WASHINGTON (FinalCall.com)�The latest shot has been fired in the battle for reparations payments for the descendants of slaves in the United States.

After three years of litigation, several briefs and two sets of oral arguments, a federal judge dismissed the first "modern" reparations lawsuit in late April.

Judge Lawrence M. Baskir, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, dismissed the "equal protection" reparations lawsuit brought under the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 by Dr. Imari A. Obadele, a Prairie View University professor, and two other officers of the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Africa.

"This is the first lawsuit in modern times to be positioned to make these potent arguments before a U.S. Court of Law with jurisdiction to act," Dr. Obadele said in a statement May 6. "The RNA Provisional Government represents an independence movement, seeking recognition as such before the United Nations Decolonization Committee," he pointed out.

Dr. Obadele�s pledge to appeal the decision should be reconsidered however, according to another legal strategist. "I�m urging him not to appeal the case, because in appealing, if the appellate court affirms the decision, it might take out some of the good (legal) language," that was written in Judge Baskir�s decision, Nkechi Taifa, director of the Equal Justice Project, Howard University School of Law told The Final Call.

"Even though they didn�t win, the judge was very strong in his language in the opinion, (concerning) the legitimacy of the claim of African-descended people for reparations. Instead of calling it a loss, I consider it a victory, actually," she continued.

"Make no mistake," Judge Baskir said in his opinion, "the Plaintiffs have made a powerful case for redress as representatives of a racial group other than Americans of Japanese ancestry. The treatment of African-Americans who were enslaved, oppressed and disenfranchised is a long and deplorable chapter in this nation�s history. Their plight may well be the subject of future legislation providing for reparations for slavery."

H.R. 40, legislation introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) in every Congress since January 1989, would establish a Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for Black Americans, a commission not unlike one which preceded the enactment of the Civil Liberties Act, the law which provided reparations payments to Japanese Americans rounded up during World War II.

The benefit of good "language" even in a losing court decision comes as a result of the legal precedent certain wording establishes, said attorney Taifa. "It can be cited. It�s what�s called dicta. Just like people quote (Supreme Court Justice) Thurgood Marshall�s dissents, then in a later case another judge might take part of what that dissent is and use it in a favorable way.

"You take these incrementally, step by step. You don�t always get a victory all at once, but you get a judge who�s sympathetic on one particular issue to say something favorable in his opinion, and then you can use that in the next case, and the next case, and it goes on," she explained.

She praised Dr. Obadele�who is not an attorney�as a "legal genius" for directing the legal strategy not only of this case, but in his own defense against criminal charges arising out of political activities engaged in by the RNA in Mississippi in the 1970s. Dr. Obadele was even imprisoned for many years because of RNA activity in Mississippi.

In addition to this court case, the reparations movement has been gaining momentum across the board in recent months. Concern over the issue has begun to swell into a public outcry.

Other activists recently filed lawsuits in New York and Los Angeles against several companies that insured the lives of slaves. Even more lawsuits are pending, including a suit soon to be filed by the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N�COBRA).

In addition, federal and state agencies are more involved than ever before and the policies they enact effectively establish new precedents in the direction of legal relief for the crimes that were committed in this country against Black people. And several local jurisdictions, including the city councils in Baltimore and Chicago, have passed resolutions supporting reparations payments for slavery and its after effects.