ABSTRACT
The problem identified by Pinderhughes may be seen by comparing the post–civil rights era black agenda of African Americans and the resources of the three major Washington black interest organizations compared with the resources of selected nonblack Washington-based interest groups. Historically, black nationalists have certainly challenged the legitimacy of the American system; in their view, it is incapable of delivering universal freedom and equality. In the Post–Reconstruction Era, Bishop Henry M. Turner was the first African American leader to demand reparation—repayment for the damages of slavery— from the American government. Thus, in 1995, Congressman John Conyers, an African American, and Congressman Norman Mineta, a Japanese American, introduced a bill to establish a Commission to Study Reparations for African Americans. The broad-based policy agenda encompassing both rights- and material-based issues is one of the major problems confronting the African American lobby in Washington.
