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What Reparations for Slavery Might Look Like in 2019

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Another civil rights leader, Bayard Rustin, responded, “If my great-grandfather picked cotton for 50 years, then he may deserve some money, but he’s dead and gone and nobody owes me anything.”

The question of reparations, however, extends far beyond the roughly four million people who were enslaved when the Civil War started, as Ta-Nehisi Coates explained in an influential essay published in The Atlantic in 2014. Legalized discrimination and state-sanctioned brutality, murder, dispossession and disenfranchisement continued long after the war ended. That history profoundly handicapped black Americans’ ability to create and accumulate wealth as well as to gain access to jobs, housing, education and health care.

For every dollar a typical white household holds, a Black one has 10 cents. It is this cumulative effect that justifies the payment of reparations to descendants of slaves long dead, supporters say.

“Equality is not likely to be obtained without some form of reparations,” David H. Swinton, an economist and former president of Benedict College, wrote in the 1990 collection “The Wealth of Races.”

Who would be paid?

Nearly 47 million Americans identified themselves as Black or African-American in the latest census. A vast majority are descended from slaves, but others are more recent migrants. So who would qualify for a payment?

William A. Darity Jr., an economist at Duke University and a leading scholar on reparations, suggests two qualifying conditions: having at least one ancestor who was enslaved in the United States, and having identified oneself as African-American on a legal document for at least a decade before the approval of any reparations. The 10-year rule, he said, would help screen out anyone trying to cash in on a windfall.

According to these criteria, Oprah Winfrey, who has traced her DNA to slaves captured in West Africa in the early 19th century, would qualify. Former President Barack Obama, the son of a white American mother and a Kenyan father, would not. Mr. Darity estimates that roughly 30 million Americans would be eligible.

Tracing genealogy back to the slave-owning era is difficult. But the search begins by comparing the 1870 census, when freed slaves were first counted by name, with the one taken in 1860, when they weren’t. Other sources include military service and pension records, slave-ship manifests, and estate and inheritance documents.

As for taking account of current wealth, a reparations program could link potential payouts to income and asset levels.

How much would recipients get?

Attaching a dollar figure to a program of reparations resembles a “Wheel of Fortune” spin, with amounts ranging from the piddling ($71.08 per recipient under Forman’s plan) to the astronomical ($17 trillion in total).

Over the decades, some economists have tried to come up with a quantifiable basis for a fair sum. Mr. Swinton, for example, estimated in 1983 that 40 to 60 percent of the difference between Black and white income could be attributed to past and continuing discrimination, and put the figure at $500 billion.

Some economists evaluated labor’s share of the slave system’s profits in cotton and tobacco. Others have looked at what slaves would have earned if they had been paid wages plus interest, after subtracting housing and food costs. One study looked at 20th-century statistics, estimating how much less blacks earned because of decades of discrimination. Another examined the value of black wealth lost or destroyed after slavery ended, through practices like redlining that denied lending or insurance to African-American communities, or organized riots like the 1921 rampage that leveled the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, known as “Black Wall Street.”

A recurring theme has been to return to that first official action promising 40 acres and a mule. Sherman drew up his order after posing this directive to a group of black ministers and leaders: “State in what manner you think you can take care of yourselves.”

What would Sherman’s promise be worth today?

Mr. Darity has been mulling that question for years, and is writing a book on reparations with Kirsten Mullen, due out next year. He begins with the cost of an acre in 1865: about $10. Forty acres divided among a family of four comes to 10 acres per person, or about $100 for each of the four million former slaves. Taking account of compounding interest and inflation, Mr. Darity has put the present value at $2.6 trillion. Assuming roughly 30 million descendants of ex-slaves, he concluded it worked out to about $80,000 a person.

To get a sense of the scale, consider that the United States budget this year is $4.7 trillion.

Of course, varying any critical assumption can add or subtract billions or trillions of dollars.

Thomas Craemer, an associate professor of public policy at the University of Connecticut, used the same starting point — 40 acres and a mule — but a different method in a study published last year. He used the current average price of agricultural land and figured that 40 acres of farmland and buildings would amount to roughly $123,000. If all of the four million slaves counted in the 1860 census had been able to take advantage of that offer, it would have totaled more than $486 billion today — or about $16,200 for each descendant of slaves.

