Amilcar Shabazz

Amilcar Shabazz is a professor in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massa-chusetts in Amherst. For more than 30 years, Shabazz has advocated for reparations for African Americans. 




AMHERST  — For over 30 years, Amilcar Shabazz has been on the frontlines in the fight for reparations to ease the hardship and struggles of Black people linked to the historical injustices of slavery and racism.

He believes much work remains.

While a number of communities in the state have  reparations projects under way, Shabazz sees a need for more efforts in smaller communities and at the state and federal levels. He believes a state reparations task force, similar to those in California  and  New York, must be appointed in Massachusetts.

“Massachusetts has been a leader in the country since 1776, when it stood up for in- dependence, freedom and justice,” said Shabazz, a professor in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “The state could be a place of justice like never before for today and the future.”

According to the National African American Reparations Commission, “reparatory justice” is the compensation and restoration of African American  communities harmed and victimized by historical crimes — including chattel slavery and segregation and their continuing legacies.

In February, the California Legislative Black Caucus introduced a 2024 Reparations Priority Bill Package that looks at how to create reparations policy.

In December, legislation formed the  New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies. This commission will examine the damage caused by slavery and racial discrimination in  New York and suggest reparations and remedies, according to a statement from the New York State Senate.

Shabazz notes that communities like Northampton and Amherst have reparations work under way. In  February 2023, the  Northampton City Council  approved  the creation of a commission to investigate racialized harms perpetrated against Black residents and workers in Northampton.

And since its creation in June 2021, Shabazz has been a part of the African Heritage Reparation Assembly of Amherst. That group issued  its final  160-page report, dedicat- ed to the memory of Demetria Shabazz, Shabazz’s wife, in September.

The recommendations include efforts in  Amherst to emphasize youth services, affordable housing and provide aid to Black-owned businesses and residents of African heritage who are descendants of those enslaved within Amherst. 

The report said  Amherst would need about $600 million to erase the racial wealth gap in Amherst.

Shabazz has focused on this issue for decades. He is the author of  an introduction  to the 1994 book “The Forty Acres Documents: What Did the United States Really Promise the People Freed from Slavery?” The work, coedited by Shabazz, Imari  and  Johnita Scott Obadele, is regarded as an early and important scholarly work on reparations.

Shabazz says about 90% of the 40 million Black people in Amer- ica can claim ancestry from slaves and are owed reparations.

“Understand that your Black skin is your evidence you are owed,” he said.

Defining reparations

Reparations are commonly seen as monetary payments to individuals over time, addressing injustices and disparities from systems that trace back to slavery.

During and after the Civil War, the federal government provided benefits from which formerly enslaved Africans were excluded, such as the Homestead Act.

Promises like “Special Field Orders  15,” also known as the “40-acres and a mule” policy, were not fulfilled, Shabazz says. Land meant to be distributed was given back to former slave-owners. The value of the land that did not reach Black families is believed to be worth $640 billion today.

Entire communities of Black people were displaced, Shabazz said. 

Discriminatory policies and practices acted as barriers to wealth-building opportunities for Black people during the Jim Crow-era. Black-owned proper- ties and businesses were burned in race riots, while others prof- ited and still benefit, Shabazz said.

“There are descendants who are still alive from the Black Wall Street Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma,” he said. That 1921 vigilante attack on a prosperous Black community left as many as 300 dead and leveled 35 city blocks, according to the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum.

“Where are the reparations?” Shabazz asked. “It is time to compensate for those injustices.”

In principle, he believes rep- arations should consider harm done in five areas: education, health, wealth, criminal justice and dignity. It will force policymakers to decide how much money can produce reform.

In Springfield, Shabazz says he is in discussions with leaders like Bishop  Talbert Swan II, president of the Greater Springfield NAACP, to advance discussion of reparations.

One example of reparations work in Springfield, Shabazz said, could involve supporting the operations of the Pan African Historical Museum USA, in addition to funding creation of an Underground Railroad Museum and Research Center. “It would be a symbolic thing,” he said.