Anti-racism activists descended on Atlanta on Thursday to urge lawmakers to support their $80 billion reparations package, warning of “serious political consequences” if they don’t greenlight the plan.
Anqous Cosby of ReparationsPush and others want politicians in the House of Representatives to create the Georgia Equity and Fairness Commission, which would come up with a compensation package for the descendants of slaves.
Republicans oppose the plan, saying it’s not fair to exclude one group from payments — especially as cash-strapped Georgia hospitals close and the state’s overcrowded prisons need more space.
“Georgia, with economic compensation, policies and laws to protect us, and debt forgiveness, could be looking at well over $80 billion,” Cosby told DailyMail.com.
The Georgia Legislative Black Caucus, Georgia’s NAACP and the Urban League of Greater Atlanta seek reparations task force
ReparationsPush’s Anqous Cosby Says $80 Billion Is Needed to Compensate Black Georgians
‘But it’s not just any cheque. It’s about us regaining our independence as a people, within the nation, and helping the United States.”
The bill is sponsored by State Rep. Roger Bruce and is also supported by the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus, the Georgia NAACP and the Urban League of Greater Atlanta.
Hubert Bass, a campaigner with Afrodescendant Nation, warned in a statement of “serious political consequences” if Georgia lawmakers did not create the commission.
“The reparations movement is dead,” Bass added.
African Americans make up nearly a third of Georgia’s nearly 11 million residents.
They will play a big role in the November election — President Joe Biden trails rival Donald Trump by six percentage points in the key swing state, according to a Morning Consult poll released Thursday.
Campaigners for reparations have had only mixed results in Georgia, a state with a history of colonial cotton picking and then industrial-scale plantation slavery.
Fulton County, which includes much of Atlanta, last year approved a similar reparations task force that wants $2 billion in local payouts.
Hubert Bass, campaigner at Afrodescendant Nation, says there will be ‘serious political consequences’ if Georgia lawmakers don’t create the commission
Fulton County Commissioner Bridget Thorne says taxpayers need hospitals and jails more
Bridget Thorn, one of the county’s conservative commissioners, opposes what she calls the body’s “biased investigation.”
“It’s just an inquiry into how we should make reparations, not whether we should make reparations,” she told Fox News.
The area’s Wellstar AMC South Hospital closed last year after losing $7 million a month, leaving locals in a “health desert,” Thorn said.
Another $1.7 billion is needed to improve Fulton County’s overcrowded and violence-plagued jail, she added.
“I don’t think we can tax our taxpaying citizens anymore.”
Still, Georgia this week gave final approval to a $37.9 billion six-month budget, packed with $5.5 billion in new spending.
Reparations advocates say it’s time for America to pay back its Black residents for the injustices of the historic transatlantic slave trade, Jim Crow segregation and the inequities that persist to this day.
Critics say payouts to select black people will inevitably divide winners and losers and raise questions about why American Indians and others aren’t getting their own benefits.
Activists want Georgian lawmakers to greenlight a commission to draft a slavery compensation package
While reparations are popular among black Americans, the other groups that would have to pay the tax bill are less eager.
A survey last year of 6,000 registered voters in California found that only 23 percent were in favor of cash reparations, while 59 percent were opposed.
The reparations movement gained steam during the Black Lives Matter protests following the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, in May 2020.
Four years later, the programs have largely failed to deliver meaningful results.
Supervisors in San Francisco this week formally apologized to African Americans and their descendants for the city’s role in perpetuating racism and discrimination.
Plans for a lump sum of $5 million in cash and guaranteed incomes of nearly $100,000 a year for black residents have not materialized.
Similarly, Black lawmakers in California this month unveiled a package of bills on reparations for Black residents that makes no mention of the $1.2 million payouts they were previously promised.