Posted on 09/03/2002 3:31:02 PM PDT by e_castillo
NEW YORK, Sept 3 (Reuters) - In the latest move in the campaign for reparations, descendants of black slaves filed lawsuits in New York and California on Tuesday, demanding corporations pay back profits reaped from the work of their enslaved ancestors.
The suits, filed in federal courts in New York and San Francisco, according to court documents, are to be followed by similar suits in Illinois, Texas and Louisiana, activist Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, who has led the campaign for corporate reparations, told Reuters.
The legal action is the latest attempt to have corporations recognize and repay profits they reaped from slavery.
Slavery was abolished in the United States in 1865.
The suits, targeting 12 corporations altogether, follow similar actions filed in New York in March, which are pending. They are a counterpart to a long-running campaign for the U.S. government to pay reparations for slavery, which drew more than 2,000 people to a demonstration in Washington last month.
In each of the suits, the plaintiffs charge that corporations are guilty of conspiracy, human rights violations and unjust enrichment from the "immoral and inhumane institution of slavery," according to the court documents.
The suits demand access to firms' records to ascertain what money was made from slavery, and the payback of illicit profits, court documents show. The suits also claim damages, but do not name a figure.
The plaintiffs in the suits are not looking for personal settlements, Farmer-Paellmann told Reuters. "We are asking for a humanitarian trust fund, to be used to deal with the vestiges of slavery that 35 million African Americans still suffer from, like housing, education, and economic development in our communities."
Court documents show 12 corporations, mostly in finance, railroads and tobacco -- which campaigners say benefited most from slavery -- are named in the suits.
They are: Investment banks J.P Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM - News), Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (NYSE:LEH - News) and Brown Brothers Harriman; insurers American International Group Inc. (NYSE:AIG - News) and Lloyd's of London; tobacco and insurance conglomerate Loews Corp. (NYSE:LTR - News); railroad firms Union Pacific Corp. (NYSE:UNP - News) and Norfolk Southern Corp. (NYSE:NSC - News); textile firm WestPoint Stevens Inc. (NYSE:WXS - News); and tobacco-makers R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. (NYSE:RJR - News), Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., and Liggett Group Inc., now indirectly owned by Vector Group Ltd. (NYSE:VGR - News).
The slavery suits come after successes in the past year against the insurance industry, when California's insurance regulator demanded firms reveal details of polices they underwrote covering slaves, where the proceeds of the policy went to the owner of the slave, not the slave's family.
The reparations campaign against corporations, which began by targeting insurer Aetna Corp. (NYSE:AET - News) two years ago, was inspired by the success of Jewish groups in reclaiming assets and insurance policies from German and Swiss firms which stole from Jews during the Holocaust.
The California suit was filed by Chester and Timothy Hurdle, whose father was a slave. Edlee Bankhead, also the son of a slave -- who at 119 is the oldest man in the country -- filed a similar suit in New York.
"Back then, black folks were treated as if they were no more than animals, they were just bought and sold," Bankhead said in a statement preceding the suit filing.
Similar suits will be filed by other slave descendants in Illinois, by Reverend Hannah Jane Hurdle-Toomey, in Texas, by Ina Daniels Hurdle McGee and Julie Mae Wyatt-Kerwin, and in Louisiana, by Antoinette Harrell-Miller and researcher Raymond Johnson, according to Farmer-Paellmann.
Somewhere along this line, someonew has to draw a line...it's nonsense and chewing up the tax dollars that could be saved by ridding the nation of an ungrateful bunch of biggots (the blacks themselves!)
There are some out there who are more or less embarrassed by their brothers and sisters...I hope
SR
You and me both. |
If these shysters are dumb enough to believe for one minute that I'm giving up my 401k and stocks for this insanity, then they've been hanging out with Sharpton wayyyyy too long.
They are, however, more than welcome to my (ahem) Social Scurity "benefits".
Just in case they want something to really bitch about...
Where is the detail, where is the proof? Actually, slavery was legal and supported by the Constitution. We fought the Civil War to free these folks. Let's also calculate how much better/worse they would have been had their ancestors remained in Africa and they, today, lived there. What a crock!!!
The first time the word "slavery" entered the Constitution was when the 13th Amendment was ratified in 1865. The word "slave" first appears in the 14th Amendment, added in 1868.
"We be askin' fo a humanitarian trust fund, to be used fo the bigges'-ass kegger and mazola pahty them white boys ever did see," said Pizzaria Seldom-Smart, who was just released from Lompoc after being convicted on five counts of welfare fraud, but who is now legitimized because she's a "activist."
If not for slavery, these "reparations lawyers" would have nothing to fill their pockets with fees.................
Show me your money or I'll show you my Glock.
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