Chaka Fattah

Mr. FATTAH

Mr. FATTAH. Further reserving the right to object, I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to remind us of the hatred that brought about the incident of 2 weeks ago. We heard the statements of Jerry Falwell attacking certain Americans as being ``responsible.'' We need to pull together. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin).

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), a member of the full committee.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt).

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. FATTAH

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the underlying legislation, and I would like to compliment the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg), the majority chairman, and the staff for their hard work on this legislation. However, even as I rise to support the underlying legislation, I have difficulty with this rule, for it seems to lack any respect for the work product of the subcommittee or the full Committee on Appropriations and wants to reverse a bipartisan vote in the full committee. I think that that is unwise and inappropriate. I particularly feel that, at this particular hour, there would be other uses of all of our time than to get into the micromanaging of the District's affairs. But nonetheless, I oppose the rule, but I support the bill; and I hope that we can move beyond this at some point to the underlying legislation. I think that the chairman has done a remarkable job in terms of building a consensus around how we should move forward in terms of the District of Columbia, the capital city; and I would hope that we will be able to get there from here, but I think that there has to be respect for the committee's position. I think that the rule is one that should be revisited and, therefore, I oppose it.

Mr. FATTAH

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member and I thank the chairman of the full committee for their work on this matter. I rise to speak in favor of the supplemental and to also indicate that it is my hope that as we go about seeking to aid those who were victims of this tragedy, that we do not separate out in any way those who were victims in New York from those who were victims here in the Washington area. That is to say that I believe that all of those who were killed because of this incident really should be treated as if they died in service to this country, and that a comparable level of remuneration should be provided for even those who were not part of military service, and that a parity of benefits be accomplished through the dollars provided in this supplemental. Those who went to work at the World Trade Center, just like those who went to work at the Pentagon on September 11, were targeted out and killed because they were citizens of this country and doing a vital service to this Nation, and I think they should be treated equally in that regard.

Mr. FATTAH

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Speaker, there were some very bright young people from the district, here in Washington, who because of their excellent school work were off on a trip with their teachers who died on September 11. Along with thousands of others they were the casualties of this act that was perpetrated. Today we take this step, and I rise in support of this resolution, and I rise specifically on behalf of these children, for it is our responsibility to provide for their protection, to provide for their promise and their potential. Whatever the perceived real grievance is of those who took this action, attacking innocent children and thousands of other innocent Americans is unacceptable. We must respond. We know not what the tactics or strategy or play of this engagement will be, but we must act. Mr. Speaker, I stand and I support this resolution.

Mr. FATTAH

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Speaker, I support this resolution along with my colleagues. We must act, not just speak. Action is our Nation's heavy burden tonight. Let us began first, care for the wounded, rescue any survivors, bury the dead, heal New York and begin to rebuild the Pentagon. Second, think and work to prevent further immediate attacks on our people and infrastructure of all kinds. Finally, determine who is responsible for these attacks and for past acts that have gone unpunished and make them pay their debt to this country. Avoid harm to innocent people but pursue justice for those who have lost their lives. We can do no less.

Mr. FATTAH

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I want to join the gentleman from North Carolina in again expressing concern about the possible effect of the language in the bill on the availability of supplemental funding for public housing authorities, who, due to unforeseen circumstances, exhaust their 1-month reserves. I would like to ask the gentleman from New York, the distinguished chairman of the subcommittee, if it is the committee's intention that the language in the bill should have no practical affect on the ability of public housing authorities to aggressively pursue maximum utilization of section 8 vouchers within the regulatory guidelines. Further, I would like to ask the gentleman if it is the committee's intention that HUD should provide additional resources to any public housing authority that exhausts its allocated reserves due to unforeseen circumstances.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman continue to yield?

Mr. FATTAH. The whole world is not your hometown.

