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American Morning

Activists Discuss Reparations Lawsuits

Aired May 02, 2002 - 09:10   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Meanwhile, the California Department of Insurance yesterday released hundreds of documents from insurance companies that issued policies to slaveholders on the lives of their slaves. New York Life and Aetna were among the companies named. The documents could serve as ammunition for a growing number of class action lawsuits seeking reparations from companies that profited from slave labor.

Joining us now, from Boston, Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree, co-chair of the Reparations Coordinating Committee, and from Sacramento this morning, Ward Connerly; he's gotten up early for us, thank you very much, chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute.

Good to see you both of you. Welcome.

CHARLES OGLETREE, HARVARD LAW PROFESSION: Good to see you.

WARD CONNERLY, CHAIRMAN AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS INSTITUTE: Good morning.

ZAHN: So Professor Ogletree, if this is the ammunition you need to carry forward with some of these lawsuits, tell the American public why you want to punish people today who had nothing to do with enslaving people.

OGLETREE: I don't want to punish people today, Paula. I think you misstate what we're talking about.

ZAHN: Who would you be punishing then if you won these lawsuits?

OGLETREE: Let -- let me -- I'll explain if you give me a chance to that. Studies in California tells a story about people enslaved, who were never given benefits from it. More importantly, the California studies only tip the iceberg. I hope the national government -- and I call them the national government to look at these policies across the nation not just in California.

The problems of slavery, the problems of segregation from decades ago are real today. You mentioned it. Predatory lending. Doctor Byrd and Dr. Clayton here in Boston have done research on health disparities based on race. It showed that African-Americans still in the year 2002 suffered from the same disparities that they witnessed during the period of slavery. Economic disparity. Housing discrimination. Educational disparity. If you look across the board, we have not solved those problem despite the great efforts brought to civil right movement. So the effort is to make the government responsible for the disparity and the make the private companies that have benefited from this to pay the unjust enrichment.

ZAHN: All right. Let me ask Mr. Connerly if he thinks that's the right way to go about this. He's saying that these companies did profit from slavery and they should pay the price.

CONNERLY: Well I think there's no question that the companies profited from slavery. Many people profited from it. It was a legal activity, at the time, although terribly immoral. I saw that report yesterday and it really strikes a blow in your heart when you see the first names of people mentioned who are owned by other people. But these policies were taken out by the slave owners, not by the slaves. And I was born -- rather my great grandmother was born as a slave. And when I realized that I shuttered. But that doesn't mean that I'm entitled to any payment and if I'm not entitled, it certainly doesn't mean that nonprofit groups as Mr. Jesse Jackson is saying are entitled to it.

I think it's time for us to move on. You cannot make the connection between the horrors of slavery and many of the problems that the imminent Professor Ogletree mentions.

ZAHN: Professor Ogletree, Mr. Connerly has also, at point in time, accused groups such as yours of trying to shake down American corporations. Explain to him why you're not doing that.

OGLETREE: Sure. I think he has wrongly accused my group. I think Ward Connerly will apologize too. He did write a column in the "Washington Times" accusing Johnnie Cochran of filing the lawsuit. The Reparations Coordinating Committee has not filed any lawsuit against any individual government at all. We have made that clear. Those are New York and New Jersey lawyers who have done that.

And secondly, the issues that Ward Connerly talks about are real. And I agree with one sense that there may no be a need for individual reparations for decedents of slaves. As I argued very I think forcefully in "The New York Times" in the editorial, the point is to fix the bottom, the course of the poor, the bottom stuff in the African-American community. The same problems that we saw in the 17th and 18th and 19th and 20th Century are visiting us in the 21st century. And I think Ward Connerly disagrees with me in the sense that we made considerable progress but we still have a long way to go.

These suits are trying to correct the harms of the past and move forward. And it's not to try to give individual checks to me, Ward Connerly or anyone like us. That's not the goal. And if you read our literature, read the arguments we made, that's not what we're asking for.

ZAHN: So professor, simply as you can explain it this morning, if any of these lawsuits were to be won, where would the money go? OGLETREE: It would go to trust fund. That's what I've been advocating. And I made that very clear in the March 31 "New York Times" op-ed. The point is that there are poor people who have never benefited from integration. They've never benefited from affirmative action. Some of us have and we still see people discriminated against. Police racial profiling, economic disparities, health disparity. We still see two Americas, one black and white. They're separate and unequal. That's what we're trying to address that hasn't been addressed.

ZAHN: Ward Connerly, you get the last word.

CONNERLY: I would totally agree with Professor Ogletree, and I've never accused him of any shakedown. He's not that type of person. But I would totally agree with him that there are those at the bottom that we need to help. They're white. They're black. They're Hispanic. They're Asian. They're all over the place. And we can help them and we must but it has nothing to do with slavery. It's because we have an obligation in our society, I believe, to try to help everybody to enjoy this great freedom and opportunity that our nation provides. But slavery is not the nexus for doing that.

ZAHN: So you're opposed to the trust fund as well ...

CONNERLY: Absolutely.

ZAHN: ... if that comes to pass?

CONNERLY: Absolutely.

ZAHN: All right. Gentlemen, we're going to have to leave it there this morning. Charles Ogletree, from Harvard University, and Ward Connerly, who is the chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, thank you both for your time this morning.

CONNERLY: Thank you, Paula.

OGLETREE: Thank you, Paula.

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