- Pat Jackson
- Feb 4
- 5 min read
Woullard Lett is former national male co-chair of N’COBRA (The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America) and presently the male co-chair for the New England Regional Chapter. We began this conversation in 2023 and resumed it in January 2025.
Pat Jackson (He/him/his – Interwoven Congregations): Welcome Woullard, and thank you for joining us for this interview. Could you describe the mission and legacy of N’COBRA for our readers?
Woullard Lett, N'COBRA
Woullard (He/him/his): N’COBRA is a coalition of organizations and individuals whose mission is to win full repair, reparations, for the descendants of Africans enslaved in the U.S., full stop. N’COBRA was started in 1987 at which time reparations was not a familiar concept at all. So much of the work initially was focused on raising awareness to create a community-based movement advocating for reparations. One of those strategies was advocating for a federal reparations bill, House Resolution 40. N’COBRA has an annual convention, community coalition events, and we started something several years ago called the Ndaba. The Ndaba is an African term that conveys this sense of a major meeting, where we pull together leading organizations within the community of African Descent, to discuss and decide how to promote this movement towards reparations. We brought the NAACP to the table with the Nation of Islam, and any number of organizations in between. At one time, N’COBRA was a big fish in a little pond. Now, over the last few years, the awareness and the energy around reparations has grown significantly, so much so that even Interwoven Congregations is doing a series on it! N’COBRA was on what I call the bleeding edge, not the leading edge. We were the forerunners, the people who used to get laughed at. “What are you talking about? Reparations? It'll never happen. We don't want to waste our time.” Many of the elders who started the organization are no longer with us. Those of us now involved in the organization continue to hold the flag; it has not touched the ground.
Pat: How do you approach the process of reparations?
Woullard: When we're talking about reparations, we're not talking about a broken labor contract where you owe some money because you cheated someone. We're talking about a broken human covenant where people were not only deprived but dehumanized. Reparations means repair. So that's what we're trying to do, to mend this broken human covenant. If we're not approaching it from that perspective, then we're not doing the work; we're not doing enough. In order to have the repair that is required, we have to have full repair. So it’s acknowledgment, accountability, and atonement -- that's the process.
Pat: Where would you just place the reparations movement today?
Woullard: I would place it on a precipice.
Pat: Why would you say that?
Woullard: Today you'll see that much of the conversation is being shaped around this idea that the repair that's required because of the dehumanization of African personality in the European imagination is compensation. Just give us the money and everything is good. But as I said, this is not about a broken labor contract, it's about a broken human covenant. Too often when people think about reparations, they only think about a transactional process. But the repair required has to be relational.
Our Zoom conversation
Pat: What's the corrective that you would like to see in the effort?
Woullard: I'm not laboring under an illusion. They did the human genome project to establish that we're all human, but that really hasn't made a difference. And the same thing could very well happen with reparations, with people making apologies and maybe even kicking in a little bit of money. But you'll still have disparate outcomes in terms of health, education, all of these other things. This internalized idea of [white] superiority and [black] inferiority will continue. That's my major concern. Both parties, both the injurer and the injured, need repair. We're talking about repairing society.
I think that we must match the remedy to the injury. The international community has identified five remedies:
· One is restitution, to restore a people to their former state as much as possible.
· Another is rehabilitation -- both mental and physical rehabilitation.
· Then there IS compensation -- compensating people for their losses to the extent that it can be established. Compensation may be necessary, but by itself it is insufficient to make the repairs necessary to build this relational, human covenant.
· There is cessation and the guarantee of non-repeat.
· And finally there is satisfaction. Satisfaction is actually acknowledging what has happened, making it a part of the public sphere and including it in history. It is also engaging with the harmed community and allowing them to determine what's needed in order to right the wrong.
Pat: We’re talking here in January 2025, a week after the second inauguration of President Donald Trump. Would you say we’re in a new world now in terms of reparations?
Woullard: I would suggest that we're not in a new world. In fact, we're living in the old country that is centered around white supremacy. What we're seeing now is more of the same. The current administration has railed against DEI efforts, and people are saying ‘We want to get rid of this stuff, because we don't want to talk about our past’ and ‘You can't talk about slavery because it might hurt my children’s feelings.’
Pat: Would you say that's where we are today? In a state of denial?
Woullard: Not just today -- all along. You say we’re in a state of denial today -- and we weren't in a state of denial in the 1990s when they were talking about young African American males as ‘super predators?’ Would we say we weren't in denial when there was segregation? All along, European Americans have been in denial about their behavior. Thomas Jefferson had to be in denial to sit down and write the Declaration of Independence and assert that ‘all men are created equal’ while he had Sally Hemings over on the side while holding her kin in chattel enslavement.
Pat: Can we even be thinking about reparations today when we're in the midst of shutting down DEI programs?
Woullard: 30 years ago, I came to New Hampshire and reparations was not on the horizon. I said “People supporting reparations, or Reparationists, are the ‘New Abolitionists.’” When the abolitionists were on the scene back in the 1700s & 1800s and raised the issue of abolition, people would tell them, “What are you talking about? You're crazy! Slavery is the economic engine of the country. How can we afford to end it? Anyway, it’s legal. So, it is acceptable. Plus I don’t personally own any slaves.” We get the same arguments today about reparations. “We can't afford to make good on what is owed economically, financially to this community. Plus, slavery was legal at the time. And, my ancestors didn’t personally own any slaves.” It's the same basic situation that we faced all along, the same denial, the same obfuscation of the issue, he same dehumanization of the African personality in the European imagination.
Pat: What is your call to action for people?
Woullard: Our call is to do something. Do something. Call your representatives and inquire about H.R. 40. Talk to your local representatives , state and municipal. What are they doing? But it’s a mistake to put all your chips on legislation. We have to do all the work. What corporations should be held accountable? We need to be dealing with institutions, whether colleges or churches. And we need to deal with individuals who have benefited from African chattel enslavement. Euro-Americans require repair from the moral injury of complicity. They have to transform their ghosts of guilt and shame into ancestors. We’re talking about our collective humanity as the human family. [END]
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