i'm w. kamau bell, and we're talking about reparations. no better place to do it than new orleans. we went to new orleans in november of 2019, months before the covid-19 pandemic spread across the united states and before the protests following the killing of george floyd at hands of police in minneapolis. even without those events you can clearly see how the effects of enslavement and all that followed continues with the black community of new orleans. and pandemic further exposed the

racial disparities, black folks getting covid-19 virus at much higher rate. if you don't see how that's tied to reparations, may need go back and watch everybody episode of "united states shades of america" to discover we're way past reparations. did you just get naked for beads? it's not even mardi gras. most people coming to new orleans come for this. music, party. weirdly colored drinks loaded with alcohol. but this isn't the whole story of new orleans. it's a big, vibrant city with a

lot of stories to tell. we're not here to talk about the parties. we're talking about reparations. you might want to fix yourself a stiff drink. ♪ as the race for 2020 starts to heat up, so is the debate over reparations for slavery. >> oh, it's coming, everybody. chris knows it. >> reparations for african-americans. >> representative jackson lee knows it. >> congress has the responsibility to do something. >> and lot of people who are

going to be president know it. >> it's time to start the national, full-blown conversation about reparations. >> i agree with what elizabeth is saying. >> of course you do, bernie. reparations ain't exactly coming yet, but it looks like the united states is finally ready to have the discussion about talking about reparations. reparations, meaning that the united states would pay back black folks for all the free labor it got during slavery and all the damage done to the black community every day since. there's no better place to have that conversation than new orleans. there's no city in the country that combines the best of america's blackness, pain of american's racism, and pain of watching white folks exercising all of their rights. i've been coming to new orleans since i was a kid. vacationed with my family here. i know the city and its history.

as much as it's been identified as party city, can turn a corner and feel like you walked smack dab into the antebellum south. don't believe me? was hosting reenactment of a slavery rebellion. i think reenactment. black folks look serious. rebellion happened in 1811, i don't have to tuell you it wasnt successful, we all know slavery didn't end in 1811. dred scott came up with the idea. >> i'm dressing up as self-liberated person to fight to emancipate everybody else. >> came here to pay homage to our ancestors. >> dressing up, was that easy decision to make? >> it's emotional, but i feel like what do i have to cry about? they sacrificed so much for me, least i can do is pay them back.

singing the songs, chanting. >> choice as well. right? >> exhausting but we made it. >> they didn't give up, why should i? i was just walking and all of a sudden, tear starts coming up, what's going on. >> look, more tears. >> marched all over the city. you can see there's a lot of people here, powerful stuff. i also had a white guy who i think was hired to help. even at the rebellion reenactment, white people walk through the shot. even at the rebellion reenactment, white people walk

right -- and look, i don't want to spend too much time in the reparations episode talking about slavery but if we're going to talk about it, someone who recently changed the conversation. nikole hannah-jones, creator of the 1619 project. named after the year first 20 to 30 enslaved africans arrived in virginia only to find out how much worse things can get. unvarnished look into the legacy of american slavery told through essays, pictures, poems and much more. >> amazing thing about this country, past matters only in the way we want it to matter. can't say the declaration of independence still matters or constitution does but 1619 doesn't, slavery doesn't, jim crow doesn't. we can't pick the things that define who we are as americans

if they're good, and ignore things that also define as the americans if they're bad. that's whole purpose of the 1619 project not to tell history but answer the most common question that black people get. slavery was a long time ago, why don't you get over it. >> from the moment of the emancipation proclamation and 13th amendment, america was working hard to get black folks close to slavery as possible, put them in jail, take away rights to vote and still don't have to pay living wage. going to make your schools so bad you don't learn at same rate. >> you have the right to read but not ability to be taught to read. so many aspects of modern american life can be traced back to slavery and anti-black racism. we can't be liberated from the legacy if we don't acknowledge

the role that legacy plays right now. to me reparations has to be three pronged. recommitment to strong enforcement of civil rights laws, because you can get economic payment but we know that black people still face discrimination in every aspect of american society, housing market, job market, criminal justice. and then i think there needs to be a really large investment of resources into the black communities that have had that wealth extracted an been denied the ability to live like other americans. and i think anyone arguing for reparations that is not arguing for cash payment is basically racist. >> i like that. flat. i thought you were going to soft pedal something. >> it's only when it comes to black folks we're so concerned how people are going to spend -- >> i don't know if they know how to spend that money responsibly. >> exactly.

