Former Georgia Congresswoman
McKinney delivered the following speech at Janes Memorial United
Methodist Church, in Philadelphia, November 6, two days
after Mayor John Street’s re-election victory. The event was
sponsored by the National
Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA), the Germantown Community Organization,
and other pro-reparations groups.
First of all I want
to thank Reverends Blanks and Hatcher for allowing us to have
this session here at Janes Memorial and to especially thank State
Representative John Myers and the organizations that helped to
sponsor this event.
Secondly, I'd like to thank all of the people of Philadelphia for their support
over the years.
You know that my political problems have been going on for a long time. In
1996, it was then-Councilman John Street and your Congressman who helped
the Philadelphia Freedom Riders come to Georgia to help me campaign when
the good ol' boys thought they could redistrict me out of office.
The good ol' boys in Georgia have been trying to get me for so long. And
they finally hit upon the solution, to use one of our own to do their dirty
work. And it worked.
So now they're celebrating because they think they've won.
They found a black woman Republican who is more loyal to them than to us;
encouraged her to run as a Democrat in the Democratic Primary, and then 48,000
Republicans crossed over and voted for her on Election Day.
In each of my previous uncontested primaries, I normally got about 48,000
votes. So the Republicans had it figured out just about exactly what
it would take to put my opponent on top.
Now, no one in Georgia had seen a crossover vote of such magnitude. Many
people thought no way would I have any trouble at all against a no name candidate
who was being funded by the Israel Lobby and Republicans. In fact,
many blacks in Atlanta knew that she only had her heralded judgeship because
I had filed a lawsuit against the state of Georgia protesting the dearth
of black judges elected from the highly gerrymandered to keep us out – judicial
circuits – of that day.
So, you could say, I shook the tree and she picked up the fruit.
And so today I'm supposed to talk about reparations and politics in the black
community and my experience just about says where we are in a nutshell.
We shake the tree – the activists in our community--and then the opportunists
come along and pick up the fruit.
And the question I ask you tonight, is how long will we allow that to continue?
How long will Ward Connerly, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and Clarence
Thomas be allowed to speak for us?
But the sad fact is that they are not the only ones; and their prominence
speaks volumes about politics now in the black community.
We are plagued by malevolent public policy being made in black face and these
people strut on the world stage and the world thinks that they represent
you, and me, and our children.
How can we give them the impunity to act in our name?
You might say, "oh no, they don't act in my name." And to
those who say that, let me say this.
Public silence is consent.
On December 3rd, 1964, Mario Savio, standing in front of the Berkeley arch
made famous by his Free Speech Movement said:
"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious,
makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively
take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels,
upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And
you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that
unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"
Now, I'm about 40 years late at Berkeley arch, but I read those words and
know that they're as true today as they were 40 years ago.
That there comes a time when we have to say no to the machine. Because
anything less is consent.
Well, for ten years in Congress, I put my entire body against the gears and
the wheels and the levers--against the entire apparatus of the machine. And
I tried to stop it.
I tried to warn the American people of the dangers that I saw emanating from
this Administration. But, just think about it: Katherine Harris,
Florida's
Secretary of State who participated in the illegal disfranchisement of innocent
black and Latino voters was rewarded with a Congressional seat and I was
taken out of one. Were it not for what happened here on Tuesday, I
would think that my experience is what's in store for black America. But
Philadelphia, you give me hope.
I would like to commend the reparations community for the tremendous organizing
that it has done all across the country--and globally. Now, actually,
the reparations movement is the true grassroots infrastructure for a much-needed,
top-to-bottom restructuring of black politics in America.
Our established freedom organizations increasingly don't organize and our
representatives in large measure increasingly fail to represent our struggle
for freedom.
Our leadership increasingly looks like it was ordained to look by the progenitors
of the Counter-Intelligence Program, COINTELPRO, against our community.
For it was in 1965 that the CIA inked its version of regime change for the
black community when it wrote:
". . . somewhere in the Negro movement, at the top, there must be a Negro
leader who is 'clean' who could step into the vacuum and chaos if Martin Luther
King were either exposed or assassinated." In other words, they were
going to pick the next black leader once Dr. King had been taken care of.
In 1968, one month before the murder of Dr. King, the FBI wrote:
"A final goal should be to prevent the long-range growth of militant black
organizations, especially among youth. Specific tactics to prevent these
groups from converting young people must be developed."
So I'm not surprised that Hip Hop rap degenerated to thug and gangsta glorification
in a music industry not owned by us or our children. Or that Tupac
threatened to march his six million fans to Capitol Hill to protest the conditions
in the ghetto. And don't forget, Tupac was no ordinary young, Hip Hop
singer; he was steeped in the black power movement by his Black Panther mother
and Republic of New Africa father figure.
In 1978, President Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski
wrote in NSC Memorandum #46 that it was US policy to promote "sharp
social stratification of the black population" including the promotion
of policies that would hinder reuniting them. In addition, it was US
policy "to support the nomination at federal and local levels of loyal
black public figures to elective offices, to government agencies and the
court. This would promote the achievement of a two fold purpose: first
it would be easier to control the activity of loyal black representatives
within existing institutions;" and second, the idea of an independent
black political party would be nixed.
So we shouldn't be surprised that many of us are disappointed by our black
leadership. That's the way it's supposed to be.
Regime change is nothing new. It's been done to us from the time of
FBI spying on Marcus Garvey in order to discredit him. So when John
Street joins the illustrious black leadership that has been spied upon by
the US government it means that he has not cowered before their might and
that he stood up like a proud black man.
Like Garvey, and Malcolm, and Martin.
And so, now you know. The best way to thwart the plan that they have
for us is for us to take a stand. And that's what you did on Tuesday.
Can you imagine, white men sitting around a table trying to figure out a
way to entrap Mayor Street. That's what happened. And you stopped
them.
Can you imagine a man in the Street Administration losing his job because
he wants to get more city contracts to black people in a town that's 50%
black. Well, as you know, that also happened. And the idea that
black people deserve some of the economic pie in Philadelphia is not dead
because on Tuesday, you took care of that.
And so our demand for reparations also got a boost on Tuesday. Because
you fought back.
Reparations, not only for the transatlantic slave trade, but also for the
Jim Crow trains and the segregated buses, for the poll taxes and the white
primaries, for 100 years of lynchings, and the white water fountains.
For the dogs and the water hoses, bombed out churches, and four dead little
black girls.
For all the so-called informants who made a buck by betraying black people
and helped pave the way for the current bumper crop of Uncle Toms and sell-outs
paraded before us, making a mockery of the civil rights movement. We
demand reparations.
For all the unarmed black men killed at the hands of rogue police.
For a black community terrorized by crack cocaine that didn't exist until
the CIA got involved with drug traffickers who helped fund its illegal war
against the Nicaraguan Sandinistas.
For all the blacks who are disproportionate--disproportionately in the military,
disproportionately poor, disproportionately sick or unemployed, or underemployed,
or undereducated.
For a criminal justice system that is criminal for its injustice.
For all the targeted black men who have been shut up or shut down merely
because they dared to speak about black power.
For all the countless victims of COINTELPRO, documented by the government
and for which no one has been punished.
For all this and more, we demand reparations.
On Tuesday, the people of Philadelphia made a gigantic stand against the
marginalization of our people. Now is not the time to celebrate, but
the time to get busy. Because just as sure as they came after the Mayor,
they will come again to defeat black ballot power in Philadelphia.
Don't give up. Don't give in. And most certainly don't give out…because
your leadership is needed all over America. You have become a
beacon signaling that we can overcome. With our vote.