What form would payment take?

Compensation programs can take many forms. In the United States, after a congressional study, people of Japanese descent who were forced into internment camps during World War II received $20,000 in 1988 and a formal apology.

Since 1952, Germany has paid more than $70 billion in reparations through various programs, primarily to Jewish victims of the Nazi regime, and continues to deliver hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Payments vary from a lump sum distributed to individuals to a monthly pension based on years working in a slave labor camp. Money is also given to organizations to cover home care for older survivors or for grants. A small portion goes for research, education and documentation.

A reparations program in the United States could likewise adopt a single method or several at once. Families could get a one-time check, receive vouchers for medical insurance or college, or have access to a trust fund to finance a business or a home. Mr. Darity argues that “for both substantive and symbolic reasons, some important component must be direct payment to eligible recipients.”

Other scholars have emphasized different features. Roy L. Brooks, a law professor at the University of San Diego and the author of “Atonement and Forgiveness: A New Model for Black Reparations,” has reservations about what he calls the “settlement model,” a legalistic approach that looks backward to compensate victims for demonstrable financial losses. He prefers what he calls the “atonement model,” emphasizing longer-term investments in education, housing and businesses that build up wealth.

What would the economic impact be?

According to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, the median wealth of black households is $16,000, compared with $163,000 for whites. Reparations are not likely to eliminate the racial wealth gap, but could narrow it somewhat. Low-income families, with the fewest assets, would benefit the most.

The biggest economic objection is that any meaningful program would be unaffordable. Like other government spending, reparations would ultimately be paid for by some kind of tax or fee, or borrowing, say, through government bonds. Such a program would almost certainly require increasing the federal debt and be structured over time.

Those less worried about a growing deficit could argue that reparations would be a boon over the long run — lifting people out of poverty, and improving their earning potential and buying power.

Patricia Cohen, The New York Times

Patricia Cohen, The New York Times

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Berkeley

UC Berkeley Creates Its First Black History Tour

The self-guided Black history tour at UC Berkeley begins at Memorial Stadium, where student Walter Gordon was a star of the football team more than 100 years ago. It then weaves through campus, making stops at 13 more locations, each highlighting an important person or landmark related to Black history.

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Walter Gordon, who is discussed during the first stop of the Black history tour at Memorial Stadium, was one of the first two Black Americans named to the College All-American Football Team in 1918. He went on to become the first Black student to graduate from Berkeley Law and to work as a police officer for the city of Berkeley, among many other accomplishments. Illustration by Heaven Jones.
Walter Gordon, who is discussed during the first stop of the Black history tour at Memorial Stadium, was one of the first two Black Americans named to the College All-American Football Team in 1918. He went on to become the first Black student to graduate from Berkeley Law and to work as a police officer for the city of Berkeley, among many other accomplishments. Illustration by Heaven Jones.

By UC Berkeley News

The self-guided Black history tour at UC Berkeley begins at Memorial Stadium, where student Walter Gordon was a star of the football team more than 100 years ago. It then weaves through campus, making stops at 13 more locations, each highlighting an important person or landmark related to Black history.

There’s Ida Louise Jackson Graduate House, named in honor of the first African American woman to teach in Oakland public schools. Next is Barbara Christian Hall, named for the first Black woman to be granted tenure at Berkeley. Other stops include Wheeler Hall and Sproul Plaza, where Black visionaries, like James Baldwin and Martin Luther King Jr., gave famous speeches.

“Just knowing this history, walking around campus and knowing it, you really feel like you belong,” said student Daniella Lake, who’s on the Black Lives at Cal team that created the tour. “Black people have been here for the past 100 years, and if they were doing all these amazing things then, I can surely do it now.”

You can find the self-guided Black history tour on Black Lives at Cal’s website. And soon, on the site, you’ll also be able to sign up for upcoming in-person walking tours.