Mr. FATTAH. I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FATTAH. I yield, unlike your colleague who would not yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I would also like to thank my chairman and also the gentleman from North Carolina for their interest in this matter, and I also look forward to further discussions as we approach conference on this bill. So I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Let me speak in support of the Kaptur amendment. Let me say a couple of things. First of all, I have heard we should eliminate the drug elimination program because of waste and fraud. I cannot seem to recall a Member on the other side of the aisle ever wanting to eliminate any program in the Pentagon's budget because of waste or fraud. But any social program, any program focused at helping particularly disadvantaged communities is subject to this attack. What we have is, for the first time in the country's modern history, the crime rate has gone down 8 years in a row. The majority party says let us try to interfere with that. Let us eliminate the COPS program. Let us make sure we do not have the gun buy back program. Let us eliminate the drug elimination program. Let us find those initiatives of the past administration that helped move the country in a downward trend in terms of the crime rate and let us remove them out of the way. Somehow, it would seem to me, that we would all, both parties, both the majority and the minority, be celebrating an 8-year decline in the crime rate in our country and that we would want to reinforce those initiatives that have been proven to be successful. We just heard the gentleman from California (Mr. Gary G. Miller) speak. I do not know where some of the Members here have been; but in any major city in our country, the police department proudly proclaims that they will not go in and provide protection in these public housing developments. It is unfortunate, but in our city it has been this way for a very long time. It is this way around the country. It is the Federal Government's unfortunate burden since we are the landlord for these families which are mainly women and children, and rather than provide some assistance to them so they can live in safety or require the local community to provide adequate law enforcement, we want to wipe our hands of both this program in any other responsibility.

Mr. FATTAH. Reclaiming my time, we have a situation right now in the home city of the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), Cincinnati, where the police department has refused to police in parts of the community. We cannot sit and ignore the fact that as a Congress we are saying, in these communities with a 99 percent of population of women and small children in which the Federal Government is the landlord, that we are not going to do anything to make sure that these communities are safe. And we are going to eliminate this program, and ignore the fact that, in our country, we have finally seen a major decrease in crime. Maybe the majority party is not happy with that. I do not know. Maybe it is not politically helpful that there is a reduction in crime. Maybe that is why we want to pull the rug out of the COPS program and the drug elimination program and the gun buy back program, but I think that is an unfortunate way to proceed. I would hope that people would support the Kaptur amendment.

Mr. FATTAH

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, let me also thank the ranking member and the chairman of the subcommittee for their hard work. I have a number of concerns about the bill, even though I am generally supportive. One of course is the elimination of the AmeriCorps program, and the elimination of the drug elimination fund. There is nothing controversial about gun buy-back programs in neighborhoods where people have been victimized by the illegal use of these guns. But I think that even though there are some unfortunate directions, there is a lot to be very pleased with in this bill, and I commend both the gentlemen who have had the leadership roles. I wanted to yield a moment to the chairman, the gentleman from New York, to have a brief colloquy on the question of the reserve funds for public housing authorities. I, along with the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price), have talked before about our concerns about the move from 2 months to 1 month. We realize that the vast majority of housing authorities have not needed a 2-month reserve, but there have been instances where, for a small percentage of housing authorities where they have had to go beyond the 1 month. I just want assurances from the chairman that he will be mindful of this and monitor and seek to ensure that HUD would have the flexibility to be responsive so that no family presently being served would in any way be jeopardized by the decision, and I think the correct decision that has been made, which is to roll the reserve back to a 1-month status.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from New York.

Mr. FATTAH. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. FATTAH

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I would like to thank the chairman of the full committee for accepting this amendment, along with the ranking member. I brought this up in the committee meeting and with an agreement of the chairman of the subcommittee, we held it back because the chairman assured me and, as is his word, he is here on the floor today, making sure that the 30,000 children in the District of Columbia will be able to participate in summer school. The District of Columbia has had a renaissance: 4 years of surpluses and upgrades in all of its bond ratings. It has a large cash reserve, and it is really unfortunate that the District even has to come to the Congress to ask to spend its own money on behalf of its own children for summer school. This is the first year, as the chairman mentioned, that it had not received from the Federal Government support for its summer school program, which is disappointing. I am sure that Secretary Paige and the Bush administration, because of their extraordinary commitment to the D.C. schools, next year we will not be in this situation and the Department will provide support for its summer school. Nonetheless, the District has made a way, and the chairman has made it available through this amendment. I want to thank him. I also want to say that this would not have been possible without the leadership and support of the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton). I want to thank her for the extraordinary leadership that her office provided. I wish the superintendent, Paul Vance, well. He is doing a tremendous job. Summer school for these young people will be as important here in the District as it is back home in our districts for the young people there. I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg), the chairman of the subcommittee, for following through on his commitment made in the committee markup to bring this matter to the floor once we had further information.

