Black History Month —Working Toward Reparations for Slavery and Generational Trauma
Part One
If you fail to pay us for faithful labours in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire. — Jourdon Anderson’s response to his former owner’s request to return to the plantation after being freed, 7 August 1865
Libraries are called upon by presidential proclamation to observe Black History Month with “relevant programs, ceremonies, and activities” to honor “the work of Black Americans who have created a more fair and inclusive democracy, helping our Nation move closer to the realization of its full promise for everyone.” The 2023 proclamation highlights several issues that the Biden administration continues to address:
· Centuries of neglected infrastructure in Black American communities
· Racial discrimination in housing and in mortgage lending
· Negative impacts of redlining and other forms of financial discrimination
· Growing Black-owned businesses
· Effective, accountable, and transparent community policing
· Enforcement of civil rights laws
· Voting rights enforcement staff
These social and economic issues are some of the very same issues that can be found in historic and ongoing proposals for reparations to Black Americans. Such proposals have been advanced in various forms over the years to make amends for the injustices perpetrated against generations of Black Americans beginning with their enslavement in the 1600’s and continuing today.
This is the first of two blog posts examining the long hard fight for reparations in the United States. In Part One we touch briefly on the “why” of reparations, summarize reparations proposals in Congress, and highlight prominent figures in early reparations efforts. In Part Two we will feature Black Americans who fought for reparations in the Civil Rights Era, recent state and local government initiatives, and resources for further study.
Why Reparations?
Beginning more than 400 years ago, people were abducted from their homelands in Africa and enslaved in the American colonies to build wealth for White settlers. By 1860 nearly four million enslaved humans were the largest financial asset in the U.S. economy, valued at 3.5 billion dollars at that time. After Emancipation, the U.S. government promised compensation to those formerly enslaved of up to forty acres of tillable ground and the loan of an army mule. The few who received this land were soon pushed out, while slave owners received nearly 25 million dollars in today’s currency in reparations for the loss of their human property.
In the 150 years since Reconstruction, many government policies have stripped the ability to build generational wealth from the descendants of the enslaved. As an example, Black farmers lost about ninety percent of their land between 1910 and 1997 due to discrimination in lending and zoning as well as legal theft. Nina Banks, professor of economics at Bucknell University sees the problem as a multifaceted one. She says, “The racial wealth gap is a reflection of long-term policies and practices by both the public and private sectors that have systematically disadvantaged [B]lack, Latinx and Native communities in favor of [W]hite Americans.”
According to the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances, the typical White family holds nearly eight times the assets of the average Black family, amounting to a wealth gap of nearly $120,000. According to experts this gap is due to a lack of resources needed to build inheritable wealth. One study shows that college educated White heads of household earn more than Black heads of household with the same level of education, and on average, White families with a head of household without a high school diploma have more wealth than Black families where the head of household has an associate degree. Beyond this wealth gap lies a host of social, environmental, health, and justice deficits resulting from enduring 400 years of trauma and adversity.
Decades of Government Inaction
The past few years have seen a renewal of efforts to seek reparations to Black Americans, resulting largely from the protests surrounding the death of George Floyd. Reparations might consist of a financial payout to individuals. Many proponents, however, look to community efforts to build generational wealth and eliminate debt. Organizations suggest that reparations include college tuition waivers and student loan forgiveness, housing and business grants, health and wellness resources, and redress for mass incarceration of Black Americans.
Federal legislation has been introduced that would establish a Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans, but there is a long history of inaction in Congress. Former Representative John Conyers (MI) first introduced the legislation as H.R. 3745 in 1989, and introduced it again and again for the next fourteen sessions of Congress. In 2019 the mantel was taken up by Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (TX) in the House and Senator Cory A. Booker (NJ) in the Senate. There was a brief flurry of excitement when the Committee on the Judiciary approved H.R. 40 in April of 2021 but it never made it to the House floor. Both bills were introduced again in 2023. H.R. 40 and S. 40 are numbered after the 40 acres of land promised to former slaves in 1865.
While the federal government has yet to move reparations legislation beyond committee, there have been many previous attempts at seeking reparations and many who encouraged others to do so.
Two Centuries of Individual Actions
Some early efforts at seeking reparations met with mixed results, ranging from a court ordered pension in 1783 to the possible murder of a reparations advocate in 1830:
In 1783 a Massachusetts court awarded Belinda Royall a pension, making her the first known enslaved person to be compensated for her work.
In 1829 David Walker of Boston, the son of a former enslaved African, published an Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World in September 1829 where he proposed land reparations, unified resistance, and self-government for people of African descent. A bounty was placed on Walker and he was found dead in his doorway in 1830 of unknown causes.
Cudjo Lewis was the last survivor of the last ship to deliver abducted Africans to the United States, the Clotilda. Around 1865 he requested reparations from his former owner. After being refused, Lewis and other former slaves banded together to buy land and build a town in southern Alabama named Africatown.
Benjamin Sterling Turner, a former enslaved person and the first Black American from Alabama to serve in Congress, was one of the first U.S. members of Congress to call for reparations in the 1870’s.
In 1883 John Wayne Niles campaigned for reparations and even persuaded an Ohio Senator to petition the U.S. Senate for a land grant as reparations to former slaves. The proposal was tabled.
Callie House, a former slave and early leader in the reparations movement, co-founded the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association in 1898 to provide compensation to ex-slaves along with mutual aid and burial costs. Intimidated by the growth of the organization, the federal government indicted House for mail fraud and she was convicted by an all-White male jury in 1917. She served one year in prison.
Coming Up
We will soon close out Black History Month with Part Two of our reparations series, featuring later figures in the reparations movement, state and local initiatives, and research resources. (WB)
