[Texgreen] FW: Direct descendents of a slave sue for reparations (Maura Jane Farrelly)

[David Pollard]

-----Original Message-----
From: Scott McLarty
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 10:00 AM
To: USGP-discussion@gp-us.org
Subject: Direct descendents of a slave sue for reparations (Maura Jane
Farrelly)

[Forwarded by T.E. Smith]

From: aN News 
To: Afro-Netizen 
Subject: [Afro-Netizen] Direct Descendants of a
Slave Sue for Reparations (Fwd) 
Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 09:51:31 -0500 
 
Direct Descendants of a Slave Sue for Reparations

Maura Jane Farrelly 
Washington 
Voice of America 
 
At the height of the Civil Rights Movement in the
1960s, a number of  prominent African-Americans
began demanding that the U.S. government
compensate them for their ancestors' unpaid slave
labor. But until very recently, the idea that
blacks born today are somehow owed money because
of what happened to their ancestors more than a
century ago was never taken seriously by the
American legal establishment. That may be
changing. VOA's Maura Farrelly reports that a
lawsuit filed in California counters some of the
most powerful arguments made against so-called
"slave reparations". 
 
Until recently, the argument for slave
reparations was stymied by two demographic
realities that were very difficult to deny. The
first was that thousand, maybe even millions of
present-day white Americans are descended from
immigrants who didn't come to this country until
after slavery had been outlawed in 1865. Yet,
according to the argument put forth in the 1960s,
their tax dollars should be used to compensate
blacks today for the labor other white people's
ancestors stole from slaves. 
 
The second reality confounding reparations
advocates was that slavery is a part of America's
distant past. It's not like the internment of
Japanese-Americans just 60 years ago, during
World War II. Many who were directly affected by
that policy are still alive, and the U.S.
government has apologized to them and paid them
$20,000 each. Slavery was outlawed 138 years ago.
There are no former slaves alive today. 
 
But there are two men in California with a direct
connection to slavery. Eighty-three-year-old
Timothy Hurdle and his 75-year-old brother,
Chester, are the sons of Andrew Jackson Hurdle,
who was born a slave in North Carolina in 1845. 
 
"The family, you know, was all together until
about the middle of the nineteenth century, I
guess about '54 or '55, somewhere along there,"
Mr. Hurdle said. "And then they were picked up
and auctioned off. And five of the children were
bought by Bennet Hazel, of Alamance County. And
Papa was sold into Texas, because he was sold to
a, I think, a C.H. Turner, of Dangerfield." 
 
The Hurdle brothers are the product of their
father's second marriage. At the age of 65,
Andrew Jackson Hurdle married a 25-year-old and
had eight children. After reading an editorial
that suggested all arguments in favor of slave
reparations are invalid, because no one alive was
directly affected by slavery, Chester Hurdle
decided to file a lawsuit. He and his brother are
seeking undetermined damages and compensation for
the 20 years their father spent as a slave. 
 
"I feel that if anything is ever going to be done
about it, while there are still some of us here
that are supposedly in our right mind, I think
someone should take some action to try to do
something about it," Chester Hurdle said. 
 
Chester and Timothy Hurdle say they don't want
the money they're seeking to be paid to them
directly. Rather, they'd like to see it used to
set up a massive scholarship fund, so that
African-Americans who are disproportionately poor
will have the same educational opportunities many
white Americans enjoy. 
 
The Hurdle brothers also don't want taxpayers,
regardless of their skin color to pay for the
reparations. That's why their lawsuit doesn't
target the U.S. government. They're suing a bank
that was founded by a slave trader, an insurance
company that at one time insured the lives of
slaves and a railroad that used slave labor to
build its original tracks. 
 
Attorney Barbara Ratliff says the Hurdles' case
is based on a statute recently passed by
lawmakers in California. "It allows a person to
bring a lawsuit against a business when the
business has gotten illegal profit, or has gotten
profits from illegal conduct," she said. 
 
At the time these companies were profiting from
slavery, the institution had not been declared
illegal by the federal government. But it had
been made illegal by many state governments; and
in fact, after 1820, slavery was outlawed in
every northern state except Missouri. The
companies Chester and Timothy Hurdle are suing
were based in these northern states. But that's
irrelevant, according to David Horowitz, a legal
scholar and prominent opponent of slave
reparations. He says if these companies are
forced to pay slave reparations, it will penalize
people who had nothing to do with slavery,
including many African-Americans. 
 
"A company that existed 150 years ago is not the
same as a company that exists today," Mr.
Horowitz said. "I mean, look at Enron. It was the
seventh biggest corporation two years ago, now
it's zero. Which means that a company has to earn
its way in every generation. So when you're suing
these companies you're suing living shareholders
and living employees. You know, we're talking
about tens of thousands of black people who are
going to have to pay reparations because of these
suits." 
 
Nevertheless, David Horowitz admits the Hurdle
brothers' lawsuit is a different approach to the
decades-old reparations debate and says because
the two men have such a direct connection to
slavery, it's possible they may deserve to be
paid "something". But Mr. Horowitz won't
speculate on an amount, nor will he say where the
money should come from. 
 
Similar lawsuits have been filed by
African-Americans in New Jersey, New York, and
Louisiana, but these cases are considered to be
less solid, since those states don't have
statutes like the California law allowing
individuals to sue companies that profited from
illegal activity. The plaintiffs also aren't the
immediate descendents of slaves. But Chester
Hurdle says it's okay if these other lawsuits are
unsuccessful, because if he wins, he intends to
have millions of African-Americans benefit from
his victory. 
 
Published: January 3, 2003