Excerpts:
3:54 - Greetings from the Provisional Government of the Republic of New AfriKa and from the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America . . . . distinguished people who have come here tonight not only to honor Malcolm X but also to talk about and plan for and finally act upon our future. I'm going to talk very briefly and center my remarks today on the issue of reparations. You will recall that reparations is the idea that black people in our context should be paid for slavery that even those of us who exist - they should receive payment for the unjust war and the enslavement of our people in this country, unjust war waged against us by the United States and sanctioned in the United States Constitution . . . .
15:27 - We were entitled to believe that the federal government made a promise for 40 acres and a mule . . . . the promise of the 40 acres goes back beyond General Sherman. White folks when they indentured other white folks, when they held white servants during colonial time in South Carolina and Maryland used to give an indentured freed person freedom dues. They did that in all the colonies. They had been indentured - you work for seven years if you were a criminal you might have worked for 14 years occasionally even 24 and when you whites were free there was freedom dues. This is sometimes $50 and acts and a suit and a new suit of clothes, a barrel of corn. In South Carolina where we were long in the majority and in Maryland they gave the freed indentured servant 50 acres. So the idea that somehow we could help ourselves if we were just given a little to work with. We have never forgotten reparations. In the 1818 -19s black people across this country organized into something called the Ex-slaves Bounty and Reparations Society, collected 50 cent apiece, waged their campaign at Congress and indeed found some black, some white congressmen willing to support the idea that blacks should be compensated for slavery or at least given something with which to begin to build economically new lives. Well what happened to the Ex-slaves Bounty and Reparations Society? . . . . the American government jailed these men and women who were in the leadership of this movement . . . .
20:42 - They sent a missive to the United Nations . . . in 1963 because they had an idea that unless within 100 years of the Emancipation Proclamation we made a formal demand to international sources we might as well forget reparations since they did it to try to preserve for us the idea and the right to avoid this legal concept . . . .
21:25 - And all of you here most of you here except the very young know the modern story Republic of New Afrika in 1968 formed the cause in large part of the work of Queen Mother but these were the Malcolm X, the members of the Malcolm X Society, formed after his assassination who then called the black government conference . . . . and here where a declaration of independence was concluded part of it says we claim no rights from America except those rights that belong to people all over the world and these include the right to reparations for the grievous harm inflicted upon us, our people, by the United States. Republican of New Africa people went into the streets, some of you in Chicago may have first encountered provisional government people asking you to sign a petition and incidentally we have petitions. . . . What is the minimum that they owe and as you can plan in your mind, when you take into consideration the the Middle Passage, when you take into consideration just the war waged against us in North America under the United States constitution's provision of what we call a fugitive slave provision which said that you could not even leave just peacefully and quietly and go away because the whole force of the United States government, Army, Navy, Marines, stood against you, their court system stood against you . . . . never mind that . . . they will cut off Gabriel's head and hang it on the post. Gabriel [Prosser] understood that if he lost the revolution that they were going to do that to him. He knew what kind of people they were dealing. I said he stuck his head and those of his companions on the posts and an arrayed the walks into the town of Richmond with these heads so that everybody and particularly the black people would understand that you don't raise your hand against white people. . . . What about the little old lady reading her Bible and decides, unlike the Hebrew, she won't take any gold and silver, won't say to the people who have been harming her, “let me just borrow so I can go out into the desert and pray.” I pray the little old lady who just leaves quietly at night watching the North Star barefoot the full force of the United States government was against her, not just Gabriel or that [Nat] Turner . . . .
26:26 - and so the African people's Socialist Party worked in the streets and then in Baltimore and in Tallahassee in certain other places across the United States trying to raise this consciousness and in 1987 the provisional government's legislature - this is the national body. [I] Hope some of you who really believe in land who really believes that we should have independence, I hope in the RNA elections this year those of you who are really serious and will bring your talent and your money will run and be elected out of Chicago or wherever you may happen to live, to this national body. They decided that we were trying to call together black people from across this country to see if we could form a coalition that was not just land-based nationalists like myself but to spread out to the sororities and fraternities to churches to spread out to all groups and we said we wanted to at that time work make a more positive New AfriKan contribution to the freedom of our people in southern Africa and mind you that's another story . . . . so the National Conference of Black Lawyers came together with the Provisional Government and formed the National Coalition of Blacks for reparations in America (NCOBRA).
32:50 - We have never forgotten reparations. It really doesn't matter to our enemies and the United States is our enemy until they are willing to sign a peace treaty. As you know they never signed it with Elijah Muhammad not to mention Denmark Vesey, Gabriel, they haven't signed it with the Republic of New Afrika . . . . the United States is our enemy until they cease its war against us. Now the enemy has to be forced . . . .
