Greetings on behalf of the N’COBRA Board of Directors and our National Female Co-chair, Kennis Henry. My name is Woullard Lett. I have had the honor of serving N’COBRA in a number of positions over the years, most recently in my role as National Male Co-chair. It is an honor and an unexpected opportunity for me to serve the organization in this capacity and offer a statement today. This event marks the 36th anniversary of N’COBRA’s founding. Much has changed since then and some things have remained the same.

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Some of what has changed you have already heard. I am sure others have shared how N’COBRA has been true to its mission and purpose of broadening the base of support for the, even then, longstanding reparations movement. A longstanding movement that existed but was not well known at the time of N’COBRA’s founding. Through its efforts to organize and mobilize all strata of the community of Black African descendants, the term “reparations” is now a common part of the political dialogue both within the community of African descent and the community-at-large.

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Some of what has changed you have heard on the street, in the media and even at the ballot box. The support for reparations for African chattel enslavement is probably at one of highest point in U.S. political history. While what may have seemed like a lone voice crying in the wilderness at its inception, N’COBRA’s demand for repair is echoing on the street, in city halls, state legislatures and continuing to be a topic of discussion at the national level. The proliferation of groups and initiatives that have sprung up under the banner of reparations makes N’COBRA’s vision of mobilizing all strata of the Black community a reality.

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We must acknowledge our achievements and celebrate our victories. But that does not mean claiming easy victories. It would be a lie if we said that all of the talk about reparations is really about reparations. Reparations means repair. It is not about remuneration for a broken labor contract. It is about the recreation of a human covenant. It requires that we address the dehumanization of the African personality in the European imagination. It requires us to match the remedy with the injury.

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Yet some things have remained the same. Too often, in too many conversations, reparations is limited to compensation. The old strategy of creating confusion by creating a distraction, a diversion, a half-measure that appeases without achieving the objective is not a new thing. Compensation may be necessary but by itself is insufficient to address the harms resulting from African Chattel enslavement. We are aware of the strategies used to imprison our sister, ancestral queen, Callie House, and to undermine the Hon. Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Misinformation, disinformation, mischaracterization and other strategies used in the past are still alive and in use today. Many interim measures may be appropriate or necessary but insufficient because Reparations requires full repair.

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Again, some things have remained the same. N’COBRA from its founding recognized that the reparations struggle was a human rights demand and much more than a civil rights issue. That meant that there was common cause with all African people who would struggle for reparations both domestically and internationally. In its founding documents, N’COBRA made the commitment to join with others in building an international reparations movement. The nativist tendencies within the U.S. reparations debate, often bound up in American exceptionalism, would have us to succumb to the classic Willie Lynch strategy of focusing on our different circumstances instead of our common condition to sow disunity and weaken the reparations movement both at home and abroad.

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We have seen similar efforts in the past, whether well-meaning and wrong-headed or nefarious and intentional like CoIntelpro or National Security Memorandum-46. The reparations struggle is a human rights struggle not a civil rights squabble. Reparations calls for African people to enjoy the inalienable rights endowed by our creator to all humanity. Nothing more than our due. Nothing less than Ubuntu.

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Finally, what has remained the same is that for reparations to be full repair it requires not only external repair and reparations in the form of resources, from outside our community, but also internal repair and reparations in the form of healing. There are some aspects of reparations that ONLY we can do for ourselves. Nobody can do them for us. Nobody can heal us. We must do that.

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We can’t afford to wait for somebody else to decide our well-being is important enough to take action. External reparations is repair. Internal reparations is healing. N’COBRA’s founding included the purpose of serving as a coordinating body within the reparations movement. The ongoing need for that, the healing of the African community personally and the reparations movement collectively, is another thing that has remained the same.

N’COBRA has faced challenges both internal and external and we are not here to lie about that. It has much to celebrate though the victories have not been easy.

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Our ongoing challenge is to identify and continually clarify our interests. Because we cannot afford permanent friends or permanent enemies but embrace and advocate for our permanent interests. We can’t afford to be like the trees who thought the axe was a friend because its handle was made of wood. We can’t afford to be like Yurugu who thinks they are exceptional and stand alone.

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As above, so below. We must adopt and incorporate the symbolism of the Andinkra twin crocodiles with the shared stomach. When you share a stomach, you don’t fight over food. We need to apply this in our personal reflections. We need to apply this in our interpersonal interactions. We need to apply this with other reparations organizations and actors.

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Let’s identify our friends and recognize our enemies. Let’s recommit to the mission identified 36 years ago in 1987. Let’s recognize that different conditions may require different strategies. Let’s acknowledge that different circumstances may need different tactics. But let’s continue to hold to the mission and purpose of N’COBRA as we have done in the past, as we are doing now, and as we move into the future. We still have work to do. But we also have much to celebrate. Thanks to you all for all that you have done and may do in the future.

Ubuntu. Asé. Ameen.