i say this half jokingly. if i wanted to spend my reparations on all gucci, that's my right. >> and we're very clear in this litigious society. if you hit me with my car and i can't go to work, i want work money and you hurt my feelings money. >> you made me suffer unnecessarily. >> may be way bigger than the actual money owed. we get that in everything except -- >> racism makes you illogical. all of a sudden all the concepts of law and morality we understand everywhere else, comes to black folks, hell no, no no, no. i don't get. it why should i have to pay you? i never owned slaves. you didn't have to. if you can inherit wealth, which we all understand, you also inherit debt.

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and coastal mississippi. >> the largest national disaster in american history. >> some of you are thinking, katrina? i thought this was about slavery reparations. well, the government's lackluster response after katrina is still about reparations. it was definitely lackluster. no matter what president bush told the head of fema. >> brownie, you're doing a heck of a job. >> even though the seventh ward which at the time was a black working class neighborhood, might not be the first area you think of when you think of katrina, it has a katrina story to tell. this is the activist who grew up here. >> yeah. i deal with stuff like this. >> you'll forgive him if he doesn't seem all that impressed with me. he's done it before with better company. most notably, with spike lee in

his film, when the levees broke. >> i like interviewing here because the new orleans you see now is not the new orleans i grew up in. if you look at this area here, prior to katrina, this whole area was a public housing development. >> all of this was public house. >> when the storm came, we got very little water. but they declared a national emergency. came with guns and state police and they're lining busses on that interstate as far as the eye can see. told you to get on the bus. you didn't even know where you was going. so they put all the poor people out. >> and many of those people found out they weren't ever going to be able to go back home because the city tore down their affordable housing and did not rebuild it. >> it ain't right. >> right now!

>> what is this now? >> that's private now. >> not public -- some developer got it. do some people live back there? >> you can live back there if you have money. the government said they wanted new orleans to be more affluent. and the way to do that was, to get rid of poor people. >> now with 100,000 fewer black people live in the city than in 2000. >> people think katrina was a national disaster. in new orleans, katrina was a man-made disaster. it was a natural event that men turned into a disaster for black folk. >> in his analysis, the seventh ward evacuation and the tearing down of the public housing in an area that barely got any water was an effort to push black people out of neighborhood is not the official line of local government. but? >> today we made a unified decision to move forward every citizen has a right to return to

the city. >> unified? i'm pretty sure a lot of new orleans folk wouldn't describe it as unified. when they were ready to go home, their home was gone and the city wouldn't build new ones. unified. so in new orleans, you can see the legacy of slavery through neighborhoods like this and through the response of katrina. to me, the link to slavery is so clear here. >> it's a good modern example of how ruthless people with money and power can be when it comes down to making sure they stay on top and we stay on the bottom. >> what is this? >> that's my elementary school i went to. >> wow. >> yeah, you've got a lot of these spots in new orleans where you're pointing at something totally empty. what's that? that's where i used to go to school. >> and now it's nothing. >> now it's nothing.

>> when was it torn down? >> after katrina. >> they just felt like -- i guess after you take away all that housing -- >> ain't no more people. >> no kids to go here. >> everything was anchored by public housing. so you want to change the scope of new orleans, the first thing you've got to do is get rid of poor people. so when they tore down public housing, they made the first step toward redefining the whole essence of new orleans. >> if i was to give you the power to repair all this, give reparations, whatever space magic you need, the reparations wand, what would you do? >> i think the debt to black folk is so high. we would break america. like martin luther king said, they wrote us a check but it's -- >> insufficient funds.

>> right. when we talk about the concepts of reparations, then we have to talk about how we'll go after reparations. >> yeah. >> it's got to be more than us asking the congress, us trying to go through the courts. you have to build a people's movement that's so powerful, you shake the roots of america. people say they want you to be peaceful and nonviolent. i might be nonviolent but i ain't going to goddamn be peaceful. you can forget about that. peace is a weapon of those in power. we've got to take everything we want. so i'm going to stop here because i'm drooling. got to be an hour now? right? >> you said enough. >> you all enjoy yourself. >> are you good? okay.

