PAY THE TAB: Reparations Now

In one of the most heinous acts of police violence against Black Americans, Philadelphia cops killed 11 people (including 5 kids) and left hundreds more homeless. But the case is mostly forgotten now. We get the inside scoop on the 1985 MOVE bombing - and why it’s relevant today with our bloated and growing police state. 

SHOW NOTES

Guest: Linn Washington Jr.

Linn Washington Jr. is an award-winning investigative journalist and professor at Temple University. His reporting focuses on the news media, social justice, race, and law. He also served as Special Assistant to the Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Linn is the leading authority on the Philadelphia Police Department’s bombing of the MOVE house on May 13, 1985. He was on the scene covering the tragedy.

MORE ABOUT MOVE:

• “MOVE: Untangling The Tragedy” (Linn’s great podcast series)
• The 1985 MOVE Massacre: When Cops Bombed Philadelphia (documentary)
• On A Move: Philadelphia's Notorious Bombing And A Native Son's Lifelong Battle For Justice  (book by Mike Africa Jr.)

TEACHING RESOURCES:

• "On A Move" High School Curriculum
• Zinn Education Project - Philadelphia Police Bomb MOVE
• Middle School Students Memorialized The MOVE Bombing

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

[4:29] Origins of MOVE and overview of May 13, 1985 bombing

[7:20] Brutal history of Philadelphia police and pushback from MOVE

[10:46] 1978 starvation blockade of MOVE compound resulted in shootout and nine MOVE members sentenced to prison for 30 to 100 years

[13:10] MOVE’s strategy to free incarcerated members

[17:37] Police Commissioner’s plan to bomb compound and let fire burn

[27:05] Middle school students’ discovery of bombing inspires marker commemorating deaths of children

[31:32] Importance of a free press to inform the public and serve as watchdog on government

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Harvard University used enslaved labor on its sugar plantations and reaped profits from the slave trade. Richard Cellini, the researcher it hired to identify its enslaved and their descendants, joins us. His team found far more than expected – and it got them fired! Our alma mater sits on a $57 billion endowment. How should it make amends?

SHOW NOTES

Guest: Richard Cellini

Richard Cellini is an attorney and leading scholar of the history of slavery and institutional accountability. He was founding Director of the Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program. He also founded the 10 Million Names Project to recover the names of enslaved Black Americans, and the Georgetown Memory Project.
 

FURTHER READING AND VIEWING:

Harvard Fired Researcher Who Found Too Many Slaves - The Guardian (2025)

Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities by Craig Wilder (2013)

Exclusion U (2023): Excellent documentary about Ivy League schools’ hoarding of endowments and lack of accountability in providing public benefit, despite tax-free status.

RICHARD CELLINI’S RELATED WORK:

Georgetown Memory Project

10 Million Names Project

HIGHLIGHTS OF EPISODE

[9:54] Richard Cellini tapped to lead Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program

[13:56] Richard breaks down the numbers of people enslaved by Harvard and their descendants

[22:55] Strong pushback from Harvard officials for “finding too many descendants”

[30:29] Entire team fired with no reasons given

[33:47] Harvard’s non-action and abandonment of project

[39:00] Richard tallies the number of enslaved people and descendants identified

[47:16] Adam and Tony discuss how Harvard could make real reparations

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Dr. King died for his commitment to radically transforming our country. With today’s brazen piracy by the billionaires and Black America under permanent siege, King’s goals have never been more timely. Cutting-edge truth-tellers Aaron Good and Bryce Greene join us to hash it out - and see what real reparations could look like.

SHOW NOTES

Aaron Good and Bryce Green links:

• Aaron's book American Exception: Empire and the Deep State
• Aaron's American Exception podcast
• Bryce's Substack newsletter
• "After The Uprising": podcast about mysterious deaths of Black Ferguson activists

More from Martin Luther King:

• Dr. King Making The Case For Reparations
• Dr. King's Poor People's Campaign
• Selected quotes:
  • “We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there ‘is’ such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”
  • “As my sufferings mounted, I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation — either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.”
  • “We must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil.”

