To understand how some American blacks perceive this nation, let me quote from a commentary written by Dorothy Benton Lewis, the co-chair of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, presented at its eleventh annual Reparations Conference held during June 2000.

"No, Columbus did not discover America. He was discovered on the shores of what people who did not call themselves Americans now call America, nor their homeland America: this new America was not founded on truth, justice, and Christian principles. It was founded on greed, genocide, conquest, and enslavement. No, America was not born a democracy. It was born a slaveocracy, with the invaders (not settlers or pioneers) living off the toil and misery of millions of Native peoples, and kidnapped Africans held in chains, branded and treated as beast of burden, mere chattel."

Ms. Lewis went on to say, "No, the founding fathers were not superior people. Perhaps they were superior criminals, having stolen a continent, and all its gold, oil, and other resources; killed millions of people while taking the land; kidnapped and enslaved millions more to work the land, lived off the fruits of stolen land and labor for 400 years, and protected their stolen property, white privilege, and terrorists behaviors with lies, laws, and recorded propaganda, called history, science and facts."

I have no idea where Ms. Lewis got her "facts", but they don't even begin to resemble those found in whole libraries of American history. She is not alone in her views. These views slander the lives of countless early Americans and the Founding Fathers of this nation. No one suggests that slavery is not part of our history, but Ms. Lewis conveniently forgets that the bloodiest Civil War in history was fought by white people in part to free the slaves.

Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat, has stated that "136 years after the abolishment of slavery, African-Americans still suffer the effects. Our government should apologize and then look at various strategies for compensation." On August 1st, Hugh Price, president of the National Urban League, told this civil rights group that the administration "should not dodge debate over whether the United States owes compensation to blacks because of slavery," calling for US representation at the UN conference.

The facts, in many respects, simply don't support the views of those calling for black reparations. In their book, "It's Getting Better All the Time", Stephen Moore and the late Julian L. Simon, noted that "In 1900 about 50 percent of Americans owned their own homes. By 1950 that number had risen to about 55 percent. Today about two-thirds of Americans own their own homes. Black home ownership has risen more rapidly; from just over 20 percent in 1900 to slightly more than 40 percent today. Almost as many poor Americans own their own homes today as all Americans did in 1900."

Think again if you perceive blacks as living in poverty. "Among the races, the greatest decline in poverty in recent decades has been for black Americans. In 1950 almost three of four black Americans lived in poverty. That rate declined to 40 percent in the 1960s and is today officially between 25 and 30 percent."

There is no reason for Americans, black or white, to buy into the reparations scam being bolstered by the likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Johnny Cochran. No single group is responsible for slavery in America. There could not have been slavery without the cooperation of the African tribes that sold blacks to the Danish, Dutch, British, French, Spanish, Portuguese and American slave traders.

Where will you find slavery today? Not in America! You will find it thriving in African nations such as the Sudan, Ghana (the homeland of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan) and elsewhere throughout that continent.

Perhaps we can best understand the agenda behind the call for black reparations if we examine the views of Mary Francis Berry, first appointed in 1980 as a member of the US Commission on Civil Rights by President Carter and named chairman by President Clinton in 1993.

In a book, "Long Memory: The Black Experience in America", co-authored with John Blessingame in 1982, Ms. Berry wrote "Blacks shared so many of the economic goals of the communists that many of them might be described as fellow travelers." Blacks, however, she wrote, "remained cool to the communists" because of "a massive barrage of propaganda from the American media" that denied them knowledge of Soviet Russia's "constitutional safeguard for minorities, the extent of the equality of opportunity, or the equal provision of social services to its citizens." We all know how free the Russians were under the grip of Stalinism.

Lift up the rock under which the call for black reparations rests and you will find pure, unadulterated Communism. You will find black organizations salivating at the thought of a financial windfall that would come from the pockets of people who never were slaves or slave owners. You will find black race-baiters seeking to maintain the victim mentality that truly enslaves too many American blacks today.

The Bush Administration must reject any participation in the forthcoming UN Conference and Americans, black and white, must reject the calls for reparations.

Tom DeWeese is the publisher/editor of The DeWeese Report, a monthly newsletter, and is president of the American Policy Center, an activist think tank. The Center maintains an Internet site at www.americanpolicy.org.

Published by permission.