The word reparations means "to repair the damage." And in the instance of reparations to descendants of slavery, there is the need to repair the damage done by almost 250 years of slavery and then everything that followed - the Black Codes, Jim Crow laws, redlining, and a multitude of other things set in place to keep African Americans down. Massive damage has been done over a very long period of time, so it stands to reason that it isn't the easiest thing to figure out how to repair it. Also, since the Black community is very diverse, people's views on what they feel would constitute reparations for them personally varies widely. There is no one-size-fits-all. However, some of the ideas put forth by Black Reparations leaders basically break down into three categories:

1. There are those who want their reparations to enable them to migrate at the invitation of a welcoming nation either in Africa or elsewhere with land for settlement and agriculture and enough money, equipment, protection and support to start a new life with complete self-sufficiency, self-government and self-determination.

2. There are those who want the Black community to have land right here in the United States. Along with land, they want money and equipment so they can build their own economic power in order to be self-sufficient. Some envision a semi-autonomous or autonomous government arrangement with the US Government in which they establish control of aspects of their own self-rule.

3. Finally, (and personally I hope this will be the largest group since my life is greatly enriched in being shared with Black people) there are those who would like to integrate with white society on a truly equal basis. They want to share the quality of life, including the ownership of property, and all the rights that white people have side by side with them.

A number of leaders have asked the US Government to provide tax-exempt status for the descendants of slavery while the various forms of reparations are being discussed. As to more specific items that the financial aspect of reparations would provide, perhaps the most often mentioned is education of the best quality from pre-kindergarten right on up through to wherever a person wants to go. And it would be the form of education the Black community itself chooses, as Afrocentric as it pleases, not our Eurocentric educational system. And if persons want to attend already existing schools and universities rather than their own, they would receive scholarships to do so.

Although leaders have not excluded the option of individuals receiving money similar to the way Japanese Americans did, they agree there would be a risk that the money would go right back into the pockets of white people, due to the paucity of Black-owned enterprises. Therefore, one of the crucial features of reparations must be economic empowerment for Blacks, both individually and collectively. This would likely include grants made easily accessible for people to start their own businesses - from mom and pop stores to banks, insurance companies, airlines, and anything else people want and need. There would also be the best job training programs - whatever it takes to bring about a truly level playing field when it comes to economic self-sufficiency and the ability to compete squarely in the marketplace with whites and all others.

There's also the fact that statistically African Americans have about a five years lower life expectancy than whites. There is a high rate of asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity and many other health problems in the Black community. Therefore, another thing many leaders want reparations to include is state of the art health care facilities in their communities, owned by themselves. This health care would also include mental health care to rectify the enormous psychological damage done by slavery and what followed. This would take in treatment for such things as drug addiction and alcoholism as well. It would not be limited to Western approaches to treatment for the mind and body but would include African healing techniques and any others they desire.

There would also be large resources poured into the improvement of housing and the infrastructure of Black neighborhoods, bringing them up to the same level as the nicest white areas, for it is evident throughout this country when you've left the white area and entered a Black one. Some of the most economically hard-hit sections of Harlem and Bedford Stuyvesant, for instance, would be fixed up so they are as lovely as Manhattan's Upper West Side.

Another thing that many reparations organizations call for is the release of all Black political prisoners and inmates convicted of nonviolent crimes back into their community for them to deal with themselves. There's a strong Restorative Justice movement that has thought through how to reconcile the Black community with people coming out of incarceration so that something positive can take place between them to the benefit of all.

There are many other tangible things that the financial aspect of reparations would provide, such as high quality childcare and care for the elderly. But there is also the more intangible aspect of reparations that is of paramount importance for the above to be truly successful: Along with financial compensation, there must be the full restoration of all human rights.

One of the most important aspects of human rights is for a people to be recognized by the world community and have internationally protected rights. While most Americans think of the reparations movement as something happening in the US, the fact is that the descendants of enslaved Africans live in many countries across the entire region of the Americas, the Caribbean and elsewhere. They are a very large group, numbering more than 250 million people, bonded with each other through common experience and common loss. One of the great damages of slavery is the loss of language, culture and religion, and the inability to re-connect to family and tribe. These are human rights that have been lost. Reparations leaders who advance human rights want all descendants of enslaved Africans to be recognized as one people so they can begin to establish a new identity and, with reparations, restore themselves and have political power in the international arena.

One of the rights of a people is self-determination. While not all descendants would want to be totally self-governing, some do have the capacity and the desire to claim this right. Another right of a people is autonomous or semi-autonomous self-governance while living within a country. These kinds of arrangements have been made by other groups, and, with UN assistance, could be made in various countries, including the US.