A Letter to My White Friends and Colleagues

CHAPTER SIXWrite a Letter Supporting Reparations

White people should think of reparations as a poker game where somebody has been cheating…. If somebody said I've been cheating the whole game and now I'm going to stop cheating, wouldn't you want your money back?¹

I AM ASKING you to write a letter to your federal congressional representative demanding cash payments for reparations to Black Americans who are the descendants of Blacks enslaved from 1619 to 1865. This is a debt owed and past due.

We've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our Republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir…. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that bank of justice is bankrupt.²

These were the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from his famous “I Have a Dream” speech given at the March on Washington in 1963. Dr. King's effulgent use of the extended metaphor of a financial promissory note due to Black Americans was perfect. Like Dr. King, I believe the “bank of justice,” America's government, should pay the balance due on this promissory note. The payment should be in cash and equal to the amount needed to close the wealth gap between Blacks and Whites that is the direct consequence of slavery, Black codes, ...