Books by William Pepper on the King assassination: 

• Orders to Kill (1998)
• An Act of State (2003) 
• The Plot To Kill King (2018)

HIGHLIGHTS OF EPISODE

[8:43] Significance of King assassination today

[11:20] Connection between the assassination and case for reparations

[16:28] Lawsuit by King Family finding government plot to kill King

[22:52] King assassination as government subversion of democracy

[31:25] Role of media in deep government crimes

[42:51] Structural transformation needed for real reparations

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One of the most traumatic events for Black America in the last century was the murder of Martin Luther King. But who did it? We spotlight a little-known 1999 court case that blew away the bogus cover story, and exposed a grim reality: the plot to kill MLK was led by our own government. Facing this ugly truth is a key step towards reparations.

SHOW NOTES

Materials on the 1999 trial and investigation:

• The 13th Juror: The official transcript of the trial including all witnesses and testimony
• Riveting article by James Douglass who attended the trial
• Loyd Jowers’s Televised Confession (1993) 
• Books by William Pepper:
  • Orders to Kill (1998)
  • An Act of State (2003) 
  • The Plot To Kill King (2018)

Dr. King’s iconic speeches:

• "I Have A Dream" (August 28, 1963)
• "How Long? Not Long!" (March 25, 1965)
• "Beyond Vietnam - A Time To Break Silence" (April 4, 1967)
• “The Three Evils of Society”(August 31, 1967)
•  "We're Coming To Get Our Check" (March 1968)
•  "I've Been To The Mountaintop" (April 3, 1968)

Selected works by Dr. King:

• Letter From Birmingham Jail (April 16, 1963)
• Books by Dr. King

HIGHLIGHTS OF EPISODE

[5:56] Arc of Dr. King’s life and career

[11:21] “Three Evils” speech excerpt

[13:26] “We’re coming to get our check” speech excerpt 

[15:41] Socio-political climate of the late 1960s

[18:22] “Mountaintop” speech excerpt

[23:11] Pepper’s investigation 

[28:24] King Family’s lawsuit

[55:55] Historical impact of the assassination

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Meet Damario Solomon-Simmons, the leading reparations lawyer in the country. He led the Tulsa Race Massacre court battle that put reparations on the national radar. Damario gives advice and inspiration for creative change-making when the system is stacked against us. You’ll be fired up and ready to go! 

SHOW NOTES

Guest: Damario Solomon-Simmons
 

Damario Solomon-Simmons has been a civil rights attorney for almost 20 years. He leads the Justice for Greenwood Foundation, and co-founded the MVP Foundation. Damario has been featured on CNN, The View, Good Morning America, ABC News, ESPN, The New York Times, and more.

Some of Damario’s projects for Tulsa: 

Tulsa Race Massacre Lawsuit – The brilliant and riveting legal complaint that launched the historic court battle for reparations stemming from the Massacre.
 

Justice for Greenwood – Community-based Tulsa organization founded by Damario and fighting for justice and reparations for the Massacre. 
 

Greenwood Is Still Burning – New award-winning documentary that exposes the events of the Massacre and the ongoing legacy of harms it caused.
 

HIGHLIGHTS OF EPISODE

[9:05] Damario’s shock on learning of the Massacre

[14:07] Thriving Greenwood community

[17:27] The real catalysts of the Massacre 

[24:14] Major impacts of the lawsuit

[27:08] Key goals of lawsuit

[33:00] Reparatory justice in plain terms

[40:01] Damario’s motivations to fight for justice

[49:00] Relevance of the Massacre today

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What used to be called “science fiction” is now our daily reality. The fringe right is in power, bombarding us with the openly fascist Project 2025. A key tactic is snuffing out all talk about our racist and corrupt system. But this is no time to back down! Truth-telling is more critical than ever. Tony and Adam catch up on the latest - and how we can all fight back.

