Sherrilyn Ifill stood in front of the group assembled in the moot court room at the University of Maryland Law School and gave a synopsis of what the film Banished is about.
For six decades, black Americans were systemically driven from towns and cities across America. Not all of those towns were in the South. In Banished, filmmaker Marco Williams visited Pierce City, Mo., Forsyth County, Ga., and Harrison, Ark. He talked to blacks and whites about how blacks were driven from those places, and what the chances are for reconciliation today.
"It's an important phenomenon," Ifill said of what has been called the "racial cleansing" of blacks from communities that have remained virtually lily-white, even in the 21st century. "Important in how we see the geographical landscape today."
It's important for another reason: The issue of "racial cleansing" might well reinvigorate the reparations movement, one that is sorely in need of reinvigorating.
That dreaded "R-word" is indeed dredged up in Banished. When blacks were driven from Forsyth County in 1912, many left behind land that they owned. They were never paid for that land. It was simply gobbled up and sold by whites who saw an opportunity to make a quick - and easy - buck. Neither the blacks who lost land nor their descendants have been compensated.
Now we have a discussion that moves beyond "reparations for slavery," which is how reparations advocates defined the issue. When opponents of reparations countered that there were no living slaves to collect, and that descendants of Americans who never owned slaves shouldn't have to pay for the sins of Americans who did, reparations advocates were left with little to stand on.
In Banished, Williams laid the issue squarely at the feet of those who are most culpable and the ones who should pay: the residents of those towns and counties living on land that, to put it kindly, was stolen.
Williams put the question of reparations to Mark Peters, the mayor of Pierce City.
"I didn't think of this in terms of reparations," Peters said. "I thought of it in terms of money being asked to do what money can't do. No matter what's said, it'll be too little or too late. Dollars? How do you take a subject that serious and translate it into dollars? Who do you pay? I don't know."
Ifill moderated a question-and-answer session after the showing of Banished. Peters' response was part of the discussion.
"People talked about how, across the board, the response from whites was, 'It can't be money,'" Ifill said. "I don't think [the matter of whether compensation should be paid] is a question for the mayor to answer. It's not a question for the victim alone to answer. It's a question the descendants of victims and the descendants of perpetrators need to work out. The 'it can't be money' response strikes me as reflexive and protective."
Ifill is the author of On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the 21st Century. She also teaches a course at the law school called "Reparations, Reconciliation and Restorative Justice." She's given quite a bit of thought to the matters of reparations and reconciliation - more, you can bet, than Peters has.
For Ifill, money is only one part of the discussion, and might well not even be the most important part. Ifill appears in Banished, telling viewers that of all the historical markers across the country, Americans aren't likely to see one that acknowledges what happened in places like Forsyth County, Pierce City and Harrison.
"You'll never see a marker that reflects the history of racial violence," Ifill said in the film. Yesterday, she elaborated on why such historical markers are so crucial.
"Part of what's important," Ifill said, "is the truth-telling piece."
A component of that "truth-telling" piece might be for whites who still live in all-white towns and counties to face how their communities got that way. Some might be shocked to learn the answers. Some might be uncomfortable.
And some might be downright pleased.
Williams, who is black, interviewed a white man named Bob Scott who moved to Harrison after he retired.
"Why'd you come to Harrison?" Williams asked Scott, who looked Williams straight in the eye when he gave his answer.
"For two reasons," Scott answered. "The low cost of living. The low cost of real estate. And probably, more importantly than anything else, the lack of blacks."
That's actually three reasons, Scott, you mathematically challenged imbecile. But in a country where many today tiptoe around questions of race, I have to admire your candor.
But please find out how your all-white town got that way.
greg.kane@baltsun.com