Think of it this way: the people (their minds) are akin to the water, and ideas are the boats launched into that water. Currently the reparations movement has many boats afloat in the water. Four of them are flagships.

The four flagships of the reparations movement would be:

1. The domestic effort through Congress and court action against the US Government.

2. The lawsuits against corporations that profited from slavery.

3. The effort of African and Latin American United Nation member states to gain reparations through political pressure, including the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) process and its follow-up.

4. The effort of Black leaders to gain official UN recognition and reparations using existing international law that protects collective human rights.

These initiatives are supported by the innumerable grassroots reparations organizations that continue to spring up across the nation in Black communities, churches, and academic settings and are slowly winning support among white people as well. Though some reparations organizations may concentrate their efforts more in one area rather than another, it's generally felt that it's crucial to move forward with all of the above-mentioned initiatives. That's because it's impossible to know which will prove most successful in the end, or whether all will work together for success. Further, just as during the Civil Rights movement or the Vietnam War when the groundswell of public opinion was instrumental in bringing about change, it's grassroots mobilization on behalf of reparations that will put wind in the sails of all four flagships.

Flagship #1, the domestic effort to gain reparations through Congress and court action against the US Government, has been going on for a long time. However, in the present day, the major initiative is HR 40, the reparations study bill introduced into Congress by Congressman John Conyers of Michigan. The bill was first submitted in 1989 and has been re-submitted every year since. Congressman Conyers has said that he continues to submit the bill in order to get the issue of reparations into the public discourse. He has succeeded. HR 40 has inspired city council resolutions in a number of cities - many of them successful. Even if HR 40 never passes, it has done a great deal in that it's kept reparations in the spotlight. HR 40 has also accomplished something for the international effort in that it demonstrates that domestic remedies have been tried.

This first flagship also involves using the US courts to bring a reparations lawsuit against the US Government. Atty. Charles Ogletree and a group of attorneys, with the help of the lead N'COBRA attorney, Adjoa Aiyetoro, are developing their strategy for a lawsuit.

Flagship #2 is the corporate lawsuits. Deadria Farmer-Paellmann filed suit in 2002 against corporations that profited from slavery. Similar litigation was later filed in New Jersey, Texas, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana. The media jumped on the story, giving many Americans their first look at reparations. Most of these suits were consolidated and brought before the federal court in Chicago. In 2004, the suit was dismissed "without prejudice" by a judge who stated that their claims were filed too long after slavery ended, and that they raised complicated social and political issues that were generally resolved by either Congress or the President. The case was re-filed in April 2004, and in December 2006, the US Court of Appeals in Chicago reversed the earlier ruling and upheld fraud claims against 15 major US banks, insurers, and transportation companies that concealed their slave trading histories from consumers. Judge Richard Posner stated that a seller of goods who hides his company's slave trading history because he's afraid of losing customers is "guilty of fraud." Other claims that sought recovery of past profits made from slave trading were dismissed in his ruling because of the lack of federal jurisdiction; however, such claims are still permitted to go forward in the state courts.

Deadria Farmer-Paellmann also joined a small group of people in having their DNA tested in order to locate the vicinity in Africa where their ancestors came from. They were able to determine that the British insurance company, Lloyds of London, insured the slave ship that brought their ancestors to the Americas. Based on the Proxmire Act, the US law that legalized the UN's Crime of Genocide law, this lawsuit claims damages due to loss of cultural identity.

Flagship #3 is in international waters - spearheaded by the UN member African states in cooperation with Latin American states. African states have been calling for reparations for Africa for some time. The reparations they've lobbied for are debt forgiveness and development money. The reparations for Africa movement became noticeably tied to reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans in the Americas around the time of the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) in 2001. Under the name The Durban 400, activists from the US supported the WCAR reparations arguments. Since racism was the focus of WCAR, reparations is proposed for all people of African descent, including those whose ancestors were not subjected to enslavement. The foundation of this flagship's argument is that a moral wrong has been committed. They press forward the argument that since the trans-Atlantic slave trade was declared a crime against humanity by WCAR, reparations are the only possible moral response.

Flagship #4 is also in international waters. This initiative is supported by Black leaders from countries throughout the Americas Region, the Caribbean, and slavery Diaspora. The argument under this initiative is based on international law that protects the rights of groups of people to retain their original identity through protection of their language, culture and religion. The primary international instrument that protects these rights is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 27. Since the US Government and many other governments have ratified the ICCPR, the first step in the legal battle, led Mr. Silis Muhammad and other Black leaders from the US, is to gain official recognition of the descendants of enslaved Africans as one people, scattered across the Americas and slavery Diaspora, living in the position of minorities within their countries (the legal term used by the UN). This would place them in a position of international political power with arguments to claim reparations under international law.