Mr. FATTAH

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Speaker, I take the floor today to, on one hand, compliment the other body which for over 2 days now has debated the legislation that I offered here in the House to create a more comparable education system within our various States. I want to thank in particular the Senator from the great State of Connecticut, Senator Dodd, and Senator Biden from Delaware, Senator Reed from Rhode Island. I would like to also thank Senator Boxer and a host of other members, Senator Corzine, and then the colleague who I served on the Web-based Education Commission with, Senator Enzi, who is a Republican Member of the Senate from the State of Wyoming. I would expect that when the matter is brought for a vote after some more debate this week, there will be a lot of the other Members from the other body that I would want to thank. But I also have some concern that this legislation, unfortunately, did not get a full hearing here in this House. The Committee on Rules decided that, when we debated the education bill, that for some reason we were in a rush and that we could not offer amendments to title I as part of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. So even though the House Committee on Education and the Workforce under the leadership of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), my great friend, the majority chairman, gave me the opportunity to testify before the committee and to raise this concern, it was not afforded the opportunity rightfully to be debated and voted on here on the floor of the House. But let me move to the substance of this matter because I think that we perpetrate a fraud on the Nation to talk about education reform and some discussion about the inequities that exist within our States between poor, rural and urban school districts and their wealthier suburban counterparts, for in almost every State in the Union, there has been and continues to be litigation brought by small, rural and impoverished school districts and large urban districts seeking from their State a fuller share of educational funding, an adequate share. When we talk about education reform, we talk about testing every child every year in every school as if every child every year and in every school is afforded the same education opportunity. Well, we know that is not the case. We know that, for instance, in poorer school districts most of the children are being taught by teachers who are not certified in the subject that they are teaching; that, in fact, in math, in science, in the critical disciplines, that the teachers who are teaching the majority of the students in urban and rural school districts did not major nor minor in the subjects that they are teaching. So we have physical education teachers teaching science, and then we want to come along and test kids and compare them to others. Now, I see my colleague, the newest of Members from the great State of California, where there has been plenty of litigation on this issue. Look at the example of Beverly Hills High, in which young people have the opportunity to have 23 advanced placement courses offered to them, but at Compton High not one advanced placement course is available to them. How can we create a situation where we are going to look at young people and say they are not performing as well as their counterparts when they are not given the same opportunity? In Maryland, right next door, we have wide disparities on what is being spent in one district versus another. We have in the city of Baltimore 123 young people who had the opportunity to take AP courses; but in Montgomery County, the wealthiest suburb, 5,000 students had the opportunity to take AP courses. In Philadelphia, my home, in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the 45 contiguous school districts to the city of Philadelphia spent, on average, $70,000 more per year per classroom than the city district. Now, how can we have a circumstance in which these young people are going to be able to compete when in the suburban districts class sizes are at 18 and 19 and in the city it is above 30? How can we have a situation where in the Council Rock School District, right near my home outside of Philadelphia, they can spend $90,000 a year on a teacher and inside the city they can only afford to pay $30,000 a year for a teacher. How are they going to attract and retain quality teachers? Then let us talk about curriculum, because the Federal Government has no role in curriculum; States have that responsibility. Our Department of Education says in a study on this matter that only 15 percent of low-income students ever get the opportunity to take algebra, geometry, and the higher-order math. And so, Mr. Speaker, I come today to compliment the other body, to issue a concern about our work here on education reform, and hope we too will have an opportunity in conference to add our voice on this matter.

