A group of African American academics is pushing for a UN 'reparations tribunal' to make Washington pay multimillion dollar sums to black citizens for slavery-era abuses, DailyMail.com can reveal.
Justin Hansford, a professor at Howard University School of Law, led the charge for $5 million payouts to black Americans at the UN this week, flanked by colleagues from the University of Pittsburgh and Columbia University.
The long-shot effort underscores how reparation payouts are unpopular among white American taxpayers and have little chance of becoming federal law, leaving advocates scrambling for a workaround.
'I come to you today with a novel proposal, that we begin to think our own thoughts, propose our own vision of justice, and implement that justice,' Hansford told UN racial justice talks in New York City this week.
He called for a 'process of apology, and reparation — not on their terms, but on our terms.'
Hansford, a rising star of the critical race theory movement who draws on the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr, spoke at the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, a group that was created in 2021.
The 'special tribunal' was formally proposed by David Comissiong, representing Barbados, a Caribbean island state.
Hansford quickly endorsed the plan. He later told DailyMail.com that many African and Caribbean UN members were behind the scheme.
The US mission to the UN, which is headed by ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a Biden administration appointee who is black, does not officially support the tribunal.
But Hansford said US diplomats at the mission had been 'supportive overall.'
Poll Do you support a federal reparation policy directed at the descendants of slaves? Yes No
Thomas-Greenfield also spoke at the event, saying African-American families often lived in polluted neighborhoods. She grew up in Louisiana 'near so-called cancer alley,' she added.
'Let us dismantle structural racism, brick by brick,' said the career diplomat.
'Let's leave our children a cleaner, fairer, more just world.'
The UN General Assembly in 2005 created a five-point legal framework for reparations for victims of slavery and other abuses, which can lead to payouts, apologies, and demand policy changes.
But like much of the UN system, decisions are not legally binding, and it remains unclear whether a tribunal could do anything other than add some external pressure to buoy racial justice activists in the US.
Neither the US mission to the UN nor the UN's human rights team in Geneva, which oversees the permanent forum, immediately answered DailyMail.com's requests for comment.
In an interview, Hansford said a UN reparation tribunal was only one route to push the US federal government, as well as state and city officials, to address racial inequalities dating back to the slavery era.
Howard University gave legal advice to Evanston, Illinois, which in 2021 became the first US city to make reparations payments to black residents, with $25,000 grants to those affected by racist housing policies before 1969, he said.
Payouts to black Americans should be assessed case-by-case, said Hansford, a descendant of slaves in Forsyth, Georgia.
Howard Uni Prof demands creation of 'reparations tribunal' at UN He called for a 'process of apology, and reparation — not on their terms, but on our terms.'
Hansford, a rising star of the critical race theory movement who draws on the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr, spoke at the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, a group that was created in 2021.
The 'special tribunal' was formally proposed by David Comissiong, representing Barbados, a Caribbean island state.
Hansford quickly endorsed the plan. He later told DailyMail.com that many African and Caribbean UN members were behind the scheme.
The US mission to the UN, which is headed by ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a Biden administration appointee who is black, does not officially support the tribunal.
But Hansford said US diplomats at the mission had been 'supportive overall.'
By JAMES REINL
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