The lesson in Harriet Tubman’s story is applicable today in the call to join the reparation movement for compensation for over 300 years of forced labour of our enslaved ancestors. Tubman, an enslaved woman who laboured unpaid in the cotton fields of America, managed to escape to the north to her freedom. Having freed herself, she did not turn her back on those left behind.

Those of us who have managed to — through education — live a middle-class life, affording private health care, travelling annually with our families, and sending our children to prestigious universities, should emulate Tubman’s liberation of her captive sisters and brothers. She covertly, and repeatedly, returned to the south to lead 70 of her people to freedom for the rest of her active life. She risked being caught, punished, and taken back into slavery, but the danger in the duty she undertook failed to deter her.

Every middle-class Jamaican of African descent can trace his/her lineage of impoverishment to less than four generations ago. Some 181 years ago, in 1838, our freed ancestors were left to continue their lives and commence nation-building with nothing. Were it not for the small grounds we planted on and livestock on the island, we would have had to return to the misery of the plantation, or starve to death. Those of us who have been able to break through a wretched past of inter-generational poverty and “make it” must become the new Tubmans for reparatory justice. We cannot now turn our backs on those — the majority of our population — and be satisfied to leave them to live in hopelessness.

This is a call to action to join the reparatory movement, which needs the skills of medical doctors, psychologists, actuaries, research historians, those from the performing and visual arts community, and lawyers, to name a few, to join a growing body of intellectuals who have used empirical evidence to compute and justify the claim for compensation.

The support of our youth is most critical. We call on them to join and energise this movement, which is gaining traction from many ethnic groups, including the survivors of genocide against the indigenous people of the region, which followed the arrival of Columbus.

The number of supporters of compensation for the wrongs of slavery have grown exponentially over the past five years. Jewish families today receive their monthly cheque for the suffering of their fore parents. When the Jamaican Reparation Council was formed in 2009, it was not conceivable by many of us — including the reparation naysayers — that compensation for the descendants of enslaved Africans would, today, be the call in the USA from several candidates of the Democratic Party seeking nomination.

The movement is here to stay. Our freedom was not a one-day, one-week, or one-century battle. It was won with the collective effort and sacrifice of Tacky, Sam Sharpe, Nanny, and countless unnamed fighters for freedom and justice. They have passed that baton to us and created a platform from which we must anchor the cause of reparatory justice.

Those in the Caribbean who fought and died for freedom did not know — and could not have conceived — that their sacrifice would have been followed by a payout to their oppressors of 20 million British pounds! How could they, when never before has there been, in recorded history, compensation paid to the oppressor class by the State, leaving victims behind un-reimbursed? Those martyrs speak from the grave and call on us not to settle for freedom without compensation.

We need health care for all, and quality education from kindergarten to university for our children, to be paid for by those rich nations whose wealth can be traced right back to the torture labour camps and penal institutions — the plantations of the Caribbean.

Segregation in the USA, apartheid in Southern Africa, the Jewish Holocaust, and transatlantic slavery, all these atrocities have come to an end. However, that end must mark the beginning of repair, apology, and compensation to the victims or their descendants.

We cannot remain on the fence regarding reparation for slavery. We cannot remain indifferent in the face of a justified claim for reparatory justice, lest we be harshly judged by Tubman and our own ancestors.

Bert S Samuels is an attorney-at-law and member of the National Council on Reparation. Send comments to the Observer or bert.samuels@gmail.com.v