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"The Jewish community -- your community -- received reparations. What happened to them was wrong. And you were relentless in making sure that anybody and everybody who had anything to do with the Holocaust would be brought to justice . . . What we're saying is, we have a right to be repaid," Tillman said.

The holocaust entailed the systematic extermination of over six million Jews in industrialized Nazi deathcamps. My hisory may be fuzzy, but I don't remember any such death camps in the antebellum South, with millions of resulting slave deaths. Consequently, the comparison is simply false. The fact of the matter is that slavery, bad as it was, was a completely legal institution until the Civil War and the ultimate ratification of the 13th amendment in December 1865. As a legal institution, the whole antebellum American economy was entangled with slavery, and in fact, New York City, of all places, was the South's banking center. With that said, these banks and insurance companies did nothing illegal based upon the context of those times, and should not be forced to undergo this enforced self-flagellation for something that happened over 140 years ago. Moreover, the institution of slavery is not even remotely close to the horrors of the holocaust, and so the whole issue of reparations is nothing but a brazen shakedown, based upon the threat of bad publicity. Further, the idea of reparations based upon the idea of compensating SURVIVORS, and to my best knowledge, the last known former black American slave died in either the 1950s or early 1960s. Second, third, or even fourth generation descendents need not apply.

Excellent summary of the situation. How disgusting it is that people would even attempt make the compairson between the wholesale killing of Jews and the condition of slavery. It is sad that the world did not react at once to both atrocities. The fact that slavery was allowed to exist for as long as it did is an American tragedy, but on a different plane than the Holocaust.

With that said, these banks and insurance companies did nothing illegal

Good point, but even if it were illegal, the time span for legal redress is long past. (Statute of limitations)

Further, the idea of reparations based upon the idea of compensating SURVIVORS

Of course, and the surviving slave owners are gone as well. the idea of paying reparations to decendents is a legal precident that should never be set, even by today's worst activist judges. Because there is not enough money in today's economy to begin to pay for the misdeeds of the past. Who would certify the decendency? What mis-deeds are worthy, in addition to the slaves, we have the American Indians who have a claim- as do the blacks discriminated against after the Civil War. What about women held non eligible for the vote or men's clubs? What about the countless immigrant groups who had to work for years in low wage employment before being granted their rights?

While some Jews received reparations for damage done to their ancestors and property lost, these issues are current and even now the records require careful research to be certain that a claim is valid. The news is full of people today who are sueing for damage done to them in the recent past, their conpensation is a matter for the courts and is proceeding. But we can't look back on the misdeeds of the past and attempt to buy it off today. Money cannot be paid to the decendents of slaves.