The Black Manifesto

The Black Manifesto was a moral declaration for reparations read at the Riverside Church in New York in 1969. It was the product of an effort led by James Forman, who drafted a statement demanding reparations in the amount of $500 million (a dollar value of [Page 129]$15 per black man, woman, and child) as compensation for the past mistreatments and capitalist exploitation of 30,000,000 African people. The Black Manifesto outlined significant reasons why white Christian churches and Jewish synagogues should support the manifesto presented to and adopted by the National Black Economic Development Conference (NBEDC) in Detroit, Michigan, on April 26, 1969. Forman presented these demands to the general board meeting of the National Council of Churches (NCC) in New York City on Friday, May 2, 1969, and again by disrupting services at New York's Riverside Church on May 4, 1969. Using the NBEDC, Forman called for NCC financial support, claiming the church was part of the vast system of controls over black people and their minds and should pay reparations. Forman's presentation outlined and designated how the $500 million from the NCC would be spent to meet the following demands:

• 1.
  to use $200 million to establish a Southern Land Bank to aid black farmers evicted from their homes because they dared to defy white racist practices in this country
• 2.
  to establish four major publishing and printing industries in the United States to be funded with $10 million each. These publishing houses will be located in Detroit, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and New York to help generate capital for further cooperative investments in the black community, to provide jobs, and to alter the whitedominated control of the printing industry
• 3.
  to establish four of the most advanced scientific and futuristic television networks as an alternative to racist propaganda and to locate them in Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, and Washington, D.C. They will need to be funded by $10 million each
• 4.
  to establish a research center to provide reliable research on the problems faced by African people. This center will require no less than $30 million to be operational
• 5.
  to establish a training center for teaching black community stakeholders skills in community development, with a $10 million start-up fund
• 6.
  to use $10 million to develop a national welfare center to work with welfare recipients and workers
• 7.
  to use $20 million to establish the National Black Labor and Strike and Defense Fund to protect the rights of black workers and their families
• 8.
  to establish the International Black Appeal (IBA) to help produce additional capital for the establishment of cooperative businesses in the United States and in Africa, with a $20 million start-up fund
• 9.
  to establish a black university in the South with $130 million
• 10.
  to ensure that the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) allocate all unused funds to implement the demands of the Black Manifesto.

Forman, who linked the history of black enslavement to the history of white supremacy in religious institutions and the U.S. government, felt that The Black Manifesto represented the black community's collective response to years of white exploitation, degradation, and brutalization of African people worldwide. Forman and other NBEDC leaders designated the following as The Black Manifesto

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