39:11 - Now I think brother Hannibal told me I'm gonna have a chance tomorrow to talk something about the Republic of New Afrika but I just want to mention this to you. We in the Provisional Government take the position that black people should not say we're American citizens. I mean this relates to also this question of our using the term African American and alas one of my colleagues and I said . . . . Ron Walters who was one of those who pushes, I said, “look Ron you know what? I use this term African American because you know we're not Americans” and he said, “yeah, but just to get us to say African now is such an improvement that maybe we ought to take this step.” But what concerns us is maybe let's just say African. It’s just Africans. I mean, like I said, we're Africans in the new world so were New Africans or Africans because in the 200 years between 1660 and 1860 we have what, ten, seven generations? And in that time who were these Africans? They didn't come from one country, one state one nation in Africa, they came from several. I mean even though they say well we came mostly from the west coast but you remember it was a Spanish and the Portuguese who attacked into the Angola region and who also went around and attacked them, attacked them in Mozambique and so we came from all over the continent and here we had many people from many different nations who could not stay together. In Africa you knew who you could marry. Once you get here, you've got a mind to marry the woman who was next to you and so we have in America across seven to ten generations a fusing of people from many different African nations and States. And then you've got the Indian genes and you got the European genes in our gene pool and so here then you'll have a common history that solidifies the people. . . . How do you know I'm black? You know it because, not only because the gene pool, but because you know my brother and sister we may not have blue eyes and fair skin. Not only because of the gene pool but you know it also because of the common perspective and the common history. So when we look for instance at people on the same territory in the same space . . . Maybe it's easier if we look at say the Mohawk or the Passamaquoddy or some of those in New York and New England here when the whites come. The Europeans come to Massachusetts, they are on the same land with the Passamaquoddy, they are in the same time frame, they are experiencing the same event which will be war - because we read the end of the books that we know it turns into war - so here they are at the same time, same place, same timeframe, two different perspectives. The whites are saying, “Oh God thank you for giving us this wonderful land” and the Indians are saying much like, “God what did we do to lose this land?” Always we would say, “God what did we do wrong to get us in this mess? What can we do to get out of it?” It's the same time, same place, same event - two different perspectives and those two different perspectives in history create two different nations. See, the nation is what evolves. We can't create it. Queen Mother couldn't, Elijah Muhammad couldn't. The nation evolves, it's not made up. Either we are or we are not and we are because of gene pool [and] perspective in history. We don't have state power. Gabriel tried, Denmark Vesey tried, Tunis Campbell tried, and for a while succeeded. The Sea Islands off of South Carolina and Georgia, the red towns and black towns joined together in Florida before 1819 and succeeded - the Indian’s Seminole State for one. But in general we have not succeeded in freeing the land. We don't have state power. Yes, we have an army. When we think of state power, think army. It's so small now, so tiny now. We are a nation without state power and so in . . . overthrowing colonial education, brother Hannibal needs help. We all need help. We got to get it, I mean, because this is an essential part of our reparations campaign. We cannot demand certain things if we don't want, as Malcolm says, and here in the education pieces, we don't know the past. And then if we don't know the terminology that is used . . . it isn't that the terminology is right or wrong, but some of it is so potent in its acceptance that we have to understand the terminology in order to deal and get what we want. Again not a question of whether the terminology is right or wrong but we have to understand it. We must not be shy in the classrooms. Brother Chaos, he was just telling me about his experiences, how principals come up and say, “you got to teach this and this and this” and he goes in, he says “okay I'll do that and teach us the liberation of his people.” We must not be afraid in the classrooms to teach that we are a nation of the oppressed people. No matter what, Europe or Africa who retain some sense of the nationality strive to build state power. You see it a little bit today in Latvia. They understood that they were a separate people, a nation, that the Soviet’s claim to their land was bogus and so they fight or struggle to free themselves, to build, to have state power and the army. We know that in Poland's history, the Germans have come in from the west as Russians have come in from the east from times ago and wiped out Poland and noted that in many instances Poles who lived under the Germans said, “it's your school around here, these Germans are such marvelous mechanistic people and they're letting us to go to these schools. We ought to just forget this thing about Poland.” And to those who are living in the Russian area, this “so what do we need Poland for because we are all slaves around here. Great Russian people, what do we need Poland for?” But some Poles understood that their history was distinct from the history of the Russians. . . . And the moment they got the chance, which came at the end of World War II, there's gonna be a new and free Poland. So it's not just us, but we must fight here against the colonial education. We must be ashamed for the children and so what they would go into the streets in opposition to colonial education to be taught in Africanist and we teachers walk in and collect our salary, don't even back up to it, go straight up there smiling and collect our salaries and teach horse manure, teach nothing about a New African Nation. You must teach these young people who are wearing Malcolm medallions and singing about Malcolm. . . . They are entitled to learn from you and me, they are entitled to have the explanations that they need. As a teacher, I always say to the young people, “you are entitled to trust your professors. Imani, have faith, but question everything. And it is important for us to put the information in front of the young people. Queeny Mother did not make up the New Afrikan nation, it grew, it evolved, like every nation and we struggle for state power. My reference is Malcolm X's message to the grassroots . . . . talking about statehood really independent land. Now think not that we have an easy battle here at Congress. They don't regard you as any subjugated nation because you walk around talking about you are American whatever that is . . . Malcolm gave us the word. He said I am NOT an American citizen, remember I am one of the 20 million victims of America. We say, “hey cool that's a statement of the international law” and that's law today. It says you can't take a captured people and make them into anything . . . so if you have conquered somebody you must ask them what they want to do afterwards. The Conqueror cannot come and make you into anything. . . .
