Reparations for Black Americans

In early 1865, a group of Black ministers met with Union leadership in Savannah, Georgia, to voice the most pressing needs of formerly enslaved people in post-Civil War America. Their priorities? Freedom from white domination, education, and land ownership.[1] This meeting led to the plan known as “40 Acres and a Mule,” which set aside 400,000 acres of confiscated Confederate land for freed Black families. So began the first program of reparations to Black Americans in the United States.

This Union-sanctioned redistribution of land was fleeting. President Johnson overturned the plan just a few months later, dispossessing Black people of land they had forcibly worked for generations. Most plots returned to the hands of earlier white landowners, and Black families had little choice but to work as sharecroppers.

For more than 150 years, the federal government has failed to fulfill the promise of reparations and address the brutal harms of slavery and its legacy. As a result, Black communities face disproportionate unemployment and incarceration rates, adverse health outcomes, and an extreme wealth gap. U.S. institutions have denied wealth equity to Black Americans since enslavement, when wealth accumulation was impossible, and more recently through the innumerable policies and practices that exclude Black people from accessing resources and opportunities. Today, white families hold about 10 times more wealth than Black families.[2]

The U.S. government has never meaningfully acknowledged the lasting impacts of this trauma and resource deprivation on generations of Black families. The provision of compensation – in some form or another – would be a critical step to reckoning with the nation’s history.

What creative configurations could reparations take? These policy options explore some possibilities:

1.      Commission to Study Reparations (H.R. 40)

Current federal legislation, H.R 40, proposes a 13-member Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans. This group would examine the U.S. government’s complicity with slavery and develop policy recommendations for reparations. Members of the commission – selected by community stakeholders – would report their findings to Congress.[3] If implemented, the commission would require a relatively low budget of $20 million.[4]

The bill has been introduced in every session of the U.S. Congress since 1989, thanks to the tireless commitment of the late Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), and now, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX). H.R. 40 passed its first-ever committee vote in April 2021.[5] The bill’s new milestone in the Congressional process indicates some momentum in the push for reparations, perhaps in light of the Black Lives Matter movement and renewed scrutiny on the adverse effects of police brutality, mass incarceration, and the COVID-19 pandemic on Black Americans.

However, the bill’s historic unpopularity in Congress among both parties, even on the topic of simply studying reparations, still suggests a long uphill battle for proponents of the legislation. Likewise, H.R. 40’s companion bill in the Senate will also need substantially more support for passage.

By itself, the commission would have no concrete impact on people’s lives. However, it would advance a much-needed public dialogue about the historical case for reparations and policy options going forward.

2.      Direct Payments

The U.S. government could provide direct payments to descendants of enslaved people. Black Americans, who hold only an estimated 3% of the nation’s wealth but comprise 13% of the population, would need to receive $10.7 trillion (10% of household wealth) to reach parity with the national per capita wealth average. This money could be distributed in payments of $267,000 to each of the roughly 40 million descendants.[6]

It’s worth noting that alternative calculations could reduce the cost of this policy option. For example, adjusting the 40 Acres and a Mule premise for modern-day compensation would amount to an estimated value of $1.3 trillion.[7] However, the $10.7 trillion option provides a measuring stick for what a more economically transformative policy might look like.

Eligible recipients would need to trace their ancestry to enslavement and provide documentation to prove it, which could be complicated for people with uncertain genealogy. The U.S. government would finance direct payments by borrowing (as happened with the multi-trillion dollar COVID-19 relief package),[8] and recipients could spend, invest, or save the money.

Despite failed promises and missed opportunities to pay reparations to Black Americans, the U.S. does have a history of providing compensation to other groups. For example, the U.S. Japanese American internment survivors received the equivalent of $3.5 billion (in 2020 dollars) through the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Currently, the Biden administration is contemplating payments of up to $450,000 for families separated at the border under former President Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy.[9] Such a figure makes even the $267,000 reparation payments for descendants of enslaved people seem modest.

Even so, the polarizing public conversation around reparations for Black Americans makes the political viability of direct payments near impossible. In a 2019 poll conducted by the Associated Press, only 29% of Americans supported the idea of cash reparations. Within that total, only 15% of white Americans supported reparations, compared to 74% of Black Americans.[10] While the direct payments policy has high transformative potential, its cost and political hurdles may prove insurmountable.

3.      Housing Grants and Baby Bonds

Housing grants would address a particular thread of anti-Black discrimination, ranging from land dispossession to redlining. During the mid-twentieth century, federal agencies selectively issued loans and devised restrictive covenants that prohibited the sale of federally insured properties to people of color. These policies diminished property values in Black communities and lined the pockets of predatory lenders, who took advantage of Black families when no legitimate mortgages were available to them.[11]

A federal housing reparations program could be patterned from the City of Evanston, Illinois’s distribution of $25,000 grants, to be used toward down payments, mortgages, home repairs, and other housing needs.[12] While adult recipients would have immediate use of the grants, eligible children would receive the funds in the form of $25,000 “baby bonds,” to be accessed upon their 18^th birthday.[13]

Like the direct payments option, applicants would need to submit documentation to demonstrate eligibility. However, this option avoids the challenges of tracing genealogy as far back as enslavement. Housing grant candidates would include any Black Americans (regardless of ancestral enslavement and immigration history) who lived in the U.S. during the state-sanctioned practice of redlining, along with their descendants. The date parameters would range from 1934 (the formalization of redlining through the National Housing Act of 1934 and the establishment of the Federal Housing Administration) to 1969 (the passage and implementation of the Fair Housing Act).

