Forty Acres and a Mule, Plus Interest

The Case for Reparations That Repair

In 1865, as an emancipatory gesture, Union General Sherman promised freed Blacks an allotment of property, animals and farmland. While controversial, many saw this as a much-needed correction, one that would allow former slaves to heal and build their lives as free people.

To earn one’s own living. And to repair.

That’s where the word reparations is derived from.

Sadly, President Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor would have none of it. Thus virtually all of the vast plantations captured or controlled by Union Armies after the Civil War were returned to their white slave owners.

So instead of rebuilding, this broken promise to repair led to decades of Black displacement from the South.

Black refugees, if you will.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ostensibly formed to officially ban slavery, was ratified just a year after General Sherman’s reparations order. It laid down the edict:

​Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

It was the “except” part of the Thirteenth Amendment that was the problem.

Southern states, not willing to concede defeat and end slavery, passed law after law to make sure Blacks, and in particular Black men, were incarcerated at alarming rates for doing little more than hanging out in their community.

Slavery and involuntary servitude were and are, according to the new and improved anti-slavery Constitution, legal for people convicted of crimes.

New laws were passed making it a crime to engage in such vague things as “malicious mischief.” Other laws required Blacks to sign slave-like labor contracts and if they refused, they would be arrested and convicted. States passed “loitering” laws to make it easy to arrest anyone for so much as standing around in a place they weren’t welcome.

One law prohibited the types of work Blacks could do and if anyone was found violating this law, they would be convicted and forced back into free plantation labor.

To add insult to injury, the South instituted Jim Crow laws, essentially creating two societies. One separate for whites; a lower and less palatable one for Blacks.

The legacy of mass incarceration and separation laws destroyed thousands and thousands of black families.

Blacks had limited choices during these one-hundred years of post-slavery abuse. Get arrested and you’re likely headed back into some forced servitude, and life as second-class citizens. Or you could flee to the North as a refugee with nothing.

Of course, Blacks in the South were being arrested at an alarming rate. Over five times higher than whites during this period of time. The ones who escaped as refugees, to places like Chicago, Newark, Oakland, Harlem, Compton had no money, no education, and nothing from which to build.

The denigration of Black families didn’t stop there. The crime bills of the 70s, 80s and 90s, supported by both the Left and Right, sped up the incarceration of Blacks, primarily through stiff drug sentencing instead of programs and treatment.

Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush all signed on. Mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines were enacted with no attention given to a person’s circumstances. There were numerous instances where Black people were thrown in prison for twenty years for distributing a couple of ounces of crack, while Wall Street drug pushers could sell quadruple the amount of the same drug in a different form and receive a slap on the wrist.

It also turns out Blacks and whites use drugs at approximately the same rate but Blacks are given far stiffer punishments.

Even today, there are Black felons convicted of selling marijuana still serving lengthy prison sentences while wealthy white folks now legally sell the same thing in places like Boulder, Colorado, or along the pristine beachfront of Santa Cruz, California without punishment.

It wasn’t enough to enslave millions of Africans. Then to be “freed” only to be called criminals, unofficially extending slavery. Then came the ugly stain of Jim Crow laws followed by years of mass incarceration.

And yet when the topic of reparations for these unending crimes against Black people comes up, when the topic of the forty acres and a mule is revisited, the chorus is always “that was so long ago” or “that had nothing to do with me.”

The fact is, reparations and restitution have been models for compensating and helping repair severe damage and injustice done to all kinds of people.

The U.S. paid Americans of Japanese descent who were sent to internment camps during World War II because of their ethnicity $20,000 per person and a formal apology.

Germany has paid over $70 billion in reparations to victims of the Nazis. They still pay hundreds of millions per year. Direct payments. Payments to help care for the elderly. Educational programs.

Private German companies have even paid money, or given favorable trade deals to Israel. Ever wonder why most of the cabs in Israel are Mercedes while American cabs are the cheaper Chevy Impalas?

These reparations were of course justified to repair, if even a little, the harm that was done.

Everyone acknowledges how unjust and harmful it was to indiscriminately place Americans of Japanese descent in camps with no evidence that they somehow would undermine the U.S. in its war against their country. And certainly, nobody of reasonable mind thinks that Germany should not pay for decimating the Jews of Europe, destroying entire communities, murdering men, women, and children, forcing Jews into labor and experimenting on people.

America committed over 400 years of atrocities against Black people. Millions brought over against their own will chained to boats. Those who survived the long trip amidst defecation and dead bodies were then sent into forced labor.

Millions were killed and beaten. Then mass arrests ensued to keep people in forced labor. Then the Jim Crow laws. Then more incarceration instead of help.

Pile on that, many of our still wealthiest families were built on slave economics. Our own White House was built in part by slaves from Africa. The money never ended up in the hands of the workers. Rather, the slave masters received it.

I believe it’s high time to properly acknowledge and compensate for those atrocities, the horrific impact they still cause today, and create a plan for reparations so we can start a forty-acre repair that should’ve been implemented a century and a half ago.