SHOW NOTES

Trump Administration Scare Tactics:

• “Dear Colleague” letter
  
  
• Anti-DEI Executive Order
  
  
• Law professors push back

Reparations in the News:

• Tulsa: City Announces Private Sector Reparations Proposal
  
  
• Stone Mountain, GA: Confederacy Group Sues To Block Truth-telling Exhibit 
  
  
• California: Legislative Black Caucus 2025 Priority Bill Package
  
  
• Maryland: Gov. Wes Moore Vetoes Reparations Study
  
  
• Washington: Washington State Undertakes Reparations Study

HIGHLIGHTS OF EPISODE 

[1:22]   The far-right's Project 2025

[5:57]   Trump Administration’s “Dear Colleague” letter and pushback

[10:30]   Tony on recent Georgia Confederacy group lawsuit 

[13:50]   Strategies for pushing back against the powers that be 

[14:52]   The importance of truth-telling

[16:58]   Current activity in the fight for reparations

[22:37]   The latest from Tony & Adam

[27:12]   Calls to action

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News flash: Slavery didn’t end after the Civil War. Thanks to the massive loophole of the 13th Amendment, it’s still going strong - in the form of forced prison labor all across America. We take you to Louisiana, the world’s incarceration leader. Local historian Eric Seiferth tells about Louisiana’s barbaric prison labor system, where inmates are forced to toil in the same fields worked by enslaved people over 150 years ago. We’re talking reparations? Let’s start by actually ending slavery in America!

SHOW NOTES

Guest: Eric Seiferth 

Eric Seiferth is a curator and historian with the Historic New Orleans Collection. His extensive research was instrumental in creating Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration, an exhibit examining the roots of Louisiana’s dubious distinction as the incarceration capital of the world.

More on Louisiana's slave labor system:

• Promise of Justice Initiative – New Orleans-based group fighting to stop enslaved labor and other atrocities of the Prison Industrial Complex.
  
  
• Derrick Fruga's Return Home - Short film about formerly incarcerated man whose nearly two decades of forced labor earned him just enough money to buy his mother a bouquet of flowers.
  
  
• Visiting Room Project – Website lets you sit face-to-face with people serving life without parole at Angola Prison, telling their stories in their own words. The only collection of its kind with over 100 interviews.
  
  
• Angola Prisoners Lawsuit

 
More on mass incarceration and forced prison labor:

• “13th” – Oscar-nominated documentary on our history of forced prison labor and the 13th Amendment loophole.
  
  
• Equal Justice Initiative – One of America’s leading advocacy groups fighting for justice in the penal system.
  
  
•  California Voters Reject Anti-Slavery Proposition
  
  
• ACLU graphic of America’s coast-to-coast slave wages for prison labor

More on “Captive State” and HNOC:

• Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration - exhibit website
  
  
• Historic New Orleans Collection website 

HIGHLIGHTS OF EPISODE

[5:45] Forced labor in the Louisiana prison system

[9:01] Through-line from slavery at Angola plantation to slave labor at Angola Prison today

[19:28] Louisiana eliminates parole for life sentences and adds life-term offenses

[23:19] Louisiana’s impact on brutal practices across U.S. prisons

[28:40] Tension in New Orleans between horrific oppression and creative resistance

[33:48] Importance of shining a light on our true history and organizing for reparations

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Money isn’t the only part of reparations - but it sure is a big one! We sit down with William Darity and Kirsten Mullen, the nation's leading reparations experts. They answer key questions: How big is the tab? Who gets paid? What good is money unless we first change our racist society? They also break down why they're hopeful that reparations will happen in America - and tell us about the transforming power of cold hard cash.

SHOW NOTES

Guests: William Darity and Kirsten Mullen

William A. Darity Jr. is Professor of Public Policy, African American Studies, Economics, and Business at Duke University. He’s the founding director of the Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke.

A. Kirsten Mullen is a writer, folklorist and lecturer whose work focuses on race, art, history and politics. She’s the founder of Artefactual, and was part of the team that designed the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Darity and Mullen co-wrote the award-winning book From Here To Equality: Reparations For Black Americans in the 21st Century.