Read a portion of the transcript of Berkeley Voices episode, “Take the first Black history tour at UC Berkeley”

Anne Brice: This is Berkeley Voices. I’m Anne Brice.

The self-guided Black history tour at UC Berkeley begins at Memorial Stadium, where student Walter Gordon was a star of the football team more than 100 years ago.

Daniella Lake: Walter Gordon, especially, is one of my favorites because he was the first all-American football athlete in the history of the University of California.

Anne Brice: Daniella Lake is a fourth-year Berkeley student in media studies. As an audio producer of the tour, she voiced many of its stops.

Daniella Lake: He was also the city of Berkeley’s first Black policeman. And, like I mentioned, the first Black student to graduate from the law school and then a federal judge and then the governor of the Virgin Islands.

And he just did it all and was so multitalented. And I just love that so much because it also shows that you can have multiple interests and you can succeed at different things. So I just love, love hearing his story.

Anne Brice: The Black history tour was created by Black Lives at Cal, an African Thriving Initiative that publicizes, celebrates and defends the legacy of Black people on Berkeley’s campus. The multi-year initiative is a collaboration between the African American Student Development Office and the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues.

The tour weaves through campus, making stops at 14 different locations, each highlighting an important person or landmark related to Black history.

Among the stops are Ida Louise Jackson Graduate House, Barbara Christian Hall, the Campanile, Sproul Plaza and the law school. Berkeley student Heaven Jones created original artwork for each stop.

Daniella Lake: I feel like it has helped me feel welcome on campus. I know a lot of students, especially students of color, Black students, feel a lot of imposter syndrome. And I feel like with this tour, just learning the history really helps combat that.

Because when I look at all these different parts of campus — when I look at Memorial Stadium, I see Walter Gordon and how accomplished he was and all the things he did. When I walk on Sproul Plaza, I hear MLK’s speech, and I think about how an undergraduate student suggested renaming the ASUC Student Union to the MLK Jr. Building.

So just knowing this history, walking around campus, and knowing it, you really feel like you belong. Black people have been here for the past 100 years and if they were doing all these amazing things then, I can surely do it now.

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Black History

Ed Dwight: Internationally Renowned Artist and Former Air Force Test Pilot

Ed Dwight is an artist and former U.S. Air Force test pilot who was America’s first African American astronaut candidate.

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Capt. Edward J. Dwight, Jr., the first African American selected as a potential astronaut, looks over a model of Titan rockets in November 1963. Bettmann Archive / Getty Images.
Capt. Edward J. Dwight, Jr., the first African American selected as a potential astronaut, looks over a model of Titan rockets in November 1963. Bettmann Archive / Getty Images.

By Conway Jones

Ed Dwight is an artist and former U.S. Air Force test pilot who was America’s first African American astronaut candidate.

Born in 1933, he grew up in Kansas City, Kansas, showing artistic talent and mechanical gifts early in childhood.

While in college in the 1950s, Dwight saw an article in a newspaper with an image of a downed African American pilot in Korea.

“I said, ‘Oh my God, they’re letting Black people fly,’” Dwight said. “I went straight to the recruitment office and said, ‘I want to fly.’”

“My first flight was the most exhilarating thing in the world,” said Dwight. “There were no streets or stop signs up there. You were free as a bird.”

Before entering the military, Dwight had earned an Associates in Arts degree in engineering and while training to become at test pilot near Phoenix, Ariz., he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering in 1957.

In 1961, he was handpicked by President John F. Kennedy’s White House to join Chuck Yeager’s test pilot program at Edwards Air Force Base in California’s Mojave Desert. He was the first African American to enter NASA’s astronaut training program.

Dwight’s path to NASA disappeared after Kennedy’s assassination. He was never selected for the space program, and he resigned from the Air Force in 1966.

Afterward, he supported himself. In various ways: as an engineer, real estate, a job with IBM and even opening a barbecue restaurant in Denver, Colo. But he continued to work with his hands, particularly and built things with scrap metal, according to Wikipedia.

Enter Ed, Dwight, artist.

In 1975, the Colorado Centennial Commission commissioned him to create a series of bronzes depicting the contribution of Blacks to the American Frontier. The series of 50 bronzes was exhibited for several years throughout the United States.

