Holloway:
I'm Jay Holloway. Join us next for a discussion on an unpleasant and difficult subject from our past. Yet one that John Hope Franklin says must be discussed, if we want honest and meaningful dialogue on today's race relations. We'll talk about slavery, next on Black Issues Forum.

[MUSIC]

Holloway:
Good evening and welcome to Black Issues Forum. I'm Jay Holloway, your host. Tonight we'll take a close look at a subject many Americans in general, and North Carolinians in particular, maybe hope will go away. How has slavery impacted today's discourse between the races? And what about an apology and reparations to African Americans? Tonight's guests are preeminent historians and sociologists. Tonight, we welcome Dr. C. Eric Lincoln, Professor Emeritus of Duke University Depa

Lincoln:
Thank you very much.

McLaurin:
Appreciate being here, Jay.

Holloway:
This is a difficult subject, and I appreciate you all taking an opportunity to come in here and talk about it. Dr. Lincoln, let's go to you first. When we were talking off camera earlier, you talked about that this subject is one that many thing falls along racial lines on how you feel about slavery impacting today's race relations, and many people may think that it falls clearly along racial lines of whether or not an apology or reparation should be done, but you say, not necessa

Lincoln:
In the first place, I would have to separate reparations from apologies. They are quite two different things. And secondly, I regret as much as you the necessity of even introducing it into the dialogue because the whole notion of reparations is one that polarizes the community perhaps quicker than anything else, because people have their own notions of what reparations mean, and their own notions about whether or not they should be considered, and if so, under what kinds of circumstances?

Holloway:
Let's do this now. Reparations is a new word, perhaps, to some people in our audience. What are reparations?

Lincoln:
Reparations simply mean restoration or restitution. It means that you recognize that you have in some way deprived an individual or deprived a people of something that was vitally important to him or to them, and something that was uniquely their own, and you have taken it away. To restore it or to make compensation or to make restitution is what we mean by reparations. It is not a new concept by any means, it goes all the way back to the old Deuteranopic code in the Bible: if yo

Holloway:
So this kind of thing has been going on for centuries, pretty much. What is your feeling today, because it has been introduced in Congress for several congressional sessions but has not passed. What is your feeling? And then I'd like to as Dr. McLaurin about his opinion.

Lincoln:
The whole issue of reparations is first of all a moral issue, and second of all it is an issue of very intense significance for many black people, because their sense of worth and identity hinges on it, rather than their interest in money. It isn't just an interest in money, but it is an interest in feeling that the people who were responsible for their abuse in slavery recognize them now as human beings.

Holloway:
Let's move to Dr. McLaurin and ask him now. You've done a book on Sylvia, A Slave, and you're very well versed as well in this whole subject. What's your view on reparations and its impact of slavery today?

McLaurin:

Well, the impact of slavery today is enormous, and one could go into any number of impacts, and I just mentioned, for example, that I was at a workshop in Scotland and Hoke counties with public school teachers. And they were telling me that when they introduced the subject of slavery, normally in the fourth grade, or eighth grade, or eleventh grade, depending in the curriculum, that this inevitably causes some racial tensions in the classroom, because the two groups h in terms of restoration or reparation, so it's an enormously complex subject.

Lincoln:
May I add a word to that? It is indeed complex, and it is indeed highly political, but at various times in our history, we have made reparations, even through the political machinery that we have in place already. And in pointing this out, I am not arguing for reparations at this moment, I simply want to point out that it is not a novel idea, and it is not an impossible idea. For example, we took the land from the Native Americans; we are still from time to time paying reparations for what we did 300 years ago.

Holloway:
How are we doing that?

Lincoln:
Every now and then a tribe comes up and says that "you have not lived up to the treaty" and so on, and so we give them several million dollars to keep them quiet. This is nothing more nor less than reparations. This is restitution. There is another kind of reparations, for example, when we were in World War II we abused the Japanese-Americans. When the World War II was over, we made restitution, reparations. Nothing more nor less than reparations. It falls even closer. During

Holloway:
Tuskeegee case.

Lincoln:
Yes, the Tuskeegee case. And lo and behold, when it was finally brought to light, what did we do? We paid their survivors reparations.

Holloway:
Let me ask Dr. McLaurin. Does this fall along racial lines? I know we're saying it's complex here, but . . .

McLaurin:
Well, I certainly think that the issue is going to be very much involved, and that's why it's a politically complex issue. I mean, it would be a complex issue even if race were not involved, but race is involved. And like Dr. Lincoln, I don't think that it falls strictly along racial lines because it is almost too complex an issue to fall just willy-nilly along racial lines. But Dr. Lincoln brought up the point about restoration for GI's, and I suspect he had in mind something li

