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Books by Clarence J. Munford
Production relations, class and Black liberation: A
Marxist perspective in Afro-American studies
(1978)
The Black Ordeal of Slavery and Slave Trading in the
French West Indies 1625-1715
(1991)
Race
and Reparations: A Black Perspective for the 21st
Century (1996)
Race
and Civilization: The Rebirth of Black Centrality
(2003)
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N'COBRA: A 21st Century Dream
Clarence J. Munford Speaks at Metro
Hall
Prof. Clarence Munford, History, to discuss
issues vital to African-Americans today. Munford, a faculty
member at Guelph for 33 years, is the author of numerous
publications, including a three-volume history of black
enslavement in the French West Indies and the 1996 book
Race
and Reparations: A Black Perspective for the 21st
Century. A
companion book to
Race and Reparations is scheduled for
publication in 2000. In 1995, Munford was honoured when U of G
students opened the Munford Centre on campus to provide a focal
point for anti-racism and race relations resources and a drop-in
centre for students.
During the annual
celebration of King's January birthday, U of G history professor
Clarence Munford spoke at Toronto's Metro Hall and shared his
own dream for the 21st century. "It is time to update
King's speech and the content of his dream," says Munford.
"Martin Luther
King led a vital struggle against petty apartheid North American
style -- school segregation, equal access to public facilities,
voting rights and access and prompt service in restaurants. But
one generation after his assassination, the formal access to
public facilities can no longer be the target of black communal
effort -- nor should it be. We now have that access, at least in
legislation. Today we are not seeking equality. Now we seek
parity."
Munford
works with a U.S.-based organization called N'COBRA, the
National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, which
is trying to provide African-Americans with an economic and
social foundation that will protect the anti-discrimination
legislation and make it possible for blacks to benefit fully
from political participation. N'COBRA is focused on a new
"social advantage" movement. "We think we must
mobilize blacks to make a commitment to reparations - payment of
the inheritance due to us for the labour of our ancestors,"
he says.
The professor has
more than a historian's interest in the institution of slavery.
Born and raised in Ohio, Munford traces his mother's ancestors
to the plantations of Louisiana and his father's family to
enslavement in Alabama. He has lived in Canada since 1966,
however, joining U of G after completing an academic trail that
began at Cleveland's Western Reserve University, then took him
to the University of Leipzig in Germany for a PhD, then to the
University of Nigeria as a faculty member.
During his years at
Guelph, Munford has maintained close connections to family
members in the United States and an active involvement in the
ongoing civil rights struggles of blacks in many countries.
On the
international scene, Munford is an active participant, with
other historians, legal scholars, social scientists and
psychologists, in the preparation of legislative recommendations
and a legal brief in regards to U.S. Bill HR 40. Introduced by
Detroit congressman John Conyers Jr., the bill would acknowledge
the fundamental injustice of slavery in the United States and
create a commission to examine the resulting economic and racial
discrimination against African-Americans and the impact of these
forces on those still living in the United States. The
commission would also make recommendations to Congress on
appropriate remedies, which N'COBRA economists say should
include reparations as high as $10 trillion US.
The following are
excerpts from the interview with Munford, in which he talks
about the basis of the black reparations movement and his belief
that it is time for western civilization to pay the debt owed to
African-Americans.
"In modern
history, which for black people begins in 1441, we lost 100
million lives through violence inflicted by the slave trade.
Thousands more were taken from their homes to enslavement in the
western hemisphere, where they and succeeding generations worked
their entire lives without payment for that work. What would be
owed to us, using the true capitalist principle of the right of
inheritance?
"The value of
the accrued wages of Africans enslaved in the United States,
plus interest, has been estimated at anywhere from $5 trillion
to $10 trillion US. This debt does not count the other billions
of dollars that may have been lost to blacks in the last 130
years through segregation and reduced job opportunities due to
racial discrimination. Nor does it count the additional debts
owed to the descendants of slavery in other countries - the West
Indies, for example, where thousands were enslaved.
"One example
of the impact of racial discrimination lies in the 10-to-one
ratio between the home ownership assets of whites and blacks in
the United States. The average equity in home real estate is
$42,000 for whites and just over $4,000 for blacks. A
contributing factor to this discrimination was the U.S.
government's post-war policy that offered low-cost mortgages to
whites to enable them to move from the inner cities to the
suburbs, while those mortgages were denied blacks. Yet black
people in the United States helped pay for those government
subsidies through their taxes. We helped pay for the better
schools built in the suburbs and the better teaching and
resources enjoyed by white children.
"We feel the
only way to acquire entrance to the future and build a social
foundation that will enable us to enjoy the political and legal
rights we have won is to initiate some form of reparations. It's
time for western governments to ante up.
"We promote a
massive fund for black education that will raise the educational
level of black children to that of the white middle class.
"Since the
Depression, black unemployment has averaged two to 2½ times the
unemployment rate among whites. Reparations will help equalize
employment opportunities through education and black ownership
of meaningful black assets. "Part of the dream is access to
credit to encourage black ownership of business ventures. We
want 15 to 20 per cent of the black labour force to be able to
find a job and build a career in a black-owned business.
Currently, less than one per cent of the black labour force in
the United States works for black-owned firms.
"Supporters of
the reparations movement do not expect overnight success - Bill
HR 40 has been voted down each year for nearly a decade - but we
see this as a crisis that western civilization must address.
"Reparations
would not be paid by individual white people, but by western
governments, which have already set a precedent of using
reparations to achieve some atonement for the atrocities of past
governments. Some European countries have made reparations to
the survivors of the five-year Jewish Holocaust. Both the United
States and Canada have given an apology and payments to Japanese
citizens who were interned during the Second World War, and both
countries have provided compensation to native populations who
were robbed of their land and their culture. But
African-Americans have a 500-year-old debt that remains unpaid.
"The
reparations movement is a worldwide movement. There is a
reparations office in Nigeria, and the Organization of African
Unity has gone on record as supporting reparation. There is a
Pan-African movement, and voices are chiming in from Brazil. In
Canada, there is growing interest among the country's
predominantly African-Caribbean black community.
"The discussion surrounding reparations is
different in every country where the black descendants of slaves
live. The issue is far too complicated for an adequate
representation here, but at its core is the belief among black
people that our ancestors' debts are yet to be collected. And
that payment of those debts would provide the resources needed
to prepare African-Americans today for the demands of the
future." * * * *
*
updated 12 April
2008 |
