Archives. Visit booktv. Org for a complete schedule. And we now kick off with Professor William darity and Kirsten Mullin with their thoughts on reparations for africanamericans. Good afternoon, im director of the hutchens center on fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution. We gather here this afternoon virtually because of the covid plague to talk about reparations for africanamericans for the descendants of slaves. We planned this event before covid19 and, of course, william darity and Kirstin Mullen wrote the book long before covid19. Its worth noting that the coronavirus seems to be afflicting blacks much more than whites. Theres a piece in the journal of the American Medical Association which points out that more than half the covid19 cases in chicago and nearly 70 of the deaths involve black individuals although blacks make up only 30 of the population. Theres a story on the front page of the Washington Post today about contrasting the intensive care unit in affluent Northern Virginia which is largely empty with the overwhelmed hospital and largely black Prince Georges County on the other side of washington d. C. So although reparations is a long, has a long history and is not directly related to covid19, it does seem to me that covid19 puts an exclamation point on some of the issues in this book. Our plan is to given by putting the notion of reparations in historical context. Germany, the of course, paid reparations to the jews and to the state of us israel for the evil done by the nazis. The u. S. Paid reparations to japaneseamericans who were interned during world war ii. And for that were going to start with a philosopher who think who is the author of learning from the germans race and the memory of evil, a book as the title suggests about what we can learn from the germans. Then well turn to the no, sir about their new book, from here to equality. We would have been selling autographed copies of the book if we were meeting in potential, we cant in person, but we cant do that. Sandy an economist with a ph. D. From mit and now the samuel duboise policy director at duke, kirstin is kirsten they happen to be married to each other. Their book is really interesting. Its a sweeping look of the early days of the country goes through slavery, reconstruction, the new deal, jim crow and the persistent is discrimination of the modern era, the huge differences between blacks and whites. They tell the long is and fascinating tale of early debates about reparations for slaves, the whole 40 acres and a mule story and all that, and i think all thats very important. One of my mentors, claudia golden an economic historian at harvard taught me you cant know where youre going if you dont know where youve been. The book goes beyond that to make the case for a program of acknowledgment, redress and closure for grievances and justice. Thats what reparation is. They respond to questions raised by skeptics. They sketch out the size, shape and form of reparations that they say congress should consider. Now, each of our speakers is a scholar, but each brings a personal perspective to a discussion like this one. Susan nieman is a white woman who spent who came of age in the south during the civil rights era. Shes a jewish woman who has spent much of her life in berlin. Sandy darity is the son of the first man to get a doctorate from the university of North Carolina, and Kirsten Mullin is the great granddaughter of a man, walker tolliver, who was born into slavery. So these are both scholarly and personal issues for us. You can pose questions during the event at events brookings. Edu via email or on twitter with the hash tag fhte, from here to equality, or on hashtag reparations brookings. With that, i want to turn the screen over to susan nieman who joinings us from berlin. Hi. Let me start by saying that reparations in germany are a part of a much bigger concept, and germans like long compound words. They have ones for this actually, they have several words for this. [speaking german] i translate that as working off the past in the way you might work off a debt. And, in fact, the word for debt and guilt is almost identical in german. And once you realize this, you realize we dont even have a concept that would correspond to this larger, much larger idea which is, i mean, you david, you said if you dont know you dont know where youre going if you dont know where youve been. The idea that you cannot go forward if you dont take a serious look at your past and make some recompense for crimes, evils, misdemeanors that were committed in it. They will haunt you, and they will haunt you for 150 years as we can see in the United States. The case for reparations is is always made by starting with the german example because germany really was the first nation in the world to pay reparations voluntarily. It was, of course, the case that when wars were lost, the victorious armies would drag off whatever they wanted. But germany was the first nation ever to voluntarily give up, give up money as atonement, as recompense for the evil they had wrought. People who are opponents of american reparations for slavery and neoslavery which i think is terribly important that one realize that slavery didnt entirely stop in 1865, it just changed form. People who are opposed to that like to point to the differences between the entire man case and the american case the interman case and the american case. Of course, every historical case is different, theres no denying that. But what i think might be important to talk about something that the german case and the american case have very much in common which is that neither the germans, nor White Americans were in favor of paying reparations at all. In fact, the polls are much better in america now than they were in 1953 in germany when Germany First paid a serious amount of reparations to the state of israel. 