ST. CROIX - Education.

In a word, that is what best-selling author and foreign policy advocate Randall Robinson said is needed for a successful journey toward reparations for slavery in the Caribbean.

"If your children are watching Jerry Springer, how can they not be messed up," Robinson, who repatriated to St. Kitts from the U.S. mainland, said Sunday to a captive audience at the Cormorant Hotel.

"One important aspect of the focus on reparations is education," Robinson said. "What you don't know will hurt you. What you learn will resuscitate you."

The Harvard-trained attorney and founder of the TransAfrica lobbying group led discussions during a daylong reparations roundtable sponsored by the African-Caribbean Reparations and Resettlement Alliance. The group was founded by St. Croix native Shelly Moorhead, who said he hoped to push for legislation to establish a commission to study the possibility of reparations for Virgin Islanders.

The commission, according to a draft of the proposed bill that was circulated for discussion Sunday, would look into the "inhumanity of slavery in the Danish West Indies between 1666 and 1848 and would examine the de facto racial and economic discrimination against Virgin Islanders and the impact of those forces on present-day residents." The commission would make recommendations to the Legislature on appropriate remedies.

Sen. Ronald Russell, who attended Sunday, said he is working with ACRRA to draft such legislation.

According to the version circulated, the commission would comprise five members, two of whom would be appointed by the governor, two appointed by the Senate president and one appointed by the minority caucus of the Legislature. Members would serve for life, and each member would receive $150 a day for each day spent in the work of the commission. But no member would receive more than $15,000 a year.

The commission would terminate 90 days after the date on which it submitted its report to the Legislature.

According to the draft, the commission would be able to enter into contracts with departments and other agencies of the V.I. government as well as private firms and institutions to conduct research or surveys in the preparation of reports and other activities considered necessary. To carry out the provisions of the bill, if passed, the commission would need an appropriation of $500,000.

Robinson, who led the morning session before dashing off to catch a flight at Rohlsen Airport, told a story of being at an airport with civil-rights leader Kwame Ture - the former Stokely Carmichael, who is credited with coining the phrase "black power'"- during the time that Carmichael was ill with prostate cancer.

"Some of our own were walking past him," he said. "We forget our own and our own story. That can't go on."

Robinson said that the idea of reparations for slavery is gaining momentum all over the world.

"Twenty years ago, about 20 percent believed in reparations. Now, I'm told that 70 percent believe in reparations. We've made big strides in that direction," he said.

Asked outside of the roundtable discussion how realistic the quest for reparations is, Robinson said there is success in just taking the first step.

"If you ask for nothing, you will get nothing," he said. "If you demand nothing, you will get nothing. I cannot tell you a probability of success nor can I put a clock on it, but when a cause is right and people struggle over time, the likelihood is it will be a success."

Carl Christopher, one of several local panelists, said that African ancestors should not be absolved of their part in the slave trade.

"We were also sold by our brothers, and reparations have to come from inside the family that did the injustice," he said. "Our reparations also have to start at home."

Robinson said, however, that in Africa there were various factions and that about 1,000 languages or so that those who did the selling thought they were selling off people different from them.

Renny Roker, another local panelist, questioned how to go about reaching the younger generation - the group, he said, who would likely be around to benefit from any reparation.

"Our young people's heroes are P. Diddy and Michael Jordan. Our young people don't realize that with intelligence, there's nothing they can't accomplish. Until we do that, all of this is for naught," Roker said.

- Contact Eunice Bedminster at 774-9772 ext. 472 or e-mail bedminster@dailynews.vi.