparative programs did nothing to support permanent structural changes for blacks and did nothing to foster black self-determination on a counter-hegemonic scale.
Reparation is more than a handout, and is more than allowing African Americans to participate in democratically flawed American systems. It is about abolishing and reconfiguring those structures that have caused structural racism and economic inequality. Ideology aside, the programs that the Black Manifesto proposed were and still are central to a plan for true black empowerment throughout the African diaspora. Had these programs been instituted, we would soon be celebrating the 25th year anniversary of a black social and economic reconstruction in America.
The churches and synagogues that the Manifesto called upon failed not only the BEDC, but all potential reparations recipients. They turned their backs not just on James Forman and the BEDC but--and more importantly--they failed to establish an alternative black central governing agency that could have collectively invested and allocated reparations monies. Instead, religious leaders indulged themselves in their concern about how Forman's politics would reflect on their institutions, and on the attendance of their congregants. Ultimately, religion failed to sever the white strings on green dollars and missed an ideal opportunity for social redemption.
Why is this so important? Today, a number of reparations claims have been made in courtrooms and legislatures throughout the U.S. We may soon see a time when a number of so-called “reparations” payments and/or programs are made by businesses and governmental agencies. Still we have yet to establish a consensus as to how supposed “reparations” will serve the greater good of black America. Just as churches established their own isolated and ineffective reparative programs in the 1970s, no national body currently exists to ensure and enforce the optimal utility of new social and economic investments and programs. Since the 1970s the social health of blacks has worsened in almost all major categories. Since the 1970s, our government has invested well over 160 billion dollars in the economic development of over 156 countries, regions and territories but has invested relatively little in African American economic empowerment.
We must remember that the state of black America is part of a historical continuum. It will take generations to improve its lot just as it has taken generations to destroy it. Considering this, our solutions to these problems should be structured to ensure similar enduring effects such as endowment funds (such as Ford or Rockefeller), and permanent institutions. Back in 1969/70, no group other than the Black Economic Development Conference attempted to do this. Secondly, we must acknowledge that descendants of the slave trade and other black people are in such a state today because the color of their skin was symbolically attached to the most undesirable economic positions both in America and across the globe. To account for race discrimination we must account for class discrimination. Church reparations awards had little effect on the overall quality of living for African Americans, and if we do not learn from our past, new “reparations” attempts may also have little or no effect.
Today, the Black Manifesto stands as a lesson to those still interested in the enduring issue of reparations. Without sufficient knowledge of this issue, history is bound to repeat itself, if it has no already. Responding to whether it should pay reparations for insuring slaves as property, Aetna Insurance Inc. has stated that “Beyond our apology, no further actions are required.” In their 2002 defense, much like the churches of the late sixties, Aetna argued that it had invested more than “$36 million over the past two decades in the black community for health, education and economic development.” Again, another powerful institution has failed to address the root causes of black oppression.
In conclusion, an effective reparations initiative, will understand and address institutional racism. Whether monetary, programmatic or philosophical, proponents must be a democratic and national body unencumbered by powerful financial and historically white institutions. If monetary reparation is made, whether by businesses, government or religion, institutions must submit their authority with their donation. This will start us on the path of true repair and true freedom. Anything less is ineffective.