11 of the german people supported those payments. We are now up to 29 of the entire country thats and i think its very important to realize that you, you know, you need both leadership, you need push from a community. It isnt automatic so that the objection, the first objection that comes up to reparations in america is always, well, so many people are against it. Well, guess what . Even more people were against that in germany. What with we tend not to what we tend not to realize looking at germany from the outside is that instead of, you know, falling on their knees and realizing what horrors they had committed which is, of course, now how it is painted and remembered to the rest of the world, the germans didnt think of themselves as criminals. They thought of themselves as the wars worst victims. Their cities had been burned, their men killed or imprisoned, you know, there was hunger, there was disease, everyone was, you know, impoverished. And on top of that, those damn yankees were trying to tell them that the war was all their fault. And there was a moment when i was researching, doing the research for my book when i realized you know who they sound like . The defenders of the lost cause. Weve heard all this before. We are the worst victims of the war and not the perpetrators. And to this i this day, you can read all kinds of people in america who truly believe that the war was not the souths fault and that slavery was not the thing that they were fighting for. So it e took a relatively long time even for the german nation to stand up to its guilt and to start paying its debts. Now, german rep are rawtions reparation can be seen in three parts of which i think only the last is really relevant to the american case now. The first was in east germany right after the war was over. The soviet union just simply took a lot of industrial plants, railroads, electronic equipment as reparation for the devastation that the german army had wreaked on the soviet union all the way to moscow. They basically laid waste to it. 27 million citizens of the soviet union died in the war. So that was in east germany. Whats interesting is because of the political education there, the east germans i know dont resent rep are rations. They reparations. They seem to feel that they were fakeer okay . The second wave of reparations fair, okay . The second war of reparations began in 1952, and that was the result of negotiations between the first west german Prime Minister and bengurion, the first israeli Prime Minister. They were, as i said, very controversial. The majority of people in both nations were actually against them. And they went through very hard negotiations to see what they should be and exactly how, how they should be calculated. I know that kirstin and sandy are going to tell us how they believe the reparations should be calculated today. Its a really complicated and interesting question, and it was back then. But in paying reparations to jews who had been victims of the holocaust or the state of israel as a body, the germans made a fairly awful bargain which is that they werent actually going to engage in what i call [speaking german] this attempt to actually look at their history and look at the past and acknowledge what had been done. It was kind of, well, well pay for it, and in exchange dont point your finger to look at how many old gnats nazis we have in our government, dont ask us to look at the Police Departments or the schools or the universities which were very largely staffed by old nazis. Dont ask us to do anything more. And that was a mistake that persisted for a very long time. I mean, the reparations were paid and some reparations are still, still continuing. But in 1998 there was a third wave which i think could actually be a model for the United States. We had a progressive government that was elected in 98, a combination of coalition of the social democrats and the greens, and one of the things that they decided to do was to get payment for those slave laborers who were still alive but had not fall opinion under any of the other fallen under any of the other categories that got paid largely because they were living in eastern europe, okay . And what was interesting about this, it was a foundation that was created to pay these reparations. Its called memory, responsibility and future. And one of the things that they put money into is actually projects and initiatives to remember what happened. So very much in contrast to the first almost 50 years of reparations payments. The other thing that i think was really important is that this is a joint foundation of the German Government and of german industry that profited from slave labor. And i believe although i havent had a chance to read the book yet, but i believe just from the first time sandy and i met in a discussion that he believes that reparations should be solely paid by the u. S. Government. I think theres a strong argument to be made for industry to make serious contributions because there are companies that are the, you know, heirs to companies that profited from slave labor even going into Insurance Companies today. So i think a joint fund of industry and government which has worked quite well in germany could be a really good model for the United States