Photo by Chris Sykes U.S. Rep. Donald Payne Jr., right, announced he will be signing on as a co-sponsor of Rep. John Conyers national Reparations study bill HR 40 during the People’s Organization for Progress Reparations March and Rally in downtown Newark on Saturday, June 24, as P.O.P. Chairman Larry Hamm, left, and others listen.
U.S. Rep. Donald Payne Jr., right, announced he will be signing on as a co-sponsor of Rep. John Conyers national Reparations study bill HR 40 during the People’s Organization for Progress Reparations March and Rally in downtown Newark on Saturday, June 24, as P.O.P. Chairman Larry Hamm, left, and others listen.
IRVINGTON, NJ — The People’s Organization for Progress hosted a Reparations March and Rally in downtown Newark on Saturday, June 24, which saw U.S. Rep. Donald Payne Jr. showing his solidarity for the cause as he made an announcement of his own.
Payne pledged to become a co-sponsor of HR 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act. The bill is sponsored by U.S. Rep. John Conyers of Michigan and would establish a commission to study and make proposals to Congress on reparations for black people. The bill’s passage was a major demand of People’s Organization for Progress Chairman Larry Hamm and the march participants, including professor Akil Khalfani of the Essex County College Africana Institute and Bashir Akinyele of the Newark Anti-Violence Coalition.
“Congressman Payne made a surprise appearance at the pre-march rally that started at 12 noon at the Lincoln Statue, located at the intersection of West Market Street and Springfield Avenue in Newark,” said Hamm on Monday, June 26. “Speaking to the crowd, Payne said he decided to come to the event, after speaking with me. The congressman said that he would be added as a co-sponsor on the bill today.”
According to Hamm, “The purpose of the march was to make public our demand that African-Americans receive reparations for the damage done to us by slavery and the related forms of racial oppression, exploitation, discrimination, injustice and violence stemming from it.” He said he never expected Payne to show up and announce he would be signing on to co-sponsor HR 40, but he was pleasantly surprised he did.
“We were also marching to demand that Congress ratify HR 40, The Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans, a bill sponsored by Rep. John Conyers,” said Hamm on Saturday, June 24. “We want congressional representatives from New Jersey to become co-sponsors of the bill. We would like to see a similar bill passed by the New Jersey state Legislature and supporting resolutions passed by county freeholder boards and municipal councils, because slavery existed in this state.”
Payne said, “Passage of HR 40 would be a major and meaningful first step toward reparations for African-Americans in the United States.” Payne could not be reached for comment about his decision to co-sponsor HR 40 by press time this week.
Khalfani and Akinyele, however, were unequivocal in their support for the bill and the reparations movement.
“I’m here today, representing the National Black Council of elders, of which I am a member, and the W.A.D.U., which is the War African Diaspora Unit,” said Khalfani on Saturday, June 24. “We’re here for the rally, march and the protest for reparations for people of African descent. Some people say ‘reparations for slaves,’ but no, it’s reparations for those Africans who were enslaved. We were not slaves. We were mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and daughters. We need to recognize who we are and that we are Africans, and that is our origin and not slaves. We just happen to have been enslaved, but we’re continuing to break the bondings of slavery today.”
Akinyele is also a teacher at Weequahic High School in Newark, when he isn’t out leading Newark Anti-Violence Coalition marches and protests. When it comes to the movement in support of reparations, he said the record clearly shows that America owes a tremendous debt to the descendants of the African men and women that slaved for years without pay to “make America great.”
“The march and rally was to politicize our people in downtown Newark and the surrounding area about the need to support the reparations movement in American,” Akinyele said Saturday, June 24. “It’s a long history lesson. I try to chunk it as much as I can about the importance of reparations or why there is a call for reparations because, unfortunately, our young people don’t understand.
“Some of our young people really believe we came over on the Mayflower. It’s deep, brother. They really think that we came here voluntarily, as opposed to involuntarily. So you’ve got to do a whole lesson on that, in and of itself, because many of our young people don’t understand that history. They don’t understand it at all. So that’s why, in my history classes, I teach the real history of America.”
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