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Posted on 01/21/2003 12:15:57 AM PST by lewislynn
Jan. 20, 2003, 11:36PM
By R.G. RATCLIFFE
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
AUSTIN -- The descendants of Texas slaves plan to file a class-action federal lawsuit today in Galveston against numerous U.S. corporations, accusing them of profiting from slavery.
Against the backdrop of Martin Luther King Jr. festivities Monday in Austin, the Texas NAACP announced plans for the lawsuit against
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., WestPoint Stevens Inc., Union Pacific Railroad and 100 unnamed defendants on allegations that they profited from slavery, which the lawsuit defines as a crime against humanity.
"As far as we know, this is the first such lawsuit to be filed in the state of Texas," said NAACP Texas President Gary Bledsoe.
The lawsuit will be handled in Texas by Bledsoe; Robert Notzon, lawyer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; and state Rep. Ron Wilson, D-Houston.
The lawsuit is the latest of a number that have been filed in states across the South seeking payments from companies that were either directly or indirectly involved in financing slavery. Lawyers handling the case believe it will be consolidated with the other lawsuits in Chicago.
Bledsoe said the case is a reconciliation lawsuit, not a reparations lawsuit. He said a reparations lawsuit seeks payment for individuals while this lawsuit seeks to have a trust fund set up to benefit African-Americans.
That trust fund governed by a commission might make payments to individuals, he said, but its main goal will be to promote health care for African-Americans, programs to remove the vestiges of slavery and to promote racial healing.
"There wouldn't be individual awards going to individuals the way this is structured," Bledsoe said.
The issue of payments of reparations to individuals has made such lawsuits "divisive" with some in America, Bledsoe said.
Notzon said the lawsuits have a valid basis because the effects of slavery "linger on. There has been no meaningful reparation for slavery."
He said the lawsuit is being filed in Galveston because it was a center of the state's slave trade. It also was where Texas slaves first learned they were free on June 19, 1865.
The first in the series of lawsuits was filed last year against Aetna insurance and CSX railroad.
Legal experts at the time said the lawsuit was a long shot because of the amount of time that has passed since the offenses. Also, the slaves most directly impacted by slavery have all died.
Reparations cases involving Holocaust survivors and Japanese-Americans interned during World War II were successful in part because the people harmed were still living.
But German corporations hit by lawsuits for their role in the Holocaust settled for billions of dollars in part to avoid unfavorable and continuing publicity.
Notzon said the Texas lawsuit targets corporations that made money from slavery.
"We're looking for economic benefits for the labor that was stolen from them (slaves), the livelihood that was stolen from them," Notzon said.
The lawsuit claims J.P. Morgan Chase was behind a consortium that raised money to insure slaves. It says WestPoint Stevens used cotton from Southern planters. And it claims Union Pacific built railroads with slave labor.
Spokesmen for Chase and WestPoint could not be reached for comment.
Mark Davis of Union Pacific said the lawsuits target rail companies that no longer exist.
"We never did benefit from any of the alleged actions," Davis said. "The modern Union Pacific was formed in 1897. That's almost three decades after the Civil War."
Davis said the target companies were rail lines that Union Pacific bought after the Civil War and no longer exist.
"Today, we are committed to equal opportunity and some of the highest moral and ethical business standards," Davis said.
The plaintiffs in the Texas lawsuit are Julie Mae Wyatt-Kervin, 99, her son, Billy Gene McGee, and his wife, Ina Hurdle McGee.
Wyatt-Kervin's parents were slaves on the Foote plantation in Wharton County. They worked raising cotton, cane and corn.
Ina McGee, 69, is the great-granddaughter of a slave. Her great-grandfather was 10 years old when he was purchased in North Carolina to be the playmate of a boy in Daingerfield. McGee said the boy had a stutter and was shunned by other whites.
She said Holocaust survivors have been paid reparations, as have American Indians.
"The Germans got theirs. The Indians got theirs and may get more," she said. Everyone has received reparations, except African-Americans. It's our turn now."
Well, if we want to right all wrongs from the past, we will need to give reparations to just about every American alive today. Just think how many Americans are descendents of immigrants (who were mistreated in many different ways) from Ireland, Germany, Poland, Japan, China, Italy, Russia, etc. Just think how many Americans have female ancestors who were treated like second class citizens and denied many basic rights for so many years. Just think how many Americans have ancestors who, as children, were mistreated and exploited by American companies before child labor laws were passed. Just think how many Americans have ancestors who were discriminated against and persecuted because of their religious beliefs or political beliefs. If the U.S. is really serious about "righting" wrongs from the past, then I guess I should be expecting at least a few of them there reparations checks to be mailed to me.
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Calm down people. They will introduce this in the Texas Legislature, but thank goodness it will go NOWHERE.
If I pay reparations, I want slaves, darn it.
Excuse me? Exactly what reparations did Native Americans recieve. I'm sure this woman's idea of reparations does not include rounding up slave decendants on reservations.
my ancestors were,like 99% of Indians, so poor that they didn't know there was a "great depression" in the 1930s!
FRee dixie,sw
Casinos?
That sounds so weird. "[T]he blacks?" How about "black people?"
no black could have been a slave -keep in mind it was not illegal- before 1865 had it not been for the African warlords and other such garbage that gathered up the blacks to sell to the Americans and other countries.
True. It would help if while pointing out that slavery was not illegal, it was wrong. I think that would help a lot.
when is America and its rightful citizens going to have the cahones to stand up and unequivably state: Bull shit, and if you don't like your life in America which was 'forced' upon you then hit the friggin bricks
Your grandfolks arrived in 1898? My forebears arrived in 1798. I am not asking for a thing, and I'm not going anywhere. Therefore, I am a "rightful" citizen. I could tell you to hit the bricks.
I was here first (lineage).
Birth of Tha SYNDICATE, the philosophical heir to William Lloyd Garrison.
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.
While I enjoy seeing people coming together to fight this, it also makes me sad. These race hustlers are driving us directly towards another civil war. I hate that prospect, and I hate seeing it come to this. But I hate even more the prospect of eternal surrender.
Loser pays legislation would help wonders for cases like this...
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