Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 2, 1994 TAG: 9403020025
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C5 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FREDERICKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Williams heads a new foundation aimed at building a national memorial to slaves. He also wants Congress to examine the sensitive issue of reparations to the descendants of former slaves.
Williams, who is black, is a federal employee who commutes to Washington from a subdivision in Stafford County. From his home, he directs the Committee on Reparations for African Americans.
According to records filed with the State Corporation Commission in Richmond, the committee was incorporated as a nonprofit group in Virginia in December.
The slave memorial would be a "symbolic tribute" that could go a long way toward healing racial tension, Williams said. He likens it to the salve the Vietnam Memorial wall has become for veterans like himself.
"At the wall, you see men who ordinarily you couldn't force a tear from just crumble. It inspires compassion, a love for fellow man," he said.
"Well, we want compassion for our ancestors whose lives were spent in bondage."
He applauds the new national museum chronicling the Holocaust. He thinks Japanese-Americans deserved the money President Reagan gave them to atone for the imprisonment of their relatives during World War II.
But Williams said he watched with despair as Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, was turned down three times on legislation that would have funded a committee to examine reparations to slaves' descendants.
Conyers has reintroduced the bill this year, said a spokesman for Conyers who asked that his name not be used.
The bill calls for a study of what form reparations could take and includes no request for money or an estimated dollar amount.
"Realistically, when you add up all the African-Americans in this country, that's a lot, or you'd have to give so little that it would be meaningless. But as Congressman Conyers has said, this bill sensitizes people to the issue," the spokesman said.
Williams has written to each member of the Black Caucus, to President Clinton, to Gov. George Allen and to former Gov. Douglas Wilder asking for support for a memorial.
"We have to get the grass roots excited about this issue," Williams said.
Opponents are excited, too, as evidenced by what Williams calls "fan mail."
Take, for instance, a letter Williams received recently:
"If you troublemakers/malcontents were offered a one-way ticket back to your famine-ridden, fly-infested homeland, would you take it? If not, please shut your whining mouths, try to get along in this land of opportunity like everybody else and move on in life. Have a Nice Day, Sincerely, W.T."
Williams said his group has 230 members, with a five-person governing board. Most members live in Norfolk and Richmond, from where he moved to Stafford last year.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.