Reparations Task Force


H.R. 40 Time to Join the Team bannerREPARATIONS TASK FORCE MISSION & VISION

Democrats Abroad is now committed to meeting the rising challenges facing Black Americans through a collective push for acknowledgement and redress for systemic Black trauma in the United States and, ultimately, closure for our nation.

Since July 10th 2021, the Democrats Abroad Reparations Task Force has been working with local, state, and federal U.S. reparative justice advocates on the ground stateside and around the world. Our mission is to build a multi-ethnic, multi-generational, interfaith coalition that knows reparative justice means moral, racial, and social justice for all. As Americans abroad, we exist as the only Reparations Task Force with a global purview on U.S. Reparations legislation. It’s time to leverage this strength to finally end structural racism and the trauma it has wrought.

Do this we must, for our time is short.

Modern anti-Black trauma currently exists in the form of racial disparities. These disparities are the result of historic slavery, Jim Crow policies, and their continued impacts on the lived realities of Black Americans in the realms of education, employment, finance, law, healthcare, cultural memory, property ownership, civic engagement, and voting rights. Far from existing in a vacuum, these disparities draw a direct continuum to past federal, state, and local governmental policies. Americans of all backgrounds working together, however, can begin reversing these disparities through reparative justice and legislation. We can and must join this fight, as freedom can no longer wait. Black lives can no longer wait. Our democracy can no longer wait.

BLACK VOTER DISENFRANCHISEMENT THREATENS DEMOCRACY 

We live in an era of hyper-focused politics, where scores of local, state, midterm, and national elections are now decided by razor-thin margins. These narrow margins are reduced further by a powerful, tech-savvy structural racism—reinforced by a reluctance to address legacies of slavery, Jim Crow, and modern white supremacy.

Structural racism has persisted in such an environment and adapted to the times, creating a modern racial wealth gap. This gap, in turn, has both led to and enabled today’s triple inequality of predatory policing, mass incarceration, and Black voter suppression.

Heeding the call for real action, the Democrats Abroad Reparations Task Force supports the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act—known as H.R. 40. This bill would enact a commission to begin researching how Black Americans have suffered under racial terror and political suppression and would then make recommendations for redress.

OUR GOALS

As a State Party Reparations Task Force, our first goal is to create ties with, and provide support for, existing task forces and advocacy groups, share data, and work together to create greater awareness and demand for reparatory justice legislation for Black Americans. In support of such legislation, the RTF seeks to advocate and educate for the measures called for in the 10-Point Reparations Plan of the National African-American Reparations Commission. Please see the 10-Point Plan here.

As a global-level task force, our ultimate goals are to:

  1. Coordinate interdependent relationships with all global and country-level DA caucuses;
  2. Engage with stateside local, state, and federal Reparations Task Forces and Initiatives through exchange of data and statistics;
  3. Utilize the unique and global reach of DA to produce data-driven papers examining political support and activism of Americans abroad for reparations;
  4. Submit research papers to stateside pro-Reparations congresspeople concerning the political leanings and attitudes of Americans abroad on reparations;
  5. Coordinate educational initiatives on topics of significance for Black cultural heritage and collective memory, voter mobilization, and activist campaigns behind municipal, state, and federal reparation policies, programs, and political candidates.

The RTF is looking for Democrats Abroad members who are motivated to jump into the fight for full reparative justice for Black Americans. We are looking for volunteers who wish to support H.R. 40 and all other American reparative legislation at the local, state, and national levels.

WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW

Join the Reparations Task Force Team!

If you are interested in getting involved in this fight for justice, please send an email to [email protected].

Also contact your representatives and make sure they support the federal bill H.R. 40 and any state or local reparations initiatives in your voting state.

 

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News

Democrats Abroad Reparations Task Force Celebrates Introduction of Congresswoman Cori Bush’s Historic Reparations Resolution

Reparations Now. Repair Harm. Enact Reparations.

May 17, 2023 – The Democrats Abroad Reparations Task Force is proud to have endorsed and worked with Congresswoman Cori Bush’s office on the introduction of her historic new Reparations NOW resolution.

Over 22 pages, the Reparations NOW resolution lays out the historic and ongoing harms perpetrated against Black people in America over the last 400 years and makes clear the need for a holistic reparations program, including at least $14 trillion to eliminate the Black-white racial wealth gap. 

The resolution calls for the enactment of a federal reparations commission, either through legislative or executive means, and encourages the creation of federal, state, and local initiatives to advance the cause of justice. It also honors the lives and legacies of those who died as a result of state-sanctioned violence, from chattel slavery through the present day. 

Amid the relentless rightwing attacks on Black life and Black history, the need for this resolution could not be more acute. The Democrats Abroad Reparations Task Force is honored to stand alongside Congresswoman Bush and many long-time freedom fighters as we mark this momentous occasion.

The Congresswoman put it best in her Wednesday news conference when she stated, "We're lifting up this mirror of a resolution so America can face it and see, look in it and see, our future – a future of healing, a future of repair, a future of accountability. We're not here to request that future. We're here to demand it. We need that future now. Reparations NOW!"

Click here to watch the full press conference, and visit enactreparations.com to learn more. 

#ReparationsNOW #EnactReparations



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Statement of the Democrats Abroad Reparations Task Force on the 109th Birthday of Viola “Mother” Fletcher, survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

May 10, 2023

The Democrats Abroad Reparations Task Force extends heartfelt congratulations to Viola Fletcher, a survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre, on her 109th birthday. This year, our wish for Mother Fletcher is that she finally receive reparations for the horrors she experienced in 1921 and in every year since that justice has gone unserved.

The Tulsa Race Massacre, which took place over May 31-June 1, 1921, left the Greenwood District (“Black Wall Street”) devastated beyond recognition. White law enforcement officers and civilians tortured and murdered hundreds of Black residents, destroyed more than 1,000 buildings and homes, and dropped fire bombs on the community from U.S. military aircraft. Mother Fletcher was just seven years old at the time of the attack. She managed to survive by hiding under a pile of clothes in her home along with her mother and three siblings. After the massacre, her family was forced to flee Tulsa, having lost everything. 

There has been little action at the federal and local levels to compensate the Tulsa Race Massacre survivors and their descendants for the pain and deprivation they have endured over the years. Mother Fletcher – along with the two other living survivors, Lessie Benningfield Randle, 108, and Hughes Van Ellis, 102 – is fighting for justice in the courts with a public-nuisance lawsuit seeking reparations. Rather than acknowledge their role in the attack, the City of Tulsa and other defendants have repeatedly tried to get the case thrown out. Every day Mother Fletcher goes without justice is a further infringement upon her human rights and an affront to the dignity of all Black Americans.

Mother Fletcher’s story reminds us that racist incidents like the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre are not as far in the past as many would like us to believe, and that we can afford no further delays in the fight for reparative justice. We are encouraging Americans around the world to honor Mother Fletcher’s birthday by signing this petition, organized by our friends at Justice For Greenwood, to finally let the survivors and their families have their day in court.



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