Freedom means liberty, self-determination, independence or free will. Restoration means returning to a normal or healthy condition. Reparation means the act of making good or compensating for loss, damage or an injury.

Human rights are the basic rights and freedoms all humans are entitled to, often held to include the right to life and liberty, freedom of thought and expression, and equality before the law.

On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. It was this document that set African slaves free, but they were never compensated for 310 years of slave labor. During our forefathers’ sojourn in America, they were forced to give their blood, sweat and tears to help build the country. General William T. Sherman issued Special Order #15, providing 40-acre tracts of captured land along the Atlantic coast, from South Carolina to Florida, for 40,000 former slaves. The ‘40 acres and a mule’ provision was supposed to have been reparations for slavery. However, President Andrew Johnson reversed the ‘40 acres and a mule’ provision, ordering the Freedmen Bureau to return the land back to the white confederate landholders. In some instances, Johnson relied upon the Army to forcibly remove those blacks who had been provided with land only months earlier. If President Andrew Johnson were fair and impartial, he would not have reversed the decision and given the land back to the white Confederate landholders. President Johnson’s decision to reverse the ‘40 acres and a mule’ provision, nullified the promise of land that was given to the former slaves. Can you imagine how devastating that was mentally for the former slaves? Congress gave them the land; then the President took the land back. President Johnson’s action amounted to double-dealing.

Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves; however they had no skills to sustain their large families. Many of them had to return back to the plantation. They returned as sharecroppers, another form of slavery. To add insult to injury, from 1863-1963 they had to endure 100 years of lynching, segregation and racial discrimination. Again we ask the question, “What good is freedom without restoration, human rights and reparation?”

One hundred and one years after being freed as slaves, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Bill; however, it did not help Afrodescendants restore their human rights. Nor did it pay them reparations for the lingering effects of plantation slavery.

The record shows that Congress promised the former slaves reparations in the form of 40 acres and a mule. The record also shows that President Andrew Johnson nullified the ‘40 acres and a mule’ provision. Since the 1860s, the government passed the reparation issue from generation to generation without ever officially apologizing and paying its long overdue debt; their action amounts to gross negligence, blatant disregard and generational irresponsibility.

Malcolm X said, “If you are the son of a man who had a wealthy estate and you inherit your father’s estate, you have to pay off the debts that your father incurred before he died. The only reason that the present generation of white Americans are in a position of economic strength . . . is because their fathers worked our fathers for over 400 years with no pay.”

White Americans living today are responsible for paying their forefathers’ long overdue debt. If they don’t pay the (reparations) debt, it will prove that they are no better than their forefathers, who perpetuated generational irresponsibility.

It can also be heard by many of the immigrants that slavery was too far in the past, however, that statement did not originate with the immigrants. They learned that mentality from the news media and those who oppose justice for Afrodescendants. The immigrants have been misled; they do not understand the depths of what has happened to the psyche of the African slaves and their descendants. For example, if the immigrants had been enslaved in America for 310 years and had their original names, religion, culture, history, language and identity erased from their minds; they would also be suffering from the lingering effects of plantation slavery, like Afrodescendants are today.

The immigrants are blind to the fact that mental genocide was committed against the African slaves and their descendants. They also failed to understand that the institution of slavery was a weapon of mass destruction; used to psychologically murder the slaves’ minds. Mental genocide is the deliberate and systematic murder of a people’s mind. That includes the destruction of their original name, religion, culture, history, language and identity.

Afrodescendants have been free for 142 years but they have no human rights. What good is freedom, if they don’t have human rights? Afrodescendants have made tremendous progress in America – there are black members in Congress, but they have no human rights; black billionaires, but they have no human rights; black athletes who make millions of dollars playing basketball, football, and baseball, but they have no human rights.  Blacks work on every level in corporate America, but they have no human rights. There are black psychologists, teachers, historians, journalist, engineers, professors, and scientists, but they have no human rights. There are black rap stars in the music industry that make millions of dollars, but they have no human rights; black actors and actresses in Hollywood that make millions of dollars, but they have no human rights. There are blacks in the Christian church, Muslims in the Nation of Islam, and Black Nationalists in the Black Panther Party, but they have no human rights. There are black politicians in the Democratic and the Republican party, but they have no human rights.