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every black neighborhood had or has a store like this. community book center, gathering space, a hub for activism and a place to talk shit. >> there is a lot of angst, a lot of anger, a lot of hurt. not just financial but a lot of folks, especially elders, that passed after the storm.

people say, well, they died from heartbreak. i really believe it was exacerbated by the situation. >> the lack of response. >> we're adjusting to new orleans. >> i see you over there listening. ear hustling. >> i am. this is my spot. >> if you will step into this. >> all that's been said is affecting not just the physical body but the spiritual body. that's why coming here matters. we have some of the most amazing conversations here. mama jennifer is like my other side. >> okay. hi, kamau, how are you doing? oh, thank you very much. thank you, thank you. if anyone wants to join us at the table, what is your role here? >> you know what? i haven't the foggiest idea. what my role is? >> yeah, that's it. >> this is a classic black book store conversation. fast moving. dropping knowledge or pretense.

whether you can keep up or not, believe me, it is all about reparations. that's pretty much what every conversation in a store like this is. >> this is a poor state, a slave state. >> yes. said it is a slave state. not was a slave state. >> yes. >> let me be very clear present tense. >> look at the. at a situation, the gentrification, when people move in, they change the tax base so people can't pay new taxes so they have to leave their community that they've been a part of for generations. >> and then people that i was so used to seeing in the streets, i might see them at the grocery store, where you been? and they say i couldn't afford my house anymore. >> some neighborhoods are currently seeing up to 300% increases in property value. many long time residents can't afford the taxes that come with this increase so they're forced to sell and move. just another way that lower income people get pushed out of neighborhoods they've lived in for generations.

damn. so here's my question, if i give you the magic reparations wand and you can wave it and make it all happen, what do you do? >> build my community more. i would love to have more mom and pop. >> reparations is like a future thing, it is like you want reparations to repair the black communities to where they were. every black neighborhood had its own downtown section with black-owned businesses that served the community. >> can i jump in? >> of course you can, brother. this is a conversation version of a new orleans jazz jam session. people come and go, the conversation changes but the music keeps going. >> when black folk had communities and they were thriving, policies and programs were implemented so that was destroyed. so our component of it has got to include policies and procedures and equitable or fair treatment. in order to get to that, everybody's got to sit at the

table. black, white, yellow, brown, woman, man -- >> is that a chair being pulled out? >> somebody coming. >> when you put that together, everybody there, black people, white people. do we have to put the orange guy at the table? >> for me he has to be there. >> you know, that's why we have the space. so we can discuss that. >> yes. >> is there things you feel you haven't heard or you feel specifically you want? >> i would invest toward eliminating the current school system that has 100% charter schools. >> all the public schools are charter schools? >> every last one of them and that's by design. >> louisiana's recovery school district, r.s.d., was created after hurricane katrina and tasked with improving standards at schools across the state. their solution, close down every traditional public school and replace them with public charter schools. today, 100% of the new orleans

public school students to go charter schools and they're often a long commute away from home. what in the name of john oliver is happening! >> and the other weakness of not having neighborhood schools. children get up at 5:30, 6:00 in the morning, to be at the bus stop to get to school that starts at 8:00. if the bus doesn't pick them up, the parent has to find a way to get them to school. if the child doesn't have way to go to school, they begin this other decline because they've been displaced out of the education process. >> as a child, i walked to school. i passed all the neighborhood businesses. the corner grocery stores, the barber shop, the pharmacy, all of these places were owned and operated by people that looked like me. so my role models for entrepreneurship was rooted

right there in my own community. >> you take that away, you're dividing community. >> children don't have a sense of place in community anymore. >> believe me, if those black folks were running this country, we would all be in a better place. move the white house to a community black center. mama jennifer, 2020. i shouldn't have to tell you who this is. branford is a grammy award winning jazz musician. his family is new orleans royalty. no matter how successful they get, they always come back to new orleans. when katrina hit, he and other new orleans musics didn't wait for the government. they saw the ninth ward under 20 feet of water and got to work. >> harry connick and i got together with habitat for humanity and decided to use this particular neighborhood to build a lot of homes. it's going to be about 70

houses, about ten elder friendly duplex apartments. we use it as a home for musicians. it is hard to get a house when you are living in the gig economy. >> by gig economy, he means the old school gig economy. musicians playing gigs. the heart of the village is the ellis marcelus center for music. >> i'm proud that the school serves the community. everybody. what's that? he's blind, one kid in there with down's syndrome. and i have an autistic brother so it is great that there is a place they can go. >> a place for the community. that's beautiful. >> and we're not trying to train musicians here. we're trying to use the discipline of music to help these kids get a grasp on understanding general concepts to succeed in whatever they want to do. >> he also has diy approach to reparations.