Today, reparations of course wouldn’t’ fix much if we just handed out a bunch of land and animals. The damage done since the supposed end of slavery has created much deeper problems than can be fixed with a simple paycheck.

Some still argue that direct payments to descendants of slaves would make the most sense. The figures range from hundreds of billions to over two trillion in payments. Opponents of this approach argue that while payments may be just, they aren’t going to magically solve the deep problems that have grown out of all of the years of abuse.

So what should reparations look like if not the present-day dollar value of forty acres and a mule? Asheville, North Carolina ushered in a new movement on July 15, 2020, when they passed a reparations plan to invest in their local Black communities.

The plan I’ve outlined below follows a similar path as Asheville.

But before we even get to the “plan,” there are some pre-plan initiatives that should be implemented immediately.

Unlike my fellow Jews, who for the most part invest in their own by educating their children about their history, persecution, accomplishments, homeland and the like (let’s set aside the religious aspect), Black folks in large part are woefully deficient in knowing about their own ancestral history. This is not only due to the fact that our public schools have excluded most of that from the curricula, but because the history of Black Americans was interrupted and dislodged so many times, many people don’t even know where to begin.

In response to this gap, I believe we should establish a Federal Archive on African Ancestry, led by someone like Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and provide free access and education to Black folks (and anyone else) so they can research their ancestry, learn about their histories and provide the foundation for healing necessary for a truly meaningful reparations program.

America needs more than just financial investment in Black Americans, it needs to provide a foundation for healing. Getting Black Americans in touch with their histories, ancestry, and past will help that process.

Also, the government should consider issuing reparations cards to qualified Black Americans with a complete report of their historical legacy. That card would then serve as their means for accessing various reparations options, like those set forth below.

Once we have these as the starting points, we can now begin to better appreciate the true depth and significance of reparations on all sides.

If we intend to repair the ugly stain of racism, then we must provide the right tools to create a more balanced and fair society. Sherman’s forty acres and a mule plan wasn’t a handout. It was meant to give Black folks a way to create a life for themselves. To have land and animals to earn their own living. That’s what we need to replicate.

Now for my reparation prescriptions:

Child Education and Services: Free pre-K early childhood education. Build new state of the art elementary, middle, and high schools in areas with high Black populations, with more teachers per student, more computers, nutritional lunch programs, and more student counselors.

Nutritional Counseling: Vouchers for one year of monthly nutritional counseling per family.

Higher Education: For people who already have attended college, student loan forgiveness up to $50,000 per person. For people who have not attended post-high school programs, 75% paid tuition for any two or four-year public institution or vocational program in the state where they live. Or credit in the form of a voucher to another institution (private or out of state). In addition, add money to the scholarship endowments of Historical Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

Housing: Government paid down-payments for homeownership, up to $25,000 per family.

Mental Health Care Professionals: Vouchers for use of mental care professionals (social workers, psychologists, therapists) for up to three years.

Financial Literacy: Vouchers to take a debt reduction course (such as Dave Ramsey or others) and vouchers for six months of financial budgeting and literacy training.

General Health Care: Health care vouchers for private insurance for up to two years (in the meantime, we still need to be working on a comprehensive plan for all).

Drug Treatment and Prison Release: Free drug treatment for anyone in need. Transfer of all people convicted of non-gun related drug offenses to drug treatment and education programs, with release upon successful completion of the programs.

Payment: One-time payment of $35,000 to each person age thirty and over, and $35,000 deposited into an interest-bearing account for people under the age of thirty that can be withdrawn at age thirty. All tax-free. One time payments to continue for anyone born within nine months of the program’s start.

Corporate Campaign. All while the government owns up to its dark past, there also should be a federal campaign to voluntarily encourage corporations to offer some sort of recompense to Black Americans based on their specific historically racist practices of the past. Think of the goodwill that extending these sorts of olive branches could create.

The price tag for all of this. About the same as the two wasted wars in Iraq.

There certainly are more parts of society that need changing, such as police reform, educational reform, and the like. But in terms of a reparations program designed to repair and give Black folks a fair chance, this plan hits directly on some of the biggest pieces impacting Black Americans. It places Black folks in a position to advance instead of struggle.

For all of you elected officials and others who don’t want to make things better for Black folks or repair the centuries of abuse. Or for those of you who don’t think you’re responsible for the sins of people who came before us, consider this thought, here’s my message:

Maybe a Black reparations plan would be a good thing because it’s actually good for you, too.

You see, the very stability and viability of our entire country, not just Black people, is riding on whether we address this now or punt in down the road again for another day of more anger and havoc.

In fact, we are likely to face worse havoc if we fail to make life better for Black Americans. Left, unaddressed, it’s coming to a city near you.

Jeffrey Kass is a global thought leader on race, society, and culture and the author of “Oreos and a Pack of Marlboro Lights.” He is a practicing attorney residing in Denver, Colorado. Jeffrey can be reached at jeffrey@jeffreykass.com