The 64 million dollar question is, what good is freedom without human rights, reparations and universal recognition as human beings? Money won’t restore their human rights. Money won’t get them universal recognition. Money won’t get them respect as human beings. For example, White America views rich blacks such as O. J. Simpson, Oprah Winfrey, Bob Johnson, Michael Jackson, and Bill Cosby as ‘Niggers with Millions of dollars.’ No matter how much money they have, in some white peoples’ eyes, they are still niggers. Since 1994, Silis Muhammad has been working at the United Nations to restore their human rights. This will bring them universal recognition as human beings. They don’t get universal respect because they have no human rights.

Language

Hispanic Americans speak Spanish. Chippewa Indians speak Ojibwe, Italian Americans, Irish Americans, Jewish Americans, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans – each group of people can speak or learn their own language except Afro descendants  – descendants of slaves living in America. They can’t speak their original language.  They speak English, the slave master’s language. Each ethnic group that I mentioned above can identify with a mass of land except Afrodescendants. They can’t really identify with Africa because their African human rights were destroyed during slavery.

While speaking at the United Nations at the 57th Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, Silis Muhammad said: “There is a vast difference between Afrodescendants and people of African descent.

While we enjoy the same comely color, we both view ourselves as being different. People of African descent still have their original identity: their mother tongue, culture, and religion, while Afrodescendants mimic the mother tongue, culture, and religion of our slave masters’ children. Our identity, our dignity, and thus our essence, was taken. We can put on all the African clothes we want, and we still don’t have our identity.”

Afrodescendants are not American citizens because they do not enjoy equal justice with white Americans. Since Afrodescendants cannot speak their original language, it has been concluded that they are uniquely different from other (ethnic minorities) people in America. How important is language? Language connects people to their heritage or to their roots. Language is the single most significant and powerful tool that human beings have at their disposal. It’s put to use in almost every aspect of our existence and activity in the world.

As you can see, language is very important; so based on the fact that Afrodescendants can’t speak their language, that means they are different from all other ethnic groups in America, including people of African descent. The question is, “How did America systematically destroy their language? How did America systemically destroy their human rights?

The children of the slaves were sold off to different plantation owners. That divided the families, leaving behind a whole new generation of slave orphans subject to a totally new religion, norms, language, customs and values. The mother could not teach the child what she knew about the child, about her past, about her child’s heritage. The child would have to grow up in complete darkness, knowing nothing about the land where it came from or the people it came from not even about its own mother. There was no relationship between the black child and its mother; it was against the law. That is proof that their human rights were completely destroyed.

Original Human Rights

When a baby is born in Africa the parents give the baby an African name. As the child grows, it learns to speak the language from its mother; it’s called mother tongue. The child learns the norms, culture, religion, and values from its African parents. The child’s original norms, values, religion, culture, language, history and identity are the child’s collective human rights. If the child’s human rights are destroyed, then he or she has no human rights. Are Afrodescendants living in America using another people’s human rights?

During the 60’s, Dr. Martin Luther King and the members of the Civil Rights movement fought and died for civil rights; however; the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said: “Civil Rights, according to the English dictionary, mean the equal rights of a human being on a level with any other human being. These rights are limited here in America. First and foremost, the so-called Negro needs human rights, which will warrant his recognition as a human being by his slave-masters. This also gives him universal rights — the same equal rights as any other human being.”

Ninety nine percent of Afrodescendants are not aware that they are living without collective human rights. They are not aware of it because they are mentally dead to the knowledge of self. If they are not mentally dead to the knowledge of self, why are they still wearing the slave master’s name? And why would they continue to wear the slave master’s name after reading about the slave master’s evil history and how they murdered and raped our foreparents? How could they give their babies the slave master’s name, after reading the history of how their forefathers were sold on auction blocks?