Mr. FATTAH

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Speaker, I submit the following editorials for the Record. [From the Philadelphia Inquirer, May 20, 2001] Forward on Race--Together Try this sometime: Say the words reparations for slavery in a crowded room. Then watch the stereotypes and anxieties roll in like thunderheads: Hands move protectively over wallets or extend to receive a check; eyes scan the floor for an escape hatch or roll back in exasperation. For 136 years, stereotypes and anxieties have stifled the conversation. But change is coming--and it's long overdue. Recent investigations into race riots in places such as Rosewood, Fla., and Tulsa, Okla., have brought reparations to the fore. Businesses have apologized for slavery-era practices. The writings of people such as Randall Robinson, author of The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks, and conservative columnist David Horowitz have broadened and energized the debate. A class-action lawsuit is possible. The issue will arise at a United Nations conference on racism this summer in South Africa. But the reparations issue is too weighty, too unsettling to be left to individual communities or businesses. Books, conferences or lawsuits by themselves won't be enough. Slavery and the century of government-sanctioned discrimination that followed were national policies that denied fundamental rights--justice, equality, freedom--to African Americans. It will take a national effort to answer for that. An excellent starting point is a bill that U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.) has introduced annually since 1989. It would ``acknowledge the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery in the United States.'' And it would create a commission to study the impact of slavery and post-Civil War discrimination and to recommend remedies. Mr. Conyers' colleagues and President Bush, who has eloquently spoken of taking on the mantle of Abraham Lincoln, should rise to the moment and turn this bill into law. A reparations commission, handled fairly, could give America an honest grasp of the past that would help it seize a better future. It would show how by-products of the past-- stereotypes, demagoguery, denial--block the path to progress. It would allow an open airing of wrongs, not to define the country by its sins but to help Americans see history through each other's eyes. Most of all, it would remind America that the idea of reparations is not about who gets a check. It is about justice. But if Washington can't stir itself to pass the Conyers bill on its merits, America may be forced to have this conversation anyway. In court. Last year, a powerhouse team of lawyers and advocates formed the Reparations Coordinating Committee. It is considering strategies to address the legacy of slavery and discrimination, including lawsuits. The group includes Randall Robinson; Harvard professor Charles J. Ogletree; attorney Johnnie Cochran; Alexander J. Pires Jr., who won a $1 billion settlement for black farmers in a discrimination suit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Mississippian Richard F. Scruggs, who helped win the $368.5 billion tobacco settlement. Mr. Ogletree says the committee is hoping ``for a serious examination of the issues that provides some sense of healing and an ability to move forward.'' Who can blame advocates for thinking of lawsuits? In the nation's civil-rights history, courts have often been the place where minorities finally got action after appeals to community conscience or legislatures failed. But while lawsuits can further justice, they are not designed to promote healing. The best approach to reparations is one that manages to serve both those goals. What's more, if you put the words lawsuit and reparations together, most Americans will focus on one thing: money. How much? Who gets paid? Who has to pay? Those questions get sticky in a hurry. Critics of the idea have a field day. That's why the courts, with their adversarial tone and necessary focus on legalistic details, aren't the best venue. It is in Congress, elected by the people to talk through America's challenges, where the nation could best begin the moral process it urgently needs. That process has three steps--acknowledgment, atonement and reconciliation. The idea of atonement is as delicate a part of this discussion as money. Similar questions swiftly arise. Who should atone? To whom? Are you exempt if your ancestors came to America after 1865? If they lived in a ``free state'' before the Civil War? If your black ancestors ``crossed over'' to live as whites? Ten seconds into such a discussion, you risk confusion, anger and defensiveness. That's why many Americans argue the nation should just duck this question and ``move on.'' And that is why it should be made clear from the start that a national initiative to study reparations must not be a festival of finger-pointing. White Americans should not be required to apologize individually for benefits that they or theirs received from the exploitation of African Americans. Regardless of station or ancestry, no one person should be expected to shoulder all the years of moral, political, economic and social exploitation. Besides, words alone won't be enough. No, atonement must come through actions--actions by the federal government. That government, acting for white people, allowed slavery for the first 76 years of its existence. That government, acting for white people, stood aside for almost 100 years as atrocities were committed against freed slaves and their descendants. That government now must act for the sake of all the people and take the lead in making amends. As for acknowledgment, Americans need to grasp certain hard truths about their country. First and foremost is that horrible wrongs were done to African Americans during the years of slavery and the century of government-sanctioned discrimination that followed. But not just that. Those wrongs weren't done by just one evil region or contingent while the rest of white America innocently went about its business. Those wrongs were a major part of America's business. The unpaid labor of millions-- even the slave trade itself--helped set in motion the U.S. economic juggernaut