Project Description
Slavery made America wealthy, and racist policies since have blocked African American wealth-building. Can we calculate the economic damage?
Sources
Introduction
The Civil War Home Page http://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)
http://mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us/articles/161/cotton-in-a-global-economy-mississippi-1800-1860
Joshua Rothman, email correspondence, 2015
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-economics-of-the-civil-war/
Abraham Lincoln and Civil War Finance http://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.
The Shadow of Credit: The Historical Origins of Facial Predatory Lending and ITS Impact Upon African American Wealth Accumulation
http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1073&context=jlasc
The District of Columbia Emancipation Act http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/dc_emancipation_act/
From the Prison of Slavery to the Slavery of Prison
http://philosophy.fullerton.edu/people/2007%20-%20Heiner%20-%20Abolition%20Democracy%20-%20Rad%20Phil%20Today%205.pdf
Slavery in the Third Millennium
http://www.cjcj.org/uploads/cjcj/documents/slavery_in.PDF
Chasing the dream http://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.
The Decision to Exclude Agricultural and Domestic Workers from the 1935 Social Security Act http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n4/v70n4p49.html
70-80%, according to: http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/#ii-a-difference-of-kind-not-degree
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2010-08-05/html/CREC-2010-08-05-pt1-PgS6836.htm
Black Farming and Land Loss
http://www.farmaid.org/atf/cf/%7B6ef41923-f003-4e0f-a4a6-ae0031db12fb%7D/FARM_AID_2014_ISSUE_BRIEF-BLACK_FARMING_AND_LAND_LOSS.PDF
Doubly Divided; The Racial Wealth gap http://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/lui.pdf
The Shadow of Credit: The Historical Origins of Facial Predatory Lending and ITS Impact Upon African American Wealth Accumulation http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1073&context=jlasc
4.
Income and Poverty in the United States: 2013 https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/demo/p60-249.pdf
Dime based on: http://www.insightcced.org/uploads/CRWG/LayingTheFoundationForNationalProsperity-MeizhuLui0309.pdf
RACE – The Power of an Illusion — Background: A Long History of Affirmative Action – For Whites http://newsreel.org/guides/race/whiteadv.htm
$59 trillion: http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2013/01/calculated-minimum-reparation-due-to.html
$15 trillion: National Legal and Policy Center, http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/obama-reparations-black-farmers/2010/02/21/id/350458/
$25 trillion: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-11/23/047r-112399-idx.html
Martin Luther King: http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2014/07/mlk_s_case_for_reparations_included_disadvantaged_whites.html
Tracy Loeffelholz Dunn is editorial director of YES! Jeff Neumann and Tracy Loeffelholz Dunn designed this infographic for Make It Right, the Summer 2015 issue of YES.
This piece was reprinted by EmpathyEducates with permission or license. We thank Jeff Neumann, Tracy Loeffelholz Dunn, and Yes! Magazine for their kindness, research, documentation, and thoughtful deliberations. Perhaps, our history will teach us.