In 1979, he created a bronze series entitled “JAZZ: An American Art Form,” that portrayed the history and historical roots of jazz. The series, now consists of over 70 bronzes that characterize the creation and evolution of jazz from its African and European roots to the fusion of contemporary music.

In 2005, Joyce Gordon hosted a one-man exhibit for Dwight in 2005 at her downtown Oakland art gallery.

“Ed Dwight is a phenomenal artist. His bronzes reflect the soul of Black Americans, their struggle, their resolve, their inner peace.” said Joyce Gordon. “His art reflects the soul of Black America.”

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Activism

Inheriting the Mantle: Who Will Carry the Legacy of John George?

Black political representation in Oakland and Berkeley was spurred by the Black Panther Party’s political organizing which began with the support of Shirley Chisholm’s bid for president in 1972 and an effort to elect Bobby Seale as mayor and Elaine Brown to City Council.  

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John George became the first African American to hold the District 5 seat on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. He was followed by Warren Widener and then Keith Carson who decided not to seek re-election in December 2023. File, Facebook and campaign photos respectively.
John George became the first African American to hold the District 5 seat on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. He was followed by Warren Widener and then Keith Carson who decided not to seek re-election in December 2023. File, Facebook and campaign photos respectively.

By LV McElhaney

This Black History Month, voters in Alameda County will be deciding which of eight candidates will succeed Supervisor Keith Carson in the District 5 race. Long considered a civil rights seat, this may be the first time in 30 years that there won’t be a Black leader at the helm since John George became the first African American elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1976.

Black political representation in Oakland and Berkeley was spurred by the Black Panther Party’s political organizing which began with the support of Shirley Chisholm’s bid for president in 1972 and an effort to elect Bobby Seale as mayor and Elaine Brown to City Council.

Before helping George, a young Black attorney who had sued Oakland over voter disenfranchisement and to create district elections, win a seat at the all-white Republican Board of Supervisors, the Panther organization was instrumental in electing Oakland’s first Black mayor, Lionel Wilson to office in 1977.

George was succeeded by another African American, Warren Widener, who served three terms from 1989 – 1992.  Widener also broke the color barrier when he became the first Black mayor in Berkeley. Widener would become a pioneer in what would become the affordable housing sector when he developed a program to build military housing on vacant land owned by the government working with his classmate, retired Navy Rear Adm. Robert Toney. That program produced more than 3,500 housing units throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and became a model for the nation.

When he sought a third term on the Board of Supervisors, Widener was defeated by newcomer, Keith Carson, a young mentee of Ron Dellums, who was viewed as more progressive than Widener.  During his 30 years in office, Supervisor Carson was known as a steady leader who sought to build an inclusive and accessible government.

He created AC Impact, a program that provides permanent supportive housing and services to chronically homeless adults in Alameda County and was instrumental in funding community-based organizations to deliver services for people returning home from prison.

Carson, who was set to run unopposed, decided in December not to seek reelection to the Board of Supervisors.  The decision shocked many in the African American community who are concerned that Black leadership is under pressure from neo-progressives and social democrats who pursue policies that threaten Black land and business ownership.

Among the eight competing to succeed Carson are two Black men, Berkeley Councilmember Ben Bartlett, and former Oakland School Board member Greg Hodge.  This diverse district includes the cities of Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville, Piedmont, and large portions of Oakland, namely the West Oakland, North Oakland, Rockridge, and Montclair neighborhoods, as well as portions of the Dimond, Bella Vista, and San Antonio districts.

Also running are Emeryville Councilmember Jon Bauters, Oakland Councilmember Nikki Fortunato-Bas, and social worker Ken Berrick, who previously served on the Alameda County Board of Education.

L.V. McElhaney served two-terms on the Oakland City Council and was the first Black woman to serve as Oakland Council President. She championed the establishment of the Department of Violence Prevention to channel investments into community-led solutions to eradicate gun-related violence and violence against women and children. LV. Holds a BA in Political Science from UC Berkeley and PhD from Mills College.

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