BOB ABERNETHY: Now, a sharply controversial issue that is just beginning to take shape -- whether the country should pay reparations to black Americans for the injustice of slavery and its lingering aftermath. Advocates insist this is a moral issue.

Many whites respond, immediately, "I did not have anything to do with slavery. Why should I pay?" Others ask, "How would you decide who should be compensated? And by how much?"

We asked correspondent Joe Davidson to examine the pros and cons.

JOE DAVIDSON: George Washington inherited his first ten slaves at age 11. Slavery was common among the country's founding fathers.

Washington eventually controlled 316 slaves. Last week, some descendents of those slaves came back to the Mt. Vernon home of their ancestors.

ROHULAMIN QUANDER (Slave descendant): Within our family, it's been passed down that George Washington, as far as slave holders are concerned, was about average. He had a significant benevolent streak towards his slaves. But let's remember, the institution of slavery is still slavery.

Zsunnee Kimball Matema is descended from a slave who was at Washington's bedside the day he died.

ZSUNNEE KIMBALL MATEMA (Slave descendant): She was standing with Martha Washington, behind her, at the foot of the bed, almost where I am standing now.

DAVIDSON: Washington's will called for the 131 slaves he personally owned to be freed upon Martha Washington's death.

In fact, Martha freed those slaves exactly 200 years ago this week. On New Year's Day, visitors paid tribute to those slaves. They laid sprigs from boxwood hedges, hedges planted by slaves, on the Slave Memorial.

In ceremonies like this one, America is beginning to acknowledge the contributions of slaves. Contributions that include laboring to build such symbols of American freedom as the U.S. Capitol.

But a growing number of people feel it is their duty to do much more to right the wrongs visited on slaves, like those buried in unmarked graves here at George Washington's estate.

They want reparations for centuries of slavery and the consequences of racism and economic discrimination ever since. Activist Randall Robinson lays out the case in a book calling reparations a debt owed for past crimes.

RANDALL ROBINSON (Author, THE DEBT): The United States government has been complicit in the longest-running crime against humanity in the world over the last 500 years -- 246 years of slavery starting with the American colonies -- and beyond that, for a century of "de jure" segregation and racial discrimination. So we're talking about enormous sums of money.

DAVIDSON: But who should pay? Labor Secretary designate Linda Chavez, interviewed before her cabinet appointment, says that is a divisive question.

LINDA CHAVEZ (Center for Equal Opportunity): I think that there will be many white Americans who will say, "My ancestors weren't even here during the Jim Crow era, and they weren't here during the period of slavery." Or, "If they were here, they in fact did not own slaves and did not benefit from slavery."

DAVIDSON: Liberal scholar Wendy Kaminer says identifying the victims is another problem:

WENDY KAMINER (Radcliffe College): You know, I would have supported reparations for slavery in the generation or two after slavery ended, because you could identify the actual victims of slavery, you could identify their children, but you can't do that anymore, and it gets so complicated in this country when so many Americans are mixed-race people, so many African Americans are mixed-race, they have white ancestors, they have ancestors who were slaveholders, as well as ancestors who were slaves.

DAVIDSON: Detroit Congressman John Conyers wants a Congressional commission to sort through these problems. This week, for the seventh time, he introduced legislation to study reparations. The bill has never gone anywhere, but Conyers says interest is growing.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN CONYERS (D-Michigan): I had a member of Congress ask me, "What's this reparations all about? Did I miss something?" People are just picking up on the subject.

ROBINSON: This time we run it on a legal track and a legislative track with John Conyer's legislation.

DAVIDSON: Robinson wants to force the issue in court. He has assembled a task force which includes leading trial lawyers, flush with class action winnings, and respected academic legal talent like Harvard's Charles Ogletree. They are planning a massive legal attack on private corporations and individuals whose wealth can be traced to slavery, state governments, and perhaps the United States itself.

PROFESSOR CHARLES OGLETREE (Harvard Law School): There are few acts in the history of civilization that are comparable to slavery. Tens of millions of innocent people were dragged from the land where they were born. They were hostilely taken to a foreign land. They were forced to provide their labor.

And the slave owners were unjustly enriched. Slavery built this country. Every aspect of America benefited directly from slavery, slaves indirectly suffered at the hands of America.

Reparations is probably the vehicle to try to address those grievances.