to follow along with the sense that cash is important, dont get me wrong with. Cash is terribly important. But its important to remember what it is were paying for, in particular the idea that slavery did not end in 1865, but forms of it permeated legally the United States, you know, up toward, up until you can argue about whether it stopped already. Im not sure. And you mentioned rightly that africanamericans are still suffering disproportionally from the coronavirus. But in any case, these are forms of oppression that white people in particular i can also speak for myself before i began to do this Research Need to be remindedded of along with the just recompense for them. Thank you very much. And now id like to turn the screen over to sandy and kirstin who are in their house in North Carolina. Thanks to you, david, first off. We can see this event, to susan nieman and to the Brookings Institution team. We also tip our hats to our collaborators on from here to equality at the university of North Carolina and especially to all of you who are participating in this event here in person and across the globe. As david said, at the point when this event was planned, the pandemic was not on the radar. We realize the book launch is insignificant in this context, but we are grateful for the opportunity. Were going to read from the book [inaudible] but first were going to talk about [inaudible] my father, william sr. , was the first and i like to use this add adjective, the first known black ph. D. Recipient from the university of North Carolinachapel hill. When many years later he was asked whether or not he thought it was wonderful that he was the first recipient, his response was, well, no. Its terrible it took that long for somebody to be the first black recipient of a ph. D. From the university of North Carolinachapel hill. He received his in 1963. And his point was that there was a long history of exclusion of blacks from opportunities like that thats reflected in the conversation that we pursue in our book, from here to equality. As david mentioned, the current excess relative black mortality from the coronavirus is another indicator of the scope of the kinds of harms and damages that continue to be inflicted on the black community. Reparations and the pandemic is a topic that kirstin and i wrote about in an oped about a week ago in the Philadelphia Inquirer in which we argued that the pandemic itself reinforces the intensity of the case for black reparations for descendants of United States slavery. In the live philadelphia indefir article, we talk about inquirer, we talk about the mortality associated with the pandemic, and id like to provide some additional examples. In North Carolina blacks constitute about 2 2 22 of the population but 32 president of the confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 44 of the states deaths. And in louisiana as another example, blacks constitute approximately 32 of that states population but 70 of the mortality associated with the virus. What are the reasons for this excess mortality . The first, i think, is the occupational distribution in the United States where blacks have jobs that we would describe as being in the missionary or care category that require an intensive degree of personal contact and personal service activities. And so that increases significantly the risk of exposure to the virus. In addition, because of the long trajectory of racial inequality in the United States which affects health outcome, blacks have disproportionate amounts of preexisting Health Conditions that create greater vulnerability to the disease including asthma, diabetes, hypertension and other variations of heart disease. But there is a fundamental and this is the third point there is a fundamental preexisting condition which explains the kinds of disparities that were observing now, and thats a resource depth which is best captured by the black white wealth gap. Wealth inequality in the United States can be described as follows blacks represent approximately 3 of 13 of the United States population but possess 2. 6 of the nations wealth. That translates into roughly an 800,000 gap in net worth on average per household. So from our perspective, a core objective of reparations for black americans from u. S. Slavery must be elimination of the Racial Health gap. So thats the starting point for much of the analysis that we pursue in the pages of from here to equality. Wed like to read some of the introduction of the book, from here to equality, standing at the crossroads. Sandys going to begin by reading the first paragraph. This is actually somewhat similar to quotation that you mentioned from your former, your former adviser. This is actually from ella baker, the black political activist, where she says in order to see where we are going, we not only must see where we have been, but we must also understand where we have been. And there from Frederick Douglass from celebrating the past, anticipating the future, the world has never seen any people turned loose [inaudible] as were the four million slaves of the south. They were freed without roofs to cover them or food to eat or land to cultivate, and as a consequence died in such numbers as to awaken the hope of their enemies that they would soon disappear. Wed like to frame the conversation today with some of if passages from the opening portions of from here to equality. Id like to start by reading from the first page of the book. Racism and discrimination is have perpetual ily crippled black economic opportunities. At several historic moments, the