Do you believe a Jewish mother would name her son Adolph, after the Nazi leader Adolph Hitler? Then why are blacks knowingly and willingly giving their babies the slave master’s name? Isn’t that naming them after a murderer, exploiter, robber and rapist?

Congress must understand that the issue of restoration, human rights and reparations will not go away. The well-learned scholars in the Reparation Movement are astute in international law. They also know history. They know the children of the slaves were sold off to different plantation owners, dividing the families and leaving behind a whole new generation of slave orphans subject to a totally new religion, norms, language, customs and values; which is proof that their human rights were completely destroyed.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, “One of the first and most important truths that must be established in this day is our identity.” Their identity is part of their human rights. According to their history in America, their identity changed from Slave to Nigger, Negro, Colored, Black, and African American. On the other hand, the Chinese’s identity did not ever change. Their identity remained the same. A Chinese is a Chinese from the cradle to the grave. They are not confused about their identity; however, Afro-descendants are.

They Trembled

Six thousand years ago, Yakub, the Father of the white race, had a vision on the island of Patmos. He trembled after seeing the birth and the coming of God in Person to bring Afrodescendants the history of their glorious past, which he knew would bring them out of darkness into the marvelous light of truth.

In 1784, Thomas Jefferson said, “Indeed I tremble for my country because God is just and justice cannot sleep forever.” At that time the Blackman was in slavery; at that time the black man was picking cotton and bailing hay.

In 1968, the FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover, trembled at the thought of a black messiah who would unify Afrodescendants. However, Hoover did not reveal what the issue was that the black messiah would unify the people around. The issue that Hoover omitted from the FBI files was restoration, human rights, and reparations.

Today, the great-great-grandson of African slaves is working at the United Nations to restore the human rights of Afrodescendants. His demand for reparations is based on international law. In 1992, the U.S. Senate ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).  Article 27 of the ICCPR says, “In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, person belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own language.”

According to International law, the U.S. is in violation of Article 27 because it denied Afrodescendants the right to speak their language. In 1992, the U.S. ratified Article 27, which protected the right of Afrodescendants to speak their language. How can they speak their language when their connection to it was systemically destroyed during slavery? The question now is whether the government can restore our original language. Can they restore our original identity? Can they restore our original culture? If it cannot restore our original language, culture, and identity, the government should pay full and complete reparations.

It has been concluded that it is wholly impossible for them to restore our original language, culture and identity because we were denied the right to speak it, and through forced mixed breeding and rape, the connection to a specific tribe and language has been severed, therefore we are permanently deprived of it.

Silis Muhammad stated to the United Nations Working Group on Minorities in 1999: “By forcibly depriving us of our mother tongue, the government of the U.S. deracinated our collective identity, making our condition irreversible. We need UN assistance. Absent the knowledge of our mother tongue, how could we speak it with other members of our community, and preserve our individual identity? Absent our identity, we do not have our own culture. Absent culture, we are in a state of civil death. To destroy a people and shared life is a crime.”

Marcus Garvey, W. E. Dubois, Paul Robeson, Elijah Muhammad, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X all agree that all Afrodescendants have no human rights, including themselves. They understood that the crime of mental genocide occurred in America.

On page 128 of, “Why We Can’t Wait”, Dr. King Martin Luther King said, “The Negro is saying that the time has come for our nation to take that firm stride into freedom-not simply toward freedom-which will pay [reparations] a long over due debt to its citizens of color.” On page 138 of the same book, he said, “The moral justification for [reparations] special measures for Negroes is rooted in robberies inherent in the Institution of slavery.”

The American government is responsible for committing six heinous robberies. They robbed African slaves and their descendants of their original names, religion, culture, history, language, and identity; not only did they rob them of their human rights, they destroyed them. Afrodescendants’ human rights must be restored at the UN. This will give them universal rights – the same equal rights as any other human being.