Why reparations? The Destruction of the Noyes ​Academy

The total destruction of "The Noyes Academy", August 10, 1835, in Canaan, New Hampshire. When Enlightenment's flame was extinguished by bigotry, racism, and ignorance by a mob of mob white people.​ This incident didn't happen down in the deep south? This travesty of injustice happened in the north. It happened in New Hampshire where supposedly sensible white folks lived. Yet humanity and morality left that environment because the white residents of Canaan, New Hampshire didn't want black children to be educated in their town.

So they proceeded as a white mob to move the entire school building from its location to the swamp. 500 white men and 100 oxen completed the task of destroying the Noyes Academy on August 10, 1935. After the mob destroyed the school they then turned their attention to terrorizing the students. They launched cannon shells at the homes where the students were staying and physically threatened them with harm. The students had to run away from the town in darkness for their own safety.

Two of the students became instrumental leaders in the black struggle for the destruction of the institution of slavery, Henry Highland Garnet and Alexander Crummell. Even though efforts to rebuild the school were attempted. Three years later in 1838, The Noyes Academy was burned to the ground. The struggle for the right for an opportunity to get an equal education in this nation has always been a struggle for black Americans.

Why reparations, because for 400 years this nation has mistreated, abused, terrorized, murdered, disengaged, miseducated, and ignored black Americans, that's why.

Today, I celebrate the brilliance of Robert Brown Elliott who was one of the black congressmen during the period of Black Reconstruction. In 1874, Congressman Elliott spoke to the House of Representatives in our nation's capital appealing for the passage of the Civil Rights Bill of 1875. It was the last of the Black Reconstruction bills passed by the Republicans prior to the end of Reconstruction in 1877.

The bill was ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in 1881. This ruling basically ensured that Jim Crow would devastate black lives throughout this nation until 1964's passage of the Civil Rights Bill. The speech that was given by Congressman Elliott on January 6, 1874, was deemed by many including Federick Douglass as t[one of the most historic speeches given in the Halls of Congress. Today, I will read the entire speech in all of its glory.
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"What you give to one class you must give to all; what you deny to one class you shall deny to all, unless in the exercise of the common and universal police power of the state you find it needful to confer exclusive privileges on certain citizens, to be held and exercised still for the common good of all."

Robert Brown Elliott was born in Boston on August 11, 1842, and he died on August 9, 1884. Although Robert Elliott served in the House of Representative and had numerous other political appointments, he actually died a pauper in New Orleans, Louisana. That was a direct result of the fact that every right that he and others secured for black Americans were snatched from them as a result of Jim Crow laws enacted by southern and northern states throughout this nation.