RALEIGH—The eyes of the nation are watching North Carolina, where state Reps. Larry Womble, D-Forsyth, and Earl Jones, D-Guilford, are sponsoring the first bill in any state that would require companies seeking government contracts to examine their records for evidence of participation in or profiting from slavery.

The bill, H1006, has already gone through the House Government Committee with a unanimous vote. If passed into law, it will force corporations to file affidavits of any past investments in or profits derived from slavery. The companies will be required to comply or face termination of their state contracts.

Womble, a known reparations activist, reportedly said the bill isn’t meant to punish anyone, instead it is simply intended to unearth slavery ties and document history.

But Peter Flaherty, president of the National Legal and Policy Center in Falls Church, Va. and coauthor of a study, “The Case Against Slave Reparations,” said he knows better. He said the bill in North Carolina is an attempt to legitimize a broader nationwide movement to shake down corporations. The ultimate goal of the legislation, he said, is to provide a massive payday for 35 million blacks across the nation.

Flaherty said the research provided in the 35-page NLPC study is an attempt to “sound the alarm,” on the potential firestorm of events to come. He said history is being revised and heroes vilified through the many attempts already made by those who are seeking a big payday for events that happened 140 years ago. “It’s totally ridiculous to pay them,” he said. “We are doing what we can to stop it.”

The in-depth NLPC report says those responsible are high-powered lawyers; politicians; ministers, including the Revs. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan; and organizations, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America. The NLPC study said their efforts must be taken seriously. “A notion may be absurd,” the report says, “but if millions of people support it, and stand to profit from it, political momentum for it builds.”

The NLPC study said that once a company finds it had connections to the slave trade, black activists will be waiting in the wings to swoop in and demand an estimated $15 trillion to $97 trillion in potential reparations. “It seems like an idea that’s far-fetched,” Flaherty said. “They are targeting big corporations because they are typically cowardly and ill-suited to fight the idea.”

Flaherty said this is already happening to Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Aetna Insurance, New York LIfe, RJ Reynolds, Lehman Brothers, and railroad firms. Other firms also targeted for lawsuits include AIG, Chase Manhattan Bank, and various energy companies.

The N’COBRA website has no qualms about collecting the money, stating the restitution is “payback for centuries of stolen labor, cultural degradation and dehumanizations,” the website said. “Indeed, Africans held as slaves have been struggling for a restored sense of wholeness since being brought to this country as chattel.”

While Womble and Jones do their part to push the movement, it may be their own political party catching fire and burning in the end, the NLPC study says. The national Democratic Party, was a “bona-fide party of slavery” that could end up paying the largest portion of the tab, according to the study. “If activists are going to defy common sense and demand reparations, then the ripest target is the Democratic Party,” the study found. “For decades the Democratic Party voted, campaigned, lobbied, barnstormed, editorialized, pontificated, and fought vigorously to preserve and expand slavery in the United States. And for many decades after abolition, the party led the fight to deny civil rights to African Americans…By the logic of reparation advocates, the Democratic Party has much to answer for.”

The Rev. Wayne Perryman, author of the book, Unfounded Loyalty: An In-depth look into the Love Affair Between Blacks and Democrats, might have already set the precedent when he recently filed a 180-page reparations lawsuit against the Democratic Party in the U.S. District Court in Seattle.

The brief with his court appearance claimed “the Democratic Party established a pattern of practice of promoting, supporting, sponsoring and financing racially bias entertainment, education, legislation, litigations and terrorist organizations from 1792 to 1962, and continued certain practices up to 2002.”

Perryman’s brief says Democrats have not disclosed their true history of complete opposition to the Abolitionist, the Reconstruction Act of 1867, the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to end slavery, make African American’s citizens, and give them the right to vote, the Civil Right Acts of 1866, 1875 and 1957.

He also said the Democratic Party supported slavery, the Fugitive Slave Laws of 1793 and 1854, the Missouri Compromise and Kansas Nebraska Act to protect slavery, the Dred Scott decision, Jim Crow laws, and Black codes.

Perryman said there wasn’t one law from 1792 to 1962 when Democrats supported or helped blacks. “Had the Democrats attempted to pass these same types of laws in 1864 that they claim credit for in 1964, the laws in 1964 would not have been necessary,” he said. “Instead, in 1866 they passed Black Codes, in 1875 they passed Jim Crow Laws, and in 1894 they passed the Repeal Act to repeal various pieces of previously passed Civil Rights legislation that were designed to give African Americans equality.”

Perryman’s lawsuit is asking for an apology and compensatory damages that include a $25,000 education fund for every African American 25 years and younger, $25,000 for those ages 26-35, $45,000 for blacks 46 to 55 years old, and $50,000 for those 56 years or older.

“My case against the Democrats is about a powerful political party that promoted and practiced racism for 170 years, until it infected our entire nation and affected an entire race,” Perryman testified in court. “Millions of people were brought to this country against their will, enslaved for over 200 years and denied their constitutional rights by the legislative efforts of one political party, the Democratic Party…African Americans were never compensated for their suffering.”

Karen Welsh is a contributing editor of Carolina Journal.