and fueled world trade. In 1790, the value of America's slaves was estimated at $140 million, twice the national debt, and 20 times the budget of the federal government. So this truth may come as a surprise: The race that has been so vilified throughout U.S. history, that has often been depicted as a drain on the country's resources, worked side by side with white people in building America, in war and peace, right from the start. Here is another necessary acknowledgment: Other ethnic groups in the United States have suffered. American Indians endured unspeakable atrocities. Many immigrants were cheated of fair pay for their labors and felt the sting of bias. Race hatred has claimed victims of all colors. All these stories should be heard and a reparations commission should be prepared to hear other requests for compensation. But the African American experience is unique. As hard as other groups' roads may have been, none of them suffered chattel slavery and zero compensation for their labor and a hundred years of racebased discrimination. A national dialogue on reparations will also have to acknowledge that America has made down payments on its debt. Not every young man who went off to battle in the Civil War did so to free the slaves, but many on the Union side did. And, at the end of the war, the slaves were free. Not equal, but free. The hundreds of thousands of war dead--black and white--the millions wounded, maimed, widowed and orphaned, can't be denied. The post-Civil War amendments to the Constitution, however imperfectly enforced, must be placed into the ledger. The war on poverty will have to be counted as well. Yes, that war was waged on behalf of all poor people. But high rates of black poverty were part of the legacy of slavery and segregation, and many see the trillions spent to alleviate poverty from the New Deal onward as a good-faith attempt to address that legacy. The effort known as affirmative action also must be counted. So, while America hasn't wholly atoned, it hasn't been wholly coldhearted either. Acknowledging that fact might help Americans see reparations not as an out-of-the-blue demand, but a logical, useful next step. After acknowledgment and atonement, the final goal is reconciliation. A national reparations commission would not make distrust over race disappear. It would, however, lift the veil of secrecy. It would allow whites to see more clearly how race does impact today's public-policy issues. It would assuage blacks who feel that white America's constant refrain of ``Let's move on'' negates their experiences. It might, in the very best case, build enough trust that Americans of all races could begin to curb harmful reflexes ingrained by culture and experience. Of course, there is more to reconciliation than government policy. Here's where individuals would play the largest role, as described by Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa in his book No Future Without Forgiveness: ``Reconciliation . . . has to be a national project to which all earnestly strive to make their particular contribution--by learning the language and culture of others; by being willing to make amends; by refusing to deal in stereotypes by making racial or other jokes that ridicule a particular group; by contributing to a culture of respect for human rights, and seeking to enhance tolerance--with zero tolerance for intolerance; by working for a more inclusive society where most, if not all, can feel they belong--that they are insiders and not aliens and strangers on the outside, relegated to the edges of society.'' Acknowledgment. Atonement. Reconciliation. A good-faith, national effort dedicated to those goals could make this the last turn of a century in which America is haunted by this intractable problem. [From the Philadelphia Inquirer, May 20, 2001] Justice and Reconciliation What is the scariest thing about a discussion of reparations for slavery? Is it the money? No. The country would have a long and loud argument over this, but, at heart, Americans are a generous people. Convince them of a genuine need or wrong, confront them with an emergency, and they'll dig deep to make things right. Is it the fear of dividing the country? Only for those who don't recognize the divisions already there. Look at the black-white fault lines on issues such as affirmative action, the criminal justice system, support for political parties. Is it that even reparations might not be enough to eliminate racism or demagoguery? Well, they won't. They won't fully make up for the horrors of slavery and segregation, either. They'll be a step, as much symbol as substance, to acknowledge wrong and atone in some way in hope of reconciliation. No, the thing that is scariest is also what will have the greatest long-term benefit. Knowledge. Knowledge, above all, is what America would gain if Congress moved ahead on U.S. Rep. John Conyers' bill calling for a commission to study the impact of slavery and discrimination and to make recommendations on remedies. And knowledge can heal, even as the gaining of it causes some pain. A national study will reveal some truths about race in America--maybe more than many want to know, but much that the nation needs to know. The challenge will be keeping this knowledge in perspective, in remembering that this racial history is one truth about America, but not the sole defining truth. That the seeking of this knowledge is itself part of the process of atonement. That acknowledging these truths is a necessary step to true reconciliation. How can the past teach about race in America today? Consider, for example, the charges about black disenfranchisement in Florida last November. How different do those events look when viewed not in isolation, but from the perspective of America's tradition of turn-of-the-century disenfranchisement? In the 1790s, as the revolutionary principle ``all men are created equal'' waned, free blacks were disenfranchised in Delaware, Maryland and Kentucky. In the early 1800s, many Northern states followed suit (New Jersey in 1807; Pennsylvania in the 1830s). At the turn of the next century, despite civil rights gained by blacks after the Civil War, Southern states enshrined disenfranchisement in law, with such things as poll