Honor Martin Luther King Jr.'s ideals by paying reparations to African-Americans

EDITOR:
Martin Luther King Day honors the legacy of a man who recognized that manmade laws do not always coincide with God's laws. Multiple generations of human rights violations were levied against the African-American slaves prior to the Civil War and nearly a century of racial segregation and discrimination against the African-American community followed the Civil War.
Well, things seem to be finally changing. Youngstown elected its first African-American mayor and he seems to have unlimited political potential.
In 1990, Congress approved $20,000 reparation payments to victims of Japanese internment camps during World War II. Today, the ethnic grouping of African-Americans seems to have an open and shut case for reparation payments. This, too, will require an act of Congress in the form of federal legislation dictating just that. It seems to me a breech of responsibility by our nation's federal legislators that they have not yet done so.
Northeast Ohio has some interesting statistics in regard to inner-city poverty.
According to HUD's State of the Cities Data System for the year 2000, the poverty rate in Warren's inner city is approximately 20 percent, with a 25 percent African- American population. Youngstown's inner-city poverty rate is 25 percent with an African-American population of 44 percent and Cleveland's inner city poverty rate is 27 percent with an African American population of approximately 50 percent..
Reparation payments to African-Americans could work as a poverty reduction strategy, most likely reducing Youngstown's inner city poverty rate in half, to about 12.5 percent (which happens to be U.S. Census Bureau's national poverty rate in 2003).
The proposal and passage of federal legislation granting reparation payments to African-Americans would be integral to any U.S. domestic poverty reduction strategy. The amount of reparation payments are subject to arbitration, however I will set them at $100,000 to each African-American. That is an amount 5 times as much as what victims of Japanese internment camps received. The multi-generational human rights violation against African-American community is at least 5 times as wrong as the whole Japanese internment camp infraction.
Reparation payments will be spread over five years so as not to jeopardize economic stability.
The payments would be aimed at African-Americans less than 21 years of age. A prerequisite for receiving reparation money would be the attainment of a high school diploma or GED. Misconduct, suspensions and expulsions from school would result in reductions to the amount of reparations payable to African-Americans upon graduating from high school. All African-Americans born at the time this proposed legislation becomes law, would be eligible for reparation payments, as long as they graduate from high school or acquired a GED within 20 years of its inception date.
Where will the funds come from to pay for this poverty reduction plan? According to the 2000 U.S. Census report, there are approximately 35 million African-Americans. Paying them $100,000 each would require approximately $3.5 trillion. A possible funding mechanism would be placing a $1 per share reparation fee on all transactions of the New York Stock Exchange. With average trading volume exceeding 1 billion shares per day, this mechanism could easily generate over $5 billion per week or approximately $260 billion per year. In 14 years the entire $3.5 trillion would be available to fully fund the African-American reparation program.
This is an idea whose time has come. These payments would be treated as ordinary income, which would produce tax income at for federal, state and city treasuries across the country. They could create one of the strongest periods of stable economic growth our country has ever seen.
Michael Walsh
Youngstown