Descendants of slaves accuse companies of genocide

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Descendants of slaves, frustrated that courts have blocked their claims for reparations, are using a novel legal argument in a lawsuit filed Monday against companies they say profited from slavery. The eight plaintiffs accuse Lloyd's of London, FleetBoston (FBF) and R.J. Reynolds (RJR) of committing genocide against their ancestors and obliterating the ethnic identity of African-Americans descended from slaves. ...
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Ogletree Vows To Continue Lawsuit

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Climenko Professor of Law Charles J. Ogletree vowed yesterday to forge ahead with a suit seeking reparations for survivors of the 1921 Tulsa, Okla., race riots, five days after a federal judge threw the suit out of court. In an interview with The Crimson yesterday, Ogletree?who assembled the Tulsa plaintiffs? star-studded legal team?predicted that the survivors would prevail at the appellate court level. ...
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Lehman Brothers Admits Past Slavery Ties

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Lehman Brothers has become the first contractor with the city of Chicago to acknowledge past ties to slavery under a law requiring the disclosure. An affidavit filed by the financial services firm said that the three brothers who founded the company bought at least one female slave, and "may have personally owned other slaves." In October 2002, the Chicago City Council passed a groundbreaking ordinance dictating that companies working with the city disclose whether they ever profited from slavery. ...
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Lehman Brothers Admits Profits from Slavery,Makes Insensitive Comments.

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The City Council champion of the slave reparations movement demanded Monday that Carole Brown apologize to African Americans or step down as CTA board chairwoman for "allowing herself to be used" to defend a financial services firm with past ties to slavery. Ald. Dorothy Tillman (3rd) said it's insensitive and insulting for Brown, senior vice president of Lehman Brothers , to suggest that "the Lehman Brothers in the 1850s is not the company that it is today." ...
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Condoleezza Rice Dismisses Reparations; Calls U.N. Conference- 'A Waste of Time'

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National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, one of the most prominent and influential blacks in the Bush administration, dismissed the idea Sunday of reparations to compensate the descendants of slaves. "Given the fact that there's plenty of blame to go around for slavery, plenty of blame to go around among African and Arab states, plenty of blame to go around among Western states -- I think we're better to look forward, not point fingers backward," Rice said on NBC's "Meet the Press." ...
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A DAMN SHAME: Bush Thinks Slaves Came to America for Freedom

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  • Originally published at Whitehouse.gov on 7/18/2003 [here]Link Via Radio Left [here]

  Is Bush really saying that slaves came here because of their belief in freedom?

Remarks by the President to Embassy Personnel
Leopold Sedar Senghor International Airport
Dakar, Senegal

THE PRESIDENT: I thank you all very much for coming out to say hello. Laura and I are honored to be here with you all. I'm also, as you could see, traveling with quite distinguished company -- our great Secretary of State Colin Powell is with us, as well. (Applause.) I want to thank Ambassador Roth and his wife, Carol, for their service to our country.

I'm here to thank our fellow citizens who are serving a great land. Thank you for your dedication and your love of country. I want to thank the foreign nationals who are helping our fellow citizens make sure the embassy runs so well. (Applause.)

This is an historic trip -- oh, there's the Ambassador. (Applause.) But we are so honored to start our trip to this continent here in Senegal. I had the opportunity to go out to Goree Island and talk about what slavery meant to America. It's very interesting when you think about it, the slaves who left here to go to America, because of their steadfast and their religion and their belief in freedom, helped change America. America is what it is today because of what went on in the past. Yet when I looked out over the sea, it reminded me that we've always got to keep history in mind. And one of the things that we've always got to know about America is that we love freedom, that we love people to be free, that freedom is God's gift to each and every individual. That's what we believe in our country.

I'm here to spread that message of freedom and peace. Where we see suffering, America will act. Where we find the hungry, we will act. We're here not only on a mission of mercy, we're also here on a mission of alliance. And I want to thank you all for helping make that come true.

May God bless you all. And may God continue to bless Senegal and America. Thank you all very much. (Applause.)

END

Chicago compels contractors to come clean on slave profits

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Chicago city council has passed an ordinance requiring companies doing business with it to disclose whether they ever profited from the slave trade. Its Slavery Era Disclosure Ordinance is a boost to the campaign to make reparations for slavery. It goes further than a Californian state law which requires insurance companies to disclose their connections with slavery: some sold policies to slaveholders which paid out if slaves died or escaped. ...
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