cam howard. cam howard is a reparations expert. who has been fighting for decades to get reparations for black americans. he has addressed the united nations and has traveled the world presenting the case for reparations for african americans. he is an administrator for encobra, the national coalition of blacks for reperations in america. thanks so much for being with us, do you think the black americans should get reparations, and if so why? i certainly believe that blacks in this country. should get reparations and it's primary because of two reasons, one uh, there's never been justice and fairness, in any large measure, for african americans, people of africans in this countries, you know we came here as stolen kidnapps uh, people from the continent of africa to uh slave in the cotton fields and tobacco fields and rice fields uh in america and then later in uh some of the factories uh, during the industrial age, um, the tremendous amount of of crimes were committed against us during the period

cam howard. well, we're going to take a look at few instances that have taken a place over the years and and why african-americans are demanding reparations. slavery launched modern capitalism and actually turned the united states into the wealthiest country in the world, looking at this cotton production. i mean, by the 1830, 77% of us cotton was used for the british textile industry. and look at that, 2.25 billion pounds of cotton in 1859, and you know the cotton actually built new york city as a commercial and financial center, and if you look at the whole worth after the outbreak of of the civil war, and the values of slaves, $3 billion dollars, 48% of total wealth in the south in 1860s, so very valuable commodity, the... emancipation though of african-americans did not bring about any type of economic freedom, there were continual policies to make sure that they never got their rights, starting off of course with not getting the 40 acres in a mule, however the slave owners in the south, they

howard: she certainly didn't take any opportunity to condemn it. nikole hannah-jones says this is not really about anti-semitism, this is to further their propaganda cam equity. he's the sound bite. here's the sound bite. >> it's laughable to think that the first ever black woman following that unbroken line of white racial quotas is the one who's unquaffed. -- unqualified. howard: so she's playing the race card? >> well, i think other people are. bill ackman, who has become a twitter sensation over this issue, a hem funder with ties -- hedge funder, said that harvard's decision to retain claudine gay was reflective of sort of insular ivory tower protectionism. offing, claudine gay is a historic figure in harvard's history, the first black woman president. so i think arguably while i'm not in agreement with everything else nikole hannah-jones said, i think, arguably, it's a reaction to that kind of talking point. howard: well, i don't think nicole used any bones about it. she used words like race and first black president. one thing that got a huge amount of attention was this "saturday night live" skit that that made republican elise stefanik the iss