>> i believe you have onerous laws, we can spend our time protesting the law or work to nullify the law. all of these states are fearful of minority votes now. shutting down polling stations and creating all these onerous situations. >> this goes back to what me and nikole were talking about. when black folks were enslaved, we weren't allowed to vote. as soon as we were not enslaved, the united states worked to stop us from voting, from literacy tests to poll taxes to gutting the voting rights act in 2013 and more. >> they realize in the north carolina, the majority of black citizens vote after church on sundays. so they made, first it was, well, early voting except on sundays. they're trying to win, man. they're scared to death. >> you said you believe in action. instead of spending time talking about maybe thinking about the reparations thing, just get out and do something. >> i believe in that.

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we embody that deep rooted history within our city. it took this pandemic for us to get uncomfortable, to pivot. but we've risen to the occasion. i love to say that we have survived the great depression.

we have survived the recession and we are survivors.

i couldn't think about talking about the current discussion of reparations without talking about the group american descendants of slavery or ados. much of the talk of reparations

i've seen online has come from their hashtag. ados isn't trying to have a kumbaya discussion. as she lets you know in her show "breaking brown." >> an individual experience of racism in this country is not the same. i don't want to see another black face in the white house. especially if you're not advocating for me. open the borders. they're killing us anyway. and you want my vote? oh, honey, no. >> i haven't been this nervous for an interview since, well, there has been a lot. when we first started putting this show together, your name came up. when we talk about reparations, not all black people think the same. >> i always say, we're not on the same page in terms of what we think about reparations. i think you have to decide who is in and who is out. you have to decide, who is included when you do reparations. that is the people who bear the cost.

the discredit the descendents of chattel slavery. slavery in this country. so there has to be some economic redistribution to american descendants of slavery. that got me in trouble. you have to decide. >> if you're somebody whose family emigrated from the caribbean in 1900, you've been here 120 years. on some level, you've experienced america's policies against american descendants of slaves even if your family did not participate. i feel like your race is often determined by what the police think you are when they pull you over. >> it's not just about experiencing racism. it is about who built the country and who has been bottom casted. there wouldn't be an america without slaves and we are the descendents of those slaves. we have black movements, for

all. it is reparations that is the american descendants of slavery. >> they've drawn a lot of criticism. they've been called out for online harass many by many people including msnbc's joe reid. and members of the group have been accused of publicly disclosing personal information. >> ados is a very confrontational, we invited people on the show. who were like, if yvette is there, i can't be there. you know what i mean? >> oh! >> and i'm like, wait, should i be there? there is a sense of, if people are not down with ados, especially black people, then they might come for you. >> why not be down with us? >> i'm laughing because it sounds like an offer you can't refuse. >> it's not like we're a radical group. we're demanding reparations and black agenda. it's not just reparations but black agenda as well. why wouldn't you be down with us? >> it includes being anti-immigrant. >> i didn't mean to say -- >> i get it. i knew i would bring up

something you've heard before. >> we've seen immigration studies. they say immigrants don't impact american employees. then you will see one and it will say except for those people who don't have degrees and it will say a lot of those people are black people. unskilled. well, they'll concede that it does impact black men. the only thing we've said is we have to get serious about what this country should look like, immigration levels, how it should impact communities. which is our community. black men is our community. so we have said that you have to have a serious conversation about that. you can't just say i want open borders and everybody gets to come. countries have borders. it is just what it is. you have to have an adult conversation about that. >> what is ados's plan for outlook for reparations? what's the strategy? >> first we have to rewrite hr 40 and put with it money. dollar amount.