taxes and literacy tests. Consider the political impact in just one state: In Louisiana, the number of African American voters dropped from more than 130,000 in 1896 to 1,342 in 1904. So what does this tradition tell us? First, that ``Let's move on'' will never be an adequate response to concerns about political disempowerment of African Americans. History demands vigilance in protecting fundamental rights. Second, though, it also suggests how much has changed for the better. However you judge the unproven charges in Florida, they hardly resemble the wholesale, deliberate disenfranchisement that occurred in Jim Crow or slavery-era America. That's the scary thing about knowledge. It leads to new places. Instead of giving either side the trump card in the ongoing racial debate, it might challenge old assumptions and raise new questions. But running away from knowledge poses even greater risks in the long run. Studying the impact of slavery and segregation is not just a task for historians. A reparations commission could provide an opportunity for Americans of all descriptions to come forward and tell their stories and the stories of their families; to fill in the gaps, to give voice to those who were silenced. This education process has great potential to heal. There is tremendous power in airing what has been denied for generations. Just by listening, this commission, representing the people of the United States, can acknowledge and honor what has been endured. It can show that America is ready to hear and accept responsibility for the full story of its history. Then the question arises: How can the living symbolically repay for political, economic and social wrongs stretching back over more than two centuries? Some argue that the next step is for the government to issue checks to descendants of slaves. Many assume that's all reparations mean. Not so. Individual checks would have made sense and been just if given directly to slaves or their immediate descendants. But today, the complications and logistics of issuing checks to descendants five generations removed boggle the mind. It's hard to see justice in that. It's even harder to envision it leading to any forrn of national reconciliation. A commission studying slavery and reparations will be besieged with alternatives. It should give any creative, legitimate idea its due. But it must ensure that any recommendations are made with an eye toward balancing the justice that is deserved with the reconciliation that is needed. What follows is one way to handle reparations. A commission that has spent so much of its time educating America might consider it appropriate to carry on that theme in three ongoing projects. The first project would meet the need for broad, symbolic restitution for the 76 years that slavery was legal under the U.S. government. As an example, what if a national reparations fund--say $500 billion spread over a decade--was devoted to addressing the shortfall in academic resources and expectations facing black children? One use of the money could be to build, renovate and repair schools in the nation's neediest school districts. The U.S. General Accounting office said in 1996 that it would cost $112 billion ``just to achieve `good overall condition' '' in the nation's schools. Such a program would benefit minorities primarily, but not exclusively. It would attack the inequality that does the most to turn differences of race into differences of income and opportunity. Framing a national act of atonement around such a positive agenda would be both spiritually satisfying and pragmatic. It would help poor urban and rural districts do a much better job of preparing young African Americans and other students for work and citizenship; it might help revive urban centers and curb suburban sprawl. A second project could address the 100 years of unconstitutional discrimination and segregation that followed slavery. It would compensate African American families who could demonstrate, subject to reasonable limits, that they or their ancestors suffered substantial losses because of racial discrimination. Foremost among these would be the descendants of the almost 5,000 victims of lynchings. But also included could be victims of riots in which whites attacked black communities in places like Wilmington, N.C., in 1898, New Orleans in 1900, Atlanta in 1906, Tulsa in 1921, or dozens of others. Again, the reparations need not be in the form of individual checks. For example, it could be college tuition credits for a generation of members of that family. Finally, the nation could begin a third project dedicated to continuing education for everyone. It would include a museum in Washington, equal in stature to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, that would lead an ongoing exploration of issues related to race and ethnicity in America. Through this project, Americans of all ethnicities could answer the questions that arise often during any reparations discussion: What about us? What about our story, our unhealed wounds? The point would not be to stage a contest to see who suffered the most. It would be an effort to show the range of experiences--and the similarities. Study them together and maybe America can see more clearly the patterns of hate and discrimination that rise up at certain points in history and damage the nation's soul. Maybe that knowledge can help the country do right by future immigrants, sparing them some pain and showing that a nation can learn from its mistakes. A thoughtful study of slavery, discrimination and their aftermath would, no doubt, bring forward other good ideas to handle reparations. But first, America must accept that it must face this unfinished business. As W.E.B. DuBois wrote, ``We have the somewhat inchoate idea that we are not destined to be harassed with great social questions, and that even if we are, and fail to answer them, the fault is with the question and not with us. . . . Such an attitude is dangerous . . . The riddle of the Sphinx may be postponed, it may be evasively answered now; sometime it must be fully answered.'' President Bush, Congress and the American people can heed Mr. DuBois' wisdom and take up his challenge. The Conyers bill shows how to take the first step.