William Darity's home page

Kisten Mullen's bio


Selected works by Darity and Mullen:

• From Here To Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century (2020)
• The Black Reparations Project : A Handbook For Racial Justice (2023)
• Black Reparations in the United States: An Introduction (2024)

 Related articles:

• “Stolen Lives” - Elizabeth Wrigley-Field’s piece on stolen Black time and the “longevity gap” (2024)
• "What Is Owed" - article in the Nation on Darity and Mullen’s case for reparations (2021)
• "The New Reparations Math” - on Thomas Craemer's revolutionary approach to calculating the tab (2020)

HIGHLIGHTS OF EPISODE: 

[14:57] The racial wealth gap and their plan for money reparations

[24:42] The longevity gap and reparations

[32:54] Eligibility issues for Black American reparations

[42:36] Encouraging news on growing public support for money reparations

[49:25] Problems with local and state initiatives

[58:34] Mullen on the importance of collective will and calls to action

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Some of the greatest players ever were kept out of Major League Baseball for nearly 70 years - due to the collusion of the racist team owners. We visit with Bill Greason, 100, the oldest surviving Negro Leagues player, and baseball historian Larry Lester, to make the case for long-overdue reparations by MLB. We crunch some numbers and calculate the tab to right this historic wrong. It's time to play ball!

SHOW NOTES

Guests: Bill Greason and Larry Lester
 
Bill Greason, 100, is one of two surviving players from the Negro Leagues. He was a star pitcher for the Birmingham Black Barons and mentor to the great Willie Mays, before becoming the first Black pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1954. He was also one of the first Black U.S. Marines. Rev. Greason has served as a pastor at a Birmingham, AL church for over 50 years.

Larry Lester is the leading Negro Leagues historian. His epic research spanned over 40 years and filled 25 file cabinets in his home. Lester played a pivotal role in the integration of Negro Leagues statistics into the Major League Baseball records in 2024. He also co-founded the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, MO.

More on Bill Greason:

• Bill Greason’s biography
• Bill Greason Takes Another Trip Around the Bases at 100 by Joseph King

More on Larry Lester:

• Larry’s website
• Larry’s all-time greatest baseball player: "Bullet" Joe Rogan
• With Deliberate Speed by Larry Lester (article about 1950s baseball integration)

More on baseball integration and reparations:

• Wendell Smith's Vision Helped Clear Jackie Robinson's Path to Majors by Isabelle Minasian
• The Rippling Manifesto by Ernest DiStefano
• View From Third Base (Willie Mays 1960 All-Star Game) by Gary Rhoades

Visit:  Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (Kansas City, MO)

HIGHLIGHTS OF EPISODE:

[13:45] Bill Greason describes his navigating the Ku Klux Klan in Birmingham

[17:02] Greason compares the quality of play in Black and white baseball

[18:21] Greason on his mentoring the great Willie Mays

[19:57] Greason speaks on the prospect of reparations to Negro Leagues players

[24:22] Larry Lester on the role of the Black press in integrating baseball

[25:38] Lester on his role in helping to integrate the baseball record books

[30:34] Lester compares the quality of play in Black and white baseball

[35:10] Lester on Negro Leagues innovations

[43:38] Adam calculates the $800 million owed by MLB to Negro Leaguers

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A dirty secret in U.S. history is how local property taxes have been used to steal massive amounts of land and money from Black people, for the last 160 years. The Black Tax, a new book by historian Andrew Kahrl, exposes these scams that helped create the colossal racial wealth gap of today. The damage to Black Americans? More than $600 billion in straight-up theft – and trillions in lost generational wealth!

SHOW NOTES

Guest: Andrew W. Kahrl

Andrew Kahrl is a Professor at the University of Virgina. His research focuses on the social and political history of racial inequality in the United States. He teaches courses on African American history, race and real estate, and U.S. urban history.

Books by Andrew Kahrl:

• The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America 
• The Land Was Ours: How Black Beaches Became White Wealth in the Coastal South
   

Related readings and resources:

• The Whiteness of Wealth: How The Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans - And How We Can Fix It by Dorothy A. Brown
• “Blacks in South Struggle to Keep the Little Land They Have Left” (NY Times 1972)
• Federation of Southern Cooperatives (Land Assistance Fund)

HIGHLIGHTS OF EPISODE:

[10:55]  Over-taxing of Black-owned property

[13:54]  Under-servicing of Black communities

[22:18]  The tax sale scam

[26:06]  The saga of Evelina Jenkins

[29:08]  The tab: damages to Black Americans for stolen property

[39:32]  Andrew Kahrl’s proposals to repair the tax system

[42:22]  Importance of solidarity to creating a more just system

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