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Forty Acres and a Mule Would Be at Least $6.4 Trillion Today: What the US Really Owes Black America

This infographic lays out the case for reparations.

This infographic lays out the case for reparations.

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Slavery made the US wealthy, and racist policies since have blocked African American wealth-building. Can we calculate the economic damage?

Sources:

Introduction

https://theconversation.com/slavery-in-america-back-in-the-headlines-33004

https://www.civil-war.net/census.asp?census=Total

1.

1.5 million pounds in 1790 and 2.25 billion pounds in 1859, based on Empire of Cotton, by Sven Beckert (2014) pgs. 104, 106

77% based on: Cotton and Race in the Making of America: The Human Costs of Economic Power, by Gene Dattel (2009)

https://mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us/articles/161/cotton-in-a-global-economy-mississippi-1800-1860

Joshua Rothman, email correspondence, 2015

https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-economics-of-the-civil-war/

https://abrahamlincolnsclassroom.org/abraham-lincoln-in-depth/abraham-lincoln-and-civil-war-finance

48.3% in 1860 according to Gavin Wright, Slavery and American Economic Development (LSU Press, 2006, paperback 2013) [personal communication]

2.

https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1073&context=jlasc

https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/dc_emancipation_act/

https://philosophy.fullerton.edu/people/2007%20-%20Heiner%20-%20Abolition%20Democracy%20-%20Rad%20Phil%20Today%205.pdf

https://www.cjcj.org/uploads/cjcj/documents/slavery_in.PDF

https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21583992-fifty-years-after-martin-luther-kings-speech-fixing-americas-racial-ills-requires-new/comments?page=8

The Politics of Despair: Power and Resistance in the Tobacco Wars. Tracy Campbell, 2015

7% based on: Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York, Vol. 4. 1979.

3.

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n4/v70n4p49.html

70-80%, according to: https://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/#ii-a-difference-of-kind-not-degree

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2010-08-05/html/CREC-2010-08-05-pt1-PgS6836.htm

https://www.farmaid.org/atf/cf/%7B6ef41923-f003-4e0f-a4a6-ae0031db12fb%7D/FARM_AID_2014_ISSUE_BRIEF-BLACK_FARMING_AND_LAND_LOSS.PDF

https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/lui.pdf

https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1073&context=jlasc

4.

https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/demo/p60-249.pdf

Dime based on: https://www.insightcced.org/uploads/CRWG/LayingTheFoundationForNationalProsperity-MeizhuLui0309.pdf

https://newsreel.org/guides/race/whiteadv.htm

$59 trillion: https://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2013/01/calculated-minimum-reparation-due-to.html

$15 trillion: National Legal and Policy Center, https://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/obama-reparations-black-farmers/2010/02/21/id/350458/

$25 trillion: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-11/23/047r-112399-idx.html

Martin Luther King: https://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2014/07/mlk_s_case_for_reparations_included_disadvantaged_whites.html

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