“Very clearly, once we pull these issues out, air these issues and put them in the proper context of truth and fact “then we can move toward reconciliation,” says Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP Washington Bureau Government Affairs Office. Shelton says the NAACP’s official stance is to support HR40 and its goal to create a federal study commissioned to assess the damage done and then craft recommendations to address possible means of restitution. “Some people say let sleeping dogs lie, but at some point that sleeping dog is going to wake up. We are going to have to move toward healing — social justice and what that means — through an organized and clear judicious process,” he says. “It needs to happen.”
Says Marable: “We have to push forward to fight this with international law. In Africa, debt forgiveness, waiving the debt, a transfer of wealth from the West — it’s the same issue. Africa is an economic basket case because of slavery and colonialism,” he says. “[British Prime Minister] Tony Blair is forcing the issue in the European Union. We ought to be pushing that agenda here.”
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