These grants and bonds would be financed through borrowing. Multiplied by an estimated 40 million eligible recipients, the program would total $1 trillion. The lower cost and issue-specific nature of the grants makes them more politically viable than direct payments.

4.      Public Apology and Education Program

The spiritual and psychological harms of slavery must be taken as seriously as the material and physical impacts on Black communities. A public apology by the U.S. government would begin the process of a historical reckoning and create space for direct policy solutions.

An added educational component would help contextualize the public apology. The federal government could provide population-based funding and guidance for implementation of a race-aware social studies curriculum for public schools, along with an annually required antiracism training course for teachers who would be using the curriculum.

Schools would need to meet these updated standards to receive the state-distributed federal funding. While some state governments might refuse participation due to the hyper-politicization of education,[14] the curriculum and training modules would be publicly accessible.

The cost estimate for this program is based on the U.S. Department of Education FY2020 budget for English Language Acquisition, which totaled $787.4 million and similarly allocated funding for research, teacher preparation, standards-based formula grants to states, and resource dissemination.[15]

Recommendations

A policy package that combines the Housing Grants and Baby Bonds with the Public Apology and Education Program would be relatively feasible and provide substantial benefits to Black Americans. The cost would equal $1 trillion in one-time grants, plus $787.4 million per year for dissemination of state education funding and materials. While direct payments would also be desirable for advancement of racial equity, the cost and political challenges may be insurmountable. The other option, H.R. 40, would prepare Congress for a later policy package; however, given the ample research already available, policymakers should invest in concrete reparations now.

Reparations that center material wellbeing and psychological healing would provide a holistic path forward for our divided country. While this combined package has greater political and administrative feasibility than a direct payments program, policymakers can still take additional steps to build public support. The policy package should be framed in a way that reduces perceptions of blame and instead emphasizes a restorative path forward for diverse communities. The acknowledgement of inequity, along with common-sense steps to repair harm, will result in a healthier, more resilient society across different markers of identity.

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References

[1] McCammon, Sarah. “The Story Behind ’40 Acres and a Mule.” NPR Code Switch, 12 Jan. 2015, https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/01/12/376781165/the-story-behind-40-acres-and-a-mule.

[2] Ray, Rashawn, and Andre Perry. “Why We Need Reparations for Black Americans.” The Brookings Institution, April 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/BigIdeas_Ray_Perry_Reparations-1.pdf.

[3] "H.R.40 - 117th Congress (2020-2021): Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act." Congress.gov, Library of Congress, 14 April 2021, https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/40.

[4] “H.R. 40, Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act,” Congressional Budget Office, 17 May 2021, https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57224.  

[5] “Historic Progress on US Slavery Reparations Bill,” Human Rights Watch, 15 April 2021, https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/04/15/historic-progress-us-slavery-reparations-bill.  

[6] Lynn, Samara and Catherine Thorbecke. “What America Owes: How Reparations Would Look and Who Would Pay,” ABC News, 27 Sep. 2020, https://abcnews.go.com/Business/america-owes-reparations-pay/story?id=72863094.

[7] Francis, Dania. “The Logistics of a Reparations Program in the United States,” Washington Center for Economic Growth, 18 Feb. 2020, https://equitablegrowth.org/the-logistics-of-a-reparations-program-in-the-united-states/.

[8] Holtzblatt, Janet and Noah Zwiefel. “How Could the United States Pay for Reparations?” Tax Policy Center, 3 Feb. 2021, https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/how-could-united-states-pay-reparations.

[9] Jordan, Miriam. “Families Separated at Border May Each Get Up to $450,000,” New York Times, 28 Oct. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/28/us/politics/trump-family-separation-border.html.

[10] Freking, Kevin. “House Panel Votes to Advance Bill on Slavery Reparations,” AP News, 14 April 2021, https://apnews.com/article/race-and-ethnicity-discrimination-legislation-slavery-john-conyers-4929d09132b8a72e655d8a42cc068a9d.

[11] Coates, Ta-Nehisi. “The Case for Reparations.” The Atlantic, 15 June 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/.

[12] Herndon, Astead, host. “A City’s Step Toward Reparations.” The Daily, The New York Times, 12 July 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/12/podcasts/the-daily/evanston-racial-reparations.html.

[13] Lowrey, Annie. “A Cheap, Race-Neutral Way to Close the Racial Wealth Gap,” The Atlantic, 29 June 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/close-racial-wealth-gap-baby-bonds/613525/.

[14] Richards, Erin and Alia Wong. “Parents want kids to learn about ongoing effects of slavery – but not critical race theory. They're the same thing.” USA Today, 10 Sep. 2021, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2021/09/10/crt-schools-education-racism-slavery-poll/5772418001/.

[15] “Fiscal Year 2021 Budget Summary,” U.S Department of Education, pp.12, https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget21/summary/21summary.pdf.