trajectory of racial inequality could have been altered dramatically, but another each juncture the road chosen did not lead to a just and fair america. The formation of the republic provided a critical moment when blacks might have been granted freedom and admitted to full citizenship. The civil war and the reconstruction era each offered openings to produce a true democracy, thoroughly inclusive of black americans. As the new deal project and the g. I. Bill fully included blacks, the nation would have widenedded the opportunity to achieve an equitable future. Passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s might have unlocked the door for america to eradicate racism. However, at none of these forks was the path to full justice taken. From here to equality is primarily about the economic divide between blacks and White Americans; how it came to be and how it can be eliminated. Specifically, we contend a suitablydesigned program of reparations can close the divide can. Black reparations can place america squarely on the path to racial equality. Reparations programs have been used strategically in the United States and throughout the world to provide for greaves injustices grievous injustices. Neither [inaudible] up justly incarcerated or interned during world war ii. The German Governments reparations for victims of the nazi holocaust, spoke of, and the governments contemplation to Indigenous People who were moved forcibly e from their families and [inaudible] indian residential schools. Invoking the effects of slavery was the goal of several plans put into action during and immediately following the civil war. The countrys earliest efforts to notably alter black [inaudible] was the federal governments postcivil war plan to give at least 40 acres of abandoned and confiscated land as well as a mule to each formerlyenslaved family of four or 10 acres per person. While some main a towned this maintained this planned [inaudible] the 19th century is a figment of the black imagination, Historical Records confirm that the promise of reparations was not a myth. It was inscribed in federal legislation. In fact, the allocation activated in 1865 of 40 acres for former thely end slaved africanamericans was at least the second such measure the federal government had developed to assign land to [inaudible] the idea that reparations could be an effective method of addressing the effects of slavery and White Supremacy has a long history, cycling in and out of discourse in the National Policy arena. Reparationings are as timely today as they were in the 1860s. The goal, the ultimate goal of from here to equality to help rejuvenate about and to promote reparations for for instance. As the final chapter of this book, there are several [inaudible] inequalities between black and white that overcome the frequent reflexive reaction that this is impractical or infeasible. Real equality is [inaudible] a program of acknowledgment, redress and closure for a grievous injustice. Where where africanamericans are concerned, the grievous injustices that a make the case for reparations include slavery, legal segregation or jim crow and ongoing discrimination and stigmatization. Arc, arc, the acronym that stands for acknowledgment, redress and closure, characterizes the three essential elements of the Reparations Program that we are advocating. Acknowledgment, redress and closure are components of any effective reparations project. Acknowledgment involves recognition and admission of the wrong by the perpetrators or beneficiaries of the injustice. For africanamericans, this means the receipt of a formal apology and a commitment for redress on the part of the American People as a whole, a national act of declaration that a great wrong has been committed. But beyond an apology, acknowledgment requires those who benefited from the exercise of the atrocities to recognize the advantages they gained and commit themselves to the cause of redress. Redress potentially can take two mitt romneys, not necessarily forms, not necessarily mutually exclusive. Restitution or atonement. Restitution is the restoration of the survivors to their condition before the injustice occurred or to a condition they might have attain had the injustice not taken place. Of course, it is impossible to restore those who were enslaved to a condition preceding their enslavement not only because those who were enslaved are now deceased, but also because many thousands were born into slavery. But it is possible to move their descendants toward a more equitable position commensurate with the status they would have have a ataped in the absence attained in the absence of the injustice. Atonement is an they were form of redress that occurs when perpetrator or beneficiaries meet conditions of forgiveness that are acceptable to the victims. Achieving these elements of a reparation ares Program Requires good faith negotiations between those who were wronged and the wrongdoers. There is no existing mechanism for establishing when africanamericans collectively will have reached an agreement that sufficient steps have been taken to justify forgiveness. Consequently, atonement is difficult to accomplish. That is why in our proposal we treat restitution as the appropriate form of redress, and we have clear metricses for determining when restitution has been achieved that we no do not have for establishing [inaudible] specifically, restitution for africanamericans would eliminate Racial Disparities in wealth, energies education, health, sentencing in incarceration, political participation and