>> starting in 1989, congressman john conyers jr. would reintroduce legislation seeking to establish a commission to study reparations. after he left congress, representative sheila jackson lee took over saying, can we talk about reparations? so far the answer from america has been, no. >> you have to come to me with the same plans you come to every other group with, with a budget. i think this election year is good way to hold candidates accountable. >> a lot of the critique has been, ados is telling black people not to vote. if black people don't vote, we end up with four more years of trump. >> if everybody has to live with it another four years because we don't come out in droves who won't do anything specifically for us, that's not our fault. trump is not my reparations. we haven't encouraged anybody to stay at home but we have encouraged democratic down

ballot. vote for democrats but top of the ticket gets no love unless you come to us and say we have a reparations plan which includes financial outlays of money. we have a budget attached to this. that's what we're pushing for. these days, choosing the right medicare plan matters more than ever. unitedhealthcare medicare advantage plans have so much to take advantage of. see a doctor from the comfort and safety of home with zero copay. call today to get more of the care you need. with zero copay. think you need to buy expensive skincare products [♪] to see dramatic results?

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i know some of you are sitting at home going, why would we do reparations, the united states has never -- slow down. yes, we have. after world war ii, congress came up with the indian claims commission. its goal was to pay to federally recognized tribes whose lands had been taken by the u.s. government. according to the "new york times," the government paid out about $1.3 billion, that came to less than $1,000 for each indigenous person. not good. in 2015 the city of chicago gave $5.5 million in what it called reparations to 57 people. most of them black. who had been victims of torture by the chicago police department. in 1990 japanese americans for internment camps in world war ii for no good reason were awarded $20,000 each in reparations. more than 80,000 people claimed

them for a total of $1.6 billion. so my awkward question is, if formerly interned japanese-americans got over a billion dollars for over four years of imprisonment, how much should black folks get for 1619 until right about now? you know, this episode is about reparations and the u.s.' debt to african-americans. i need somebody who can speak to hard cold facts. can also talk about systemic oppression. maybe even come up with a culture that has dealt with that. i said we need a german. >> we have our baggage. >> reporter: thomas kramer is a professor of public policy at the university of connecticut, where he investigates the psychology of race. >> i was always interested about race relations and racial attitudes, merely because of growing up in germany and learning about the holocaust in every school subject. >> what kind of payments were holocaust survivors given? >> the reparations between west germany and israel had multiple components.

some were payments to the state of israel for rehousing refugees after the war. and it was also helping the israeli economy to get restarted. germany would pass reparations to individual survivors of the holocaust. it was a symbol that germany meant what it was saying. that it was trying to change its ways. even though only symbolically because no pension can make up for your entire family being wiped out and your own suffering. >> with all that knowledge, he has a pretty different view of american history than most white americans. >> when i first came to the united states, i immediately felt responsible for slavery as well as a white american for the simple reason that slave labor laid the groundwork for the great american economic success, and i benefit from that success. >> okay. you've heard a lot of talk so

far. ultimately, reparations is about a number. how much money does the united states of america owe black folks? sit down. it's a big number. >> using the closest i could find to an estimate, what a slave would have charged at the time for one hour of work. that's like 11 cents an hour. some crazy -- talking about minimum wages. >> he then figured out how many hour all enslaved africans, men, women and yes, children, worked in the united states until 1865 when slavery was officially abolished. he multiplied the time they worked by 11 cents an hour and then a compounding interest rate of 3% per year to make up for inflation. >> you get a whopping number. $19 trillion. roughly the size of one year's worth of the u.s. gdp. a huge number. and very conservative. >> it's a big number. but remember, that just gets us

to the end of slavery. reparations is also about all the awful things the u.s. did to black folks after slavery. while this is a huge sounding number, it is the type of huge number the united states deals in. it ain't impossible. and the united states has actually already given reparations for slavery. yep! >> when slavery was abolished, america paid reparations to slave owners in washington, d.c., like $300 per slave. i'm sure that was a substantial amount of money at the time. and it just boggles the mind that was actually done. we actually paid up. >> our slavery reparations went to the owners. oh, my god. hold on why i scream into a pillow.