Lincoln:
It is a problem, it's a very big problem. And this is one of the reasons why I think that it's not going to be productive to really even discuss it. Because for example, if we cannot even agree on something called Affirmative Action, which is a very, very minuscule, a minor kind of reparation for a very small percentage of people, and yet we get all wrung out of shape over that, then it goes without saying that we are not about to address the enormous problem of trying to pay reparations to millions of people, or something that happened in the past. And yet, I want to make this point, and yet it isn't altogether a racial thing. We have paid reparations, for example . . . the Germans tried to destroy us; we rebuilt Germany. The Japanese tried to destroy us; we rebuilt Japan. Black people in this country haven't tried to destroy anybody, but yet there is an enormous block when it comes to the notion of doing anything extraordinary for black people. I had the unusual-I wouldn't say unusual by any means-I had the unhappy experience, for example, during World War II, I was in the Navy. And I was being sent from Chicago to San Diego to take up duties there before going to sea. It happened that the train that they put me on was a train carrying German prisoners of war being taken into the interior where they would be safe. Would you believe that here were all these Nazi soldiers on this train, people who had tried their best to annihilate us; I was wearing the uniform of the United States Navy, but when I went into the dining room, they put a curtain around me so I wouldn't offend the Germans! So it gets to be very, very complex, as Dr. McLaurin has said. And it gets to be so complex until I really think that we need to look for other means of trying to reconcile our differences, rather than to talk about reparations. I do not think that this country is about to entertain that notion.

McLaurin:
I'd like to respond to that in two ways. I would agree about the political practicality, it's just not practical. I would like to return to the GI Bill, though. The GI Bill was something that was perceived by the nation as being good for the nation, and I'd like to compare that to the Marshall Plan, which you mentioned with rebuilding, particularly Europe, after the Second World War. Again, the United States didn't do that out of the goodness of its heart, it was the perception of the American Department of State and of the American government that it was good for the entire nation for us to buttress the economies of Western Europe to keep them from falling to the Communists. The point is that I don't think anything can be done positively to address some of the really meaningful economic problems that are associated with race in America, and that in some ways result from our past, unless the society as a whole can be convinced that this is something that is going to benefit the entire society. I think that's the political reality. I personally think that's the case. I mean, I think action that would address some of these problems that are holdovers from our racial heritage in this society would benefit the entire society. But until that is the belief of the larger community, I rather fear that not much will be done in these areas.

Holloway:
Well let's bring it close to home now. You live in Wilmington, in New Hanover County, where in 1998 November will be the 100th anniversary of a racial violence incident that occurred there. So if our viewing audience feels that North Carolina, "well, why is this discussion relating to us, and how does it relate to us?" Can you share what happened 100 years ago in Wilmington?

McLaurin:
Well, in Wilmington there was racial violence in which a group of whites who had been in control of the city essentially used violence to regain control of that city over a coalition of blacks and whites who had taken control of not only the city government of Wilmington, but briefly the government of the state of North Carolina, and that's a very, very complex topic in and of itself. But violence was used, approximately nine African-Americans were killed, people were run out of the only daily African-American newspaper in the state-and I think at the time in the nation-was literally destroyed; its editor, Alex Manley was run out of town. Now the community is grappling with how to commemorate these events, and commemoration is the right word because there were lives lost, and to do it positively, to do it without disrupting the current community and race relations within the current community, and it is a very, very steep challenge. And I'm please

Holloway:
Now, Dr. McLaurin raised earlier, and you said the discussion is so difficult, but yet you both have some hesitancies as to whether we should be discussing this and if it really makes any real difference today, because people want to make sure that it will make a difference in race relations, or make a difference so we can put it behind us. Where do we go now? I mean, if it's difficult to do this, what is the next step?

Lincoln:
One possible step is one that was implied in some of what Dr. McLaurin said. And that is to make the people see that they have a stake in the betterment of that part of the community which is farthest down and which is most abused. If the people could see, for example, that there is no solution in building more jails; what we need are more jobs. That there is no solution in continuing police violence; what we need is a sense of security and justice. Then we can get around to the

Holloway:
Can we do that now, Dr. McLaurin?

McLaurin:
Well I'm an educator, if I didn't think that we have possibility of doing it, I wouldn't be in this business. But it's a difficult road, but I think that dialogue is absolutely crucial, to get people to talk across racial divides. I was very pleased with Mr. Clinton's initiative along these lines, and I would like to see that dialogue increased in communities across the country. But one of the things that I'd like to return to is the idea that we do, as Americans, have different

Lincoln:
That reality has to be addressed, and it may be that that reality also has to be bypassed. You can't both cling to the past and move into the future. You've got to let one of them go. Let me give you an illustration of what I think he's talking about. A few years ago in Chicago, a black man was arrested in a department store for taking a belt. He wasn't trying to conceal it, he just took it and walked out of the store with it. When they arrested him on the street, he had almost $1000 in his pocket. And so the question was, well why would you steal a belt when you've got $1000 in your pocket and the most if would cost would be four or five dollars. He said, "I didn't steal it." He said, "I just felt that it was mine." He said, "It was mine. All these years they have taken my label and taken my genius and so on, and they piled up all this stuff, and some of it is mine. And if they aren't going to give it to me, I'll take it."

Holloway:
With that point, I'm sorry we have to end, but a very good story there. And as Dr. Lincoln said, we can't both cling on to the past and go to the future, we have to kind of look at one or the other. And I want to thank both of you for participating. And I want to encourage you to continue this discussion across racial lines.

Thank you for watching the program tonight. We invite you to watch Black Issues Forum every Friday night at 11:00 on UNC-TV. Please contact us with your comments. Our telephone number is 919-549-7167. Fax us at 919-549-7168. E-mail us at bif@unctv.org, or visit us on the World Wide Web at www.unctv.org/bif. You'll find more information on slavery and race relations, and on past episodes and additional information on concerns to African-Americans. Thank you very much and join us next week for a

[MUSIC]