Reparations debate: Mending the past, forging the future

Does the United States owe Black Americans compensation for the brutality of slavery and the lingering effects of segregation and other forms of racial discrimination?

Those in favor of reparations argue that slavery was the foundation of much of the nation’s antebellum wealth. At emancipation, enslaved people represented the most valuable asset in America, “$3 billion in 1860 dollars, more than all the other assets in the country combined,” Ta-Nehisi Coates told a House panel in 2019 testimony. 

The U.S. government has paid reparations to Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II, and even compensated some former slave owners. Proponents ask, why not Black Americans?

Those who oppose reparations argue that such a broad approach is politically untenable, difficult to design, unaffordable, and perhaps unconstitutional. 

Central to the opposition is the idea that guilt should not pass down the generations. Others say that monetary payments would cast Black Americans in the role of eternal victims. Reparations would also be extremely expensive. Draft recommendations from California’s Reparations Task Force run into the billions.

Yet some efforts have moved forward. In 2021, Evanston, Illinois, became the first city to approve housing-related reparations for Black residents. And Harvard University has set aside $100 million for an endowment aimed at closing racial economic and social gaps.

Does the United States owe Black Americans compensation of some kind for the brutality of slavery and the lingering effects of segregation and other forms of racial discrimination?

That question has divided U.S. politics and public opinion since the end of the Civil War, when Gen. William Sherman authorized the distribution to formerly enslaved Black people of 400,000 acres of land seized from white slave owners, only to see his order rescinded by President Andrew Johnson.

Today, those in favor of reparations argue that slavery was the foundation of much of the nation’s antebellum wealth. By 1836, almost half of U.S. economic activity derived directly or indirectly from slave-produced cotton, according to Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of the 2014 Atlantic article “The Case for Reparations.” At emancipation, enslaved people represented the most valuable asset in America, “$3 billion in 1860 dollars, more than all the other assets in the country combined,” Mr. Coates told a House panel in 2019 testimony.

Yet enslaved people and their descendants have never been compensated for their economic contributions, say reparations proponents. Black Americans have struggled to overcome the wealth gap between themselves and white Americans – about $278,000 on average, according to the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank.

Meanwhile, Black Americans have suffered lynching, Jim Crow laws, and de facto segregation caused by federal highway and home-lending policies.

In the past, the U.S. government has paid reparations to Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II, and even compensated some former slave owners. Proponents ask, why not Black Americans?

“We’re talking about acknowledging what has happened … owning up to the harms that have been committed against Black Americans from the time they were brought here forcibly,” says folklorist A. Kirsten Mullen, co-author with Duke University public policy professor William A. Darity Jr. of “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century.”

Expensive and unmanageable

Those who oppose reparations argue that such a broad approach is politically untenable, difficult to design, unaffordable, and perhaps unconstitutional, particularly given the current conservative-leaning Supreme Court.

Central to the opposition is the idea that guilt should not pass down the generations. Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell said in 2019, when he was Senate majority leader, that he does not favor reparations “for something that happened 150 years ago, for whom none of us currently living are responsible.”

Monetary payments would cast Black Americans in the role of eternal victims, according to Rep. Burgess Owens, a Republican from Utah who is Black himself. Reparations would propagate the notion that “Black Americans are a hopeless, hapless, and oppressed race who need pity and handouts to succeed,” he said in January.

How would the government determine eligible recipients? Any plan aimed at all Black citizens would perhaps be struck down under the equal protection clause, opponents say. Limiting payments to descendants of enslaved people might pass legal muster, but proving lineage could be difficult.

Reparations would also be extremely expensive. Payments under the draft plan recently released by California’s Reparations Task Force would run into the billions for just one state.

A variety of efforts

Polls show Black and white Americans are far apart on the issue. A 2021 Pew Research Center poll found that 77% of Black respondents supported reparations for descendants of enslaved people, with 18% of white respondents saying the same. Overall, 30% of U.S. adults back reparations, Pew found.

Given such numbers, the chances for a national reparations plan passing Congress appear very slim. Meanwhile, a widespread conservative “anti-woke” movement has targeted programs, such as reparations, that call for racial and social justice. Under pressure from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other GOP politicians, the College Board this year removed the topic of reparations for slavery from its Advanced Placement African American Studies curriculum.

Yet some reparations efforts have moved forward. In 2021, Evanston, Illinois, became the first city to approve reparations for Black residents – housing-related stipends. Detroit, among other cities, has created a task force to study the subject. 

Georgetown University, pushed by a 2019 student vote, has established a Reconciliation Fund to pay for projects at descendant communities linked to Maryland Jesuit plantations. Harvard University has set aside $100 million for an endowment aimed at closing racial economic and social gaps.

Some see advantages in the scale and variety of such efforts.

“I could … make an argument that a million small actions by individuals and institutions are equally important if not more important than government action because it would signify a tremendous amount of buy-in from all quarters – and that is what we need,” emailed Anne C. Bailey, a professor of history at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

This story was produced as part of a special Monitor series exploring the reparations debate, in the United States and around the world. Explore more.