opportunities to engage in american political and social life. It will require not only an endeavor to compensate for past but also an endeavor to offset stubborn existing obstacles to africanamerican participation in American Social and political lives. Reparations would be effective if an improved position for blacks is associated with sharp and enduring reductions in Racial Disparities, particularly economic disparities like racial wealth inequality and corresponding sharp and enduring improvements in black wellbeing. Closure involves mutual recognition between africanamericans and the bicep fisheries of slavery beneficiaries of slavery, legal segregation and the ongoing discrimination. Whites and blacks would come to terms the past, confront the present and unite to create a new and transformed United States of america. Id like to speak briefly to several arguments that have been raised in opposition to reparations. The first is, in fact, the charge others refer to as slavery reparations. So slavery e is, indeed, the fulcrum from which the grievous injustices we site that compensate the case for black [inaudible] but black people were not admitted to full citizenship when slavery ended. In Chronological Order of the charges we make are slavery, legal segregation or jim crow and ongoing discrimination and stigmatization. The case we are making is based upon all three of these injustices and not solely on slavery. So another point of opposition, why didnt black america or america in general already pay or hasnt White America, hasnt White America or america in general already paid for its debt for slavery in blood by waging the civil war which was relative in i mansion payings. Emancipation. The podcast the american project, i learned that thenhouse gop conference chair mike pence said that this was in 2009, and i quote i dont believe there should be reparations. After identifying himself as a student of africanamerican history, he asserts reparations were paid in the lives of 600,000 americans who fell on both sides in the civil war. So pence failed to acknowledge that nearly half of those fighting the confederates were fighting to maintain slavery e, not to end it. Enslaved black people were freed not because white confederates liberated them. They were freed because the union army forces which included more than 180,000 black men and women won the war. Some contend blacks already have received reparations in the form of Barack Obamas election as the 44th president of the United States. Pence and Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell have made this claim even though a majority of White Americans voted against obama. 90 of blacks voted for obama and [inaudible] to mean the elimination of a huge wealth gap in black and white, the huge black and white wealth gap which we do advise, obamas election for all of its salutary effects did not significantly move that needle. So another comment we hear is [inaudible] it was just so long ago. Why do we keep bringing this up we have mortalized immortalized big plantations across the south. The business on those plan plantations is downplaid or the institution of slavery [inaudible] or were told that blacks were delighted by the association. They had nothing, Nothing Better to do. This notion that slavery is not so distant falls away when one looks at the institution from a generational standpoint. So i want to read another passage about an amazing woman who we met five years ago. On page 241. So the [inaudible] a man with a [inaudible] no, excuse me. More than half a century after slavery e ended, Whites Holding positions of [inaudible] blacks no longer could be bought and sol like livestock, but they did not enjoy and their lives and livelihoods could be summited to harm at any time. Subjected to harm. A man with a prestigious intellect emerged from the shadow of slavery only to find that his successful lumber business made him a target for whites who resented the prosperity and tried to thwart him at every turn. When a white railroad station dispatcher in texas refused to allow to load his milled timber onto the train for deliverly to a buyer in 1924, he confronted the dispatcher. The men argued and the dispatcher told king he would kill him if he continued to press his case. King replied, well, you better kill me quick, because if you dont k ill shoot and kill you before i kill you before i hit the ground. The dispatcher did not act on his threat. In 1865, about 150 years ago, nearly a year before sloughly was declared slavery was declared equal or the ratification of the 13th amendment to the constitution king conferred with his parents and siblings after the altercation with the dispatcher. He decided his best option was to pull up stakes and move his young family to golden, oklahoma, one of the states allblacktowns. Kings daughter was 5 years old when the family moved. In 1966, became the first black faculty member hired at the university of North Carolinachapel hill. She taught in the school of social work. Vigorous and vital at 101 years of age, she recently urged us to finish this book. The daughter of a slave, in one generation removed from slavery. And some of you may recalling another 21st century child enslaved black american, odom bonner whose father was born in mississippi and later became a physician. His daughter, ruth, became active in the Civil Rights Movement in cleveland, but we remember her especially because and president obama and First Lady Michelle Obama invited her is and three generations of her family to ring the freedom bell at the dedication