The request for reparation of slavery has developed in the United States of America since its abolition in 1865.
In the same year, shortly after the Civil War and the defeat of the Confederate States, General William Tecumseh Sherman issued pitched Special Order Number 15 to work around the problem of the masses of freed slaves. Each family was given 40 acres of arable land and a mule which the army didn't need anymore. About 40,000 freed slaves were settled on 1600 square kilometers in Georgia and South Carolina. President Andrew Johnson, however, cancelled the order immediately after the assassination of Lincoln and the land was returned to large landowners.
In 1867 deputy Thaddeus Stevens introduced a bill to redistribute land to African Americans, though it was not approved.
Reconstruction ended in 1877 without that the problem of reparation was resolved and especially in southern states a movement to maintain and reinforce the apartheid that slavery had produced developed (with the approval in some states of the so-called "Jim Crow laws") and whose weight was reduced only since the sixties of the last century due to the African American Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King.
Since the eighties of last century, some American organizations have begun to seek reparations for the black population since for the most part it was composed by descendants of slaves and for the regime of apartheid suffered for over a century after the abolition of slavery.
At the end of 1982 African People's Socialist Party (APSP) organized in New York a meeting of the International Tribunal on Reparations for Black People in the US which recognized that the government was guilty of crimes against the Africans in the United States and sentenced it to pay reparations of 4.1 billion dollars only for the work not paid, with an estimate of the damage to be done later.
Founded in 1987, the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA) has organized some events and boycott days in the past to draw U.S. public attention, backed draft laws at the federal, national and local level for the reparations of the descendants of Africans and participated in the international movement for reparation.
The Caucasians United for Reparations and Emancipation Association (CURE) has tried so far to increase the consent of the white population for the reparation of black population in the belief that "a just world is the best world for all."
On July 29th 2008 the House of Representatives has approved the resolution 194/2008 in which it "apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow; and expresses its commitment to rectify the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against African-Americans under slavery and Jim Crow and to stop the occurrence of human rights violations in the future".
On July 18th 2009 the Senate unanimously approved the concurrent resolution 26/2009 which "acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow laws; apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow laws; and expresses its recommitment to the principle that all people are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and calls on all people of the United States to work toward eliminating racial prejudices, injustices, and discrimination from our society". Unfortunately, it also specifies that "nothing in this resolution authorizes or supports any claim against the United States; or serves as a settlement of any claim against the United States." The concurrent resolution has been blocked by the Justice commission of the House of Representatives.
See also article Prospects: United States of America - Slavery
For further information:
Senate Backs Apology for Slavery
