{news} (PRESS RELEASE) Green Party Calls for Slavery Reparations

[Green Party-CT]

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org

For Immediate Release:
Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Contacts:
  Cliff Thornton, NATIONAL CO- CHAIR and former CT.Green Party Candidate for Governor (860) 657-8438 
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, mclarty at greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene at gp.org


On the eve of a major US House hearing on HR 40, Greens make the case
for reparations for the descendents of slaves


WASHINGTON, DC -- On the eve of a major House hearing on the subject,
Green Party leaders called for reparations for the descendents of slaves
and a national discussion on how reparations should be implemented.

The hearing will take place on Thursday, December 6, before the United
States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn
Building in Washington, DC.  Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), chair of the
committee, is the sponsor of HR 40, the Reparations Study Bill .

"The most effective way to show the nation's regret for centuries of
stolen labor is to make restitution," said Alfred Molison, co-chair of
the Green Party's Black Caucus  and a Texas Green.  Mr. Molison noted
that the Green Party of Texas  and the Harris County Green Party  have
adopted a statement calling for the study of reparations as part of their
platforms.

"The history of Jim Crow laws, enforced poverty and segregation, and
the denial of human rights show that the ideology on which slavery was
founded didn't disappear after emancipation, with lasting effects on the
lives of African Americans.  Red-lining in housing and job
discrimination occurred within recent memory, persisting even after the 1964 Civil
Rights Act.  The targeting of black people for incarceration in the War
on Drugs fills up cells and provides dirt-cheap labor for the prison
industry and associated corporate contractors -- a new form of slavery.
  The obstruction of African American votes in the 2000 and 2004
elections and the treatment of black people in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane
Katrina reveal the same ideology at work," added Mr. Molison.

The Green Party -- unlike the Democratic and Republican parties --
endorses reparations in its national platform .

In 2006, Greens expressed their support for a lawsuit that would hold
Brown Brothers Harriman, a major US financial corporation, liable for
its involvement in the slave trade .

"The call for reparations is a call to revive the unfinished work of
the Reconstruction after the Civil War," and to correct the abuse of
America's criminal justice system in the form of the War on Drugs," said
Clifford Wallace Thornton, Jr, national co-chair of the Green Party,
Connecticut Green Party co-chair, and co-founder of Efficacy, Inc. .  "The
Reconstruction was interrupted when Southern states began to pass
anti-black Jim Crow laws, while at the same time the Supreme Court granted
corporations rights as persons under the 14th Amendment, which was
originally passed to protect freed slaves."

"The Green Party seeks to restore human rights where they belong -- to
humans.  Reparations were part of the Reconstruction, and Greens insist
that reparations are essential today in the movement for equality,
human rights, and democracy," said Mr. Thornton.


MORE INFORMATION

Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
Fax 202-319-7193
• Green Party News Center http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml
• Green Party Speakers Bureau http://www.gp.org/speakers
• Green candidate database for 2007 and other campaign  information:
http://www.gp.org/elections.shtml

"Groundbreaking Study Examines Drug Imprisonment in 198 Counties; 97
Percent Experienced Racial Disparities"
Justice Policy Institute, December 4, 2007
http://www.justicepolicy.org/content.php?hmID=1811&smID=1581&ssmID=69

Restitution Study Group http://www.rsgincorp.com

National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA)
http://www.ncobra.com


~ END ~






       
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Tim McKee cell (860) 778-1304 or (860) 643-2282
   National Committee Member of the Green Party(Connecticut)





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/private/ctgp-news/attachments/20071205/80e511f6/attachment.html>