Descendant of slaves running for Congress makes case for reparations
Gregg Marcel Dixon, a candidate for South Carolina's 6th Congressional District, is calling for $2.8 million in reparation payments for descendants of slaves.
A descendant of slaves running for Congress is calling on President Biden to give qualifying Black Americans $2.8 million in reparations for the lasting effects of slavery.
"Reparations is about a debt that is due," Gregg Marcel Dixon, who hopes to unseat Democratic Rep. James Clyburn in South Carolina’s 6th Congressional District, told Fox News Digital.
For 31 years, Dixon lived with his great-grandmother who was raised by former slaves, according to a campaign ad he posted on Twitter.
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"We like to say slavery was a long time ago, but you are looking at a man who was raised in the same house with a woman who was raised by someone who was enslaved by America," he said about Justine Brown, who died at 101 years old in 2015.
Dixon explained that Brown's grandfather was born enslaved in Beaufort, South Carolina, in 1838, and died in 1930.
"This country owes reparations to Black Americans and if this country had done to you what it had done to Black Americans, I would be right there fighting for you to get what you owed as well," he said.
He told Fox News Digital that his ancestor Quash Fripp fought in the Union Army during the civil war.
Dixon said he believes that Biden—who he referred to as "Slow Joe Crow Biden" for the duration of the interview—can take action with executive order to bring back the Freedmen’s Bureau agency that was tasked with assisting former slaves after the Civil War.
"That bureau has an unfinished job of repairing the great inequities that we see here in America, where Black Americans have been in this country longer than nearly all other ethnic groups," he said. "And yet we're at the bottom in terms of land and wealth and that's because the job of Reconstruction never finished."
Dixon added that while he was not initially a fan of former President Trump, he thought Trump was more likely to help Black Americans.
Gregg Marcel Dixon and his great-grandmother Justine Brown.
"Donald Trump had plans where he was going to invest at least $500 billion into the Black American community, he was going to start the Department of African-American Affairs to focus specifically on our needs, he was talking about the damage that illegal immigration causes to black Americans," he said. "It's way more than what we're getting now and what any other presidential candidate has offered," Dixon said.
He added that Biden hasn’t taken action because "he doesn’t have to."
"Black Americans don't get any of that besides fish fries and feel-good dances and wearing Converse and listening to rap music— that's all we get, and we allow that to the bottom, and we just give away our vote. So he has no incentive to do for us because he knows no matter how awful he is, he is going to still get the majority of the Black vote."
Dixon said that he thinks that Americans who identify as Black and can trace their lineage to slaves are owed $2.8 million in government bonds, adding that the amount should go up each day the reparations are not given.
Interview with Fox News (Fox News Digital)
He called giving immediate direct payments "insane," citing inflation that would follow with giving tens of millions of people a large sum of money.
"My plan calls for recipients to get $2.8 million in cash bonds," he said. "It would be paid monthly per interest on the cash bonds and once the bonds have matured."
Dixon said the payments would "bolster the economy."
"We're not immigrants," he said. "Every penny we get is going right back to this nation."
When asked what the recipients would spend the money on, he said it’s "their business."
"When Germany gives direct payments to Holocaust survivors they don’t say ‘OK, give me a business plan," he said. "It is insulting for people to talk about how Black Americans are going to spend our money."
"If I decide I want to spend my money on video games or things people feel are insignificant, that's my business, but history has shown Black Americans have always been very resourceful with our money," Dixon said.
He slammed Democratic lawmakers and rejected the idea of the government setting up a program to roll out reparations under a program investing in Black neighborhoods, claiming that they are ineffective.
"When Democrats introduce these programs to help Black Americans, they end up helping everyone else—illegal immigrants even—besides Black Americans." he said. "And the next thing we know, we’re further to the bottom, and we haven’t been helped at all, so we need direct cash payments."
Dixon said he is not against California’s proposal to give $1.2 million per person, but he thinks it must come from the federal level.
"Reparations ultimately is something that comes from the federal government," he said. "A lot of states simply don't have the tax revenue to pay what is owed. The federal government does."
Dixon said that reparations are not about stopping racism, but about paying a debt. He cited other cases where the federal government gave reparations, including payments, to Japanese Americans interned during World War II through The Civil Liberties Act of 1988.
Gregg Marcel Dixon's family. (Courtesy of Gregg Marcel Dixon)
"It is not to fight against racism, it is not to punish White people, it is not race based," he said, adding that the United States failed to compensate former slaves during Reconstruction.
He said that White Americans, despite their lineage, should not qualify because they did not experience more recent forms of discrimination such as sharecropping, lynch mobs, Jim Crow and others.
"So it starts with American slavery, but it also accounts for all the government-sanctioned atrocities," Dixon said.
"Most Black Americans know exactly who we are and from where we come in," Dixon said when asked how people would accurately trace their lineage. "So this myth that is hard to trace is just disingenuous."
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Dixon was defeated in the 2022 Democratic primary for Clyburn’s seat, only gaining 4.5% of the vote.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Dixon said he is currently suing Clyburn over accusations of conspiring to force the termination of Dixon from his teaching job.
Click here to hear more about Dixon's case for reparations.
Editors Note: This article has been updated to reflect a more accurate view of Dixon's views on immediate direct payments and California's reparations proposal.