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in 1838, 272 enslaved africans were sold by the jesuits in order to save george town university from financial ruin. today i am visiting carol harper royal. part of a group that has become known as the gu 272. she regularly hosts gatherings at her house to foster connection between the family. >> i should have brought something. hi. hi, kamau. nice to meet you. i'm not even in, yet. >> this is our cousin dotey

arnold. and cousin the man of the house. we got two more cousins over here. they're deep in conversation. >> no, no, they probably trying to figure out how they related. now, we going to put some grits in the thing. i hope you hungry. >> i am. i am. southern cheese grits. i'm in heaven. and it's heart healthy, right? >> saturdays don't count. >> thank you, guys, for coming. y'all want to say a little grace? >> father god, we come to you with heads bowed and hearts humbled. thanking you, lord, for this assembly. thank you for this and for karen who's allowed us to come together. karen, it looks like you put

your feoot in it. >> i put both feet in it. >> well, yeah, we been best friends since like '71. >> but yeah i just love francis. >> so you two haven't met, until today? >> right. this is our first time. >> so nobody here knows each other. >> we all know karen. >> okay. >> if that helps. >> okay. well, i know karen because i met her about ten minutes ago. so we all in the same spot. >> i believe that, probably, everybody in the room here has some kind of connection. >> i mean, these family trees are pretty knotty. >> they're tangled roots. >> yeah. yeah. >> you know, because the descendants of those ancestors run deep in louisiana. and some of the cousins in maryland didn't know anything about the migration, forced migration, to louisiana. and they started doing dna tests. sheryl's from maryland. wasn't it you who said you saw this group of people you were related to in louisiana.

you didn't know how or why? >> exactly. i had my dna. in d.c., maryland, virginia, being like a -- i got that. i understood that. but then, there were dots here, in louisiana. and i was like, well, how did they get down there? and then, when they made the section to georgetown university and how all that took place. because i had gone to georgetown university. and had i known, sitting in those classrooms, the connection and that the doors were still open because my relatives had been sold. and it was just surreal. i'm going to always feel some kind of way about that. >> in 2019, an effort led by students at georgetown university resulted in the school committing to raising $400,000, annually, for the descendants of the 272. the descendants, led by karen,

wanted to be included in the conversation about how many money should how many money should be used. >> i thought we got to do something. we created what we call the descendants declaration. we go there for their announcement. they do their really beautiful presentation. >> we must acknowledge that georgetown university participated in the institution of slavery. >> and then, they pass around the mic for q and a. >> they should'n't have done that. >> so, instead of just sitting there asking the question, we all stood up and went to the front of the auditorium. and then, i read the declaration. >> from the legacy of slavery. >> people thought that we were part of the program. but we just kind of made ourselves a part of the program because that's your house. >> yeah. >> you know? that's our house. >> that's the history of black folks in this country. we got to make ourselves part of the program. >> but again, even this group,

which is bonded by a lot, has different ideas of what reparations should be. >> am -- am i on instagram live right now? >> i don't do any social media, at all. >> she'll give it to you, too. >> that's funny. that is too funny. >> i think that a lot of time, money, interest, and support, needs to be put into the medical arena for black people. so we can have more doctors to go to, moving forward. and thank you. >> the prison system is just modern-day slavery. like, we seriously have to address that. like, the whole system has to be re-evaluated and redesigned for equity. >> i don't think we will ever be able to move forward, until we

can educate people why this is their responsibility, even though it happened way before they existed. we will never be a successful country, really successful, until we both can look at the problem. and see that there's some damage that has been -- maybe, we can never repair but, at least, we have to try. >> so, what should reparations look like? the answer is yes, all of it. better schools. better housing. better protections, under the law. gucci bags. actually granting us the same rights and privileges as your average, white tourist on bourbon street. so, you, out there right now, if you are afraid of the conversation, don't be scared. just sit down. it's time to have it.

we've got a seat for you at the table. right next to the orange guy. that seat's always open. hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here, in the united states, and from all around the world. you are watching cnn "newsroom," and i'm rosemary church. just ahead, vacation over, amid fears of delayed ballots in the november election. nancy pelosi calls u.s. lawmakers back to washington to try to block postal service changes. just hours before the start of the democratic national convention, the race for president is tightening between donald trump and challenger, joe biden. and a massive demonstration in belarus. thousands angry,