You may have noticed that the Virgin Islands Reparations Movement is front and center again in the world press. Related to Bill No. 26-0089, originally introduced in the Senate by Senator Shawn-Michael Malone, an Associated Press story entitled "USVI activists push for slavery-era disclosures" has been published by Forbes.com, Yahoo Finance, Investors.com, MSN Money, CNBC, the BBC, and the Taiwan News. The subject of international attention, Bill No. 26-0089, which would require existing and new corporations in the territory to research their history to determine if any predecessor corporation existed which used forced labor or was involved in the trade of human chattel, was held in committee on June 29, 2005.
The issue is not new to legislators, nor is it unfamiliar to corporations. A Chicago ordinance requiring disclosure of slavery ties spurred JP Morgan Chase and Co. in 2005 to acknowledge that predecessor banks had links to the slave trade. Formerly employed by JP Morgan, it should also be noted that Governor John P. de Jongh, Jr. should have knowledge of these laws and their significance to communities and corporations.
In the Virgin Islands, the African-Caribbean Reparations and Resettlement Alliance (ACRRA) has lobbied the issue, but as the organization cannot bear the responsibility of enacting law, the responsibility rest squarely with the first branch of government to legislate slavery disclosure. We are disappointed that Senator Malone has disregarded slavery era disclosure now as unworthy of his endorsement after having initially introduced it more than 4 years ago. Alternatively, while Senator Terrence “Positive” Nelson has sought to rescue Bill No. 26-0089 in the 28th legislature, we think his efforts noble and demonstrative of great leadership; however, the people of the territory should know that the responsibility to legislate access to information that will provide key genealogical and cultural links and educate Virgin Islanders on their ethnic origins, and on their enslaved ancestors, rests with the U.S. Virgin Islands Legislature as in institution.
Considering that senators procured support to ratify unprecedented agreements with the world’s leading rum companies, it would be irresponsible for this same body to not similarly support disclosure by related companies and those having ties to slavery. In light of nearly 200 years of inhumanity and the systemic displacement of families on these shores, any lawmaker in the territory who would shun a slavery era disclosure law as insignificant is, in ACRRA’s view, disconnected from our humanity.
In the United States, legislation requiring corporations to research and disclose ties to slavery is law in states as conservative as Iowa and Wisconsin, in cities as liberal as San Francisco and Los Angeles, and in places as far north as Illinois and Michigan.
The matter of slavery era corporations’ disclosure has lingered in the Virgin Islands legislature far too long. In the year 2010, ACRRA will be looking not for Senator Nelson to bear this burden; rather, the organization will be urging the Legislature to address our humanity as an institution.
Editor’s note: Shelley Moorhead is the president of the Caribbean Institute for a New Humanity, Inc. and the founder of the African-Caribbean Reparations and Resettlement Alliance (ACRRA) initiative.