for the museum of africanamerican culture in 2016. Virginias First Baptist churched which is founded by blacks in 1776 in defiance of local law. If we wait long enough, all black americans whose parents were enslaved and all who lived through nearly 100 years of racial apartheid in this country will have died. But the atrocities keep coming, and that is why we need a program of reparations for black americans. The continuity of the atrocity has led us to try to actually put some numbers on, on the idea of black lives matter. The black lives Matter Movement which we view as an important effort to spark the kinds of social changes that we think are essential in the United States, the black lives Matter Movement never actually said what the discount factor is on black lives. And so we decided that we would try to provide some estimates of that in our text. So the following from page 219 the message of the black lives Matter Movement encapsulates the racialized injuries that the a 150 years since the end of legal american slavery. The movements message alerts us to the many ways in which black life has been devalued and up protected so thoroughly unprotected so thoroughly in the United States. The discount rate on black humanity has been enormous. A variety of metrics indicate that even after the end of jim crow, black lives are routinely assigned the worst of approximately 30 that of white lives. There are a number of ways in which numerical estimates can be placed on the differential value assigned to black versus white lives in the United States. For example, as early as the 1840s new york life typically insured whites for anywhere from 1,0005,000 while enslaved blacks typically were insured on behalf of their owners for no more than 400 and sometimes for as little at 200. It has been estimated that in 1928 there was one hospital bed for every 139 White Americans, but only 1 for every 1,941 black americans. Indicating that the average black life was worth only 7 of the average white life. During the jim crow years when the dual system of schooling operated, the gap in per capita expenditures provides a powerful index of the magnitude of the disdiscount rate on discount rate on black lives. For example, in 19391940, per pupil expenditures for white students in most of the Southern States were three times more than they were for black students, suggesting that a young black life was worth about 30 of a young white life. In mississippi perpupil ec pendtures were expenditures were seven times greater suggesting that in mississippi at that time a young black life was worth 15 of a young white life. In alabamaing in 1912, a cluster of counties spent 32 cents on black students education per every 15 spent on white students education, implying that a white youths life was deemed to be worth an incredible 47. 00 3700 4700 percent 4700 more. Reduced substantially, although a 13 gap remains. Unfortunately, the narrowing of the spending gap disguises a profound racial gap in curriculum and instruction in a world of desegregated schools. The disparity in the rate of placement of black students in gifted and talented programs provides a marked indicator of the devaluation of black youth in the nations educational system. Black students constitute 40 of americas Public School students but only 26 of the students enrolled in gifts gifted and talented programs. The average black child is 66 less likely to be referred for gifted math and reading than their white class may notes. The gross underrepresentation of black children and overrepresentation of white children and gifted education suggests that black youth are being assigned a value of less than 40 of the work of a white child in the nations schools. Moreover, the gap in the rates at which blacks and why notes are killed in Police Shootings delivers another contemporary message on the devaluation of black lives. Some estimated magnitudes under legal segregation. For example, black men are killed by the police at three times the rate of white men each year. This would imply that black mens lives are worth onethird of white men ifs lives. Discriminatory wage penalties, differential exposure of black children the lead poisoning and the far greater use of black for medical experimentation afford additional avenues for estimating how heavy this discount rate continues to be on black lives. I think we, i think were going to stop our readings there and open the floor for questions. Great. So thanks very much to both susan and to sandy and kirsten. You do a good job in the book and i know youre well equipped to handle some of the things one hears who are uncomfortable with the idea of reparations, so ive got a number of questions about that, and then i want to put to you a number of questions about practicality, how this would work. One question which is typical is what do you say to people who say, look, its unfair to ask White Americans whose ancestors never owned slaves or people who are the children of immigrants for the u. S. In the 20th and 21st century to pay reparations to the descendants of slaves. How do you answer that . You want to start . So the response to the question concerning the obligation or responsibility of recent immigrants has two phases or two forms, i think. The first is if an individual emigrates to a country, they are emigrating to its history and itsing obligation. And so no one who newly a arrives in a country that has the characteristics that it possesses in the present moment as a consequence of, for example, the exploitation of black labor over a number of years