56:03 - Nevertheless if I want to go back to Africa that is a logical choice or if I just want to say I'm out of here because these people have treated me so bad, I'm going somewhere else, I don't care if it's China, Sweden, nowhere - that's another choice. It's two of them right then because they held you here. If you decided, well I want to be an American citizen, that was a logical option and a possible option. Okay, so you got a right to do that. If they held you here you're not able to do it. . . . There's more to this three lines of stress but then finally obviously you could do what so many Africans tried to do here is get on out in the woods and build you an independent state. So those are the logical four options you had and so when John Franklin told us about the law we said well what we need to do is to bring to black people generally the idea of self-determination. . . . If you wanted to vote in the enemies election you have to sign something that says “I'm an American citizen”. So you know we said well that's under duress. So first of all, the Provisional Government put out the word, we have issued the words, “no black people have valid US citizenship” but they still take our taxes, don't it? I mean, you can't go up and tell them, “well I'm a citizen of Republic of New Afrika, therefore I'm not paying the gasoline tax” but you don't get the gas. I mean, so they take your taxes and so if you're sitting in Chicago and they are getting ready to have an election for the mayor what is wrong with you trying to get somebody in that's going to take better take better care of your taxes than somebody else? So I don't vote in the United States election because I have served as President for these years. I am . . . there will be a new president in the fall and I will hopefully get elected to the People Senate Council from Louisiana, but in any case the citizenship in New AfriKa is not going to stop you from having to pay taxes and so if they take your taxes go ahead and vote if you wish. I mean, if you feel like it and I think you honor in many circumstances, if you've got a chance to do better in the enemy system and have somebody in the enemy system that does better for you than somebody else who's going to get there anyway . . . . Okay? So don't worry. Signing IOUs in status under duress doesn't mean a thing. Now but it is important for you to know and for you to teach whether or not these options are viable . . . .
1:06:54 - We really don't have to tell them squat about what we want to do with the reparations but the other side of the picture is that we make a more significant case when we not only say that we want to do things to end the dope economy to do something about border babies and young women and the use of crack and cocaine and all of that. Not only when we say we want to do that but when we begin to build the institutions and the industries that will make it possible for us to do that . . . . So you notice that Poland doesn't come to the United States and say give us some money because now we have overthrown communism. They come to America with a plan. All of those countries . . . Panama doesn't come and just say look y'all did us wrong and blew up the house, give us some money. They come with a plan and so we in the Provisional Government, and mind you, this is only one idea because we must come together as a people and decide what the ideas are, there's. . . . the national conference is June 15 in Washington. There are leaflets out there about it, but we have to come together and talk so let me just tell you about the RNA idea. We say give one third of the reparations straight to the black families, black individuals. [Some] said well you give it to them and [it will] be right back to the white man. Don't worry about it. I mean people aren't entitled to raise their income, they are entitled to take ten, twenty, thirty, forty thousand dollars, whatever their family gets, and use it for what they want because what are they gonna do? They're gonna buy a house, maybe a decent car, help the children with education and some of you all buy stocks and bonds. So yeah, some of us are gonna waste it. Give the money to individuals. We say that a third of us should be given to those groups and organizations that are working on all these problems. Obviously we are not satisfied with what the United States government is doing. What we are doing about these problems? And all of us know but we think that if the agencies - I don't mean agencies, I mean people like the Deltas and all those community groups that are working on these problems - if they had a little more money without any budget cuts - because you know how the white folks do, they want to give you this and take that back - if they had a little more money they could do even better programs to help. And of course, we say that a third should be given to the nation builders. . . . part of the effort of the United States was to destroy the state every time you raised up the question of statehood, the question of having an army. And it didn't matter whether it was Tunis Campbel or those revolutionaries or they are for Indian Seminole State - they never let you have any peace. Why was Malcolm X killed? Because he talked to you about State Building and the state builders money would be used for economic development, collective economic development. We have to talk together and plan together through organized efforts. . . .