The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks

Randall Robinson, the founder and president of TransAfrica (a lobbying organization dedicated to influencing U.S. policy toward Africa and the Caribbean), recounted his heroic struggle to fight and overcome racism in the magnificent Defending the Spirit. In his triumphant follow-up, The Debt, he goes further than any previous black public figure in calling for reparations to African-Americans for the present-day racism that stems from 246 years of slavery. Citing compensation that Jews and Japanese Americans have received, he writes, "No race, ethnic or religious group has suffered as much over so long a span as blacks have and do still, at the hands of those who benefited ... from slavery and the century of legalized American racial hostility that followed it." In making his case, Robinson utilizes facts and figures that highlight the disparity between African-Americans and whites. While fully recognizing the monumental odds of this movement's success, Robinson feels that the push for reparations will also greatly benefit African-Americans in nonmaterial ways: "Even the making of a well-reasoned case for restitution will do wonders for the spirit of African-Americans," he argues. "It will cause them to at long last understand the genesis of their history--before, during, and after slavery--into one story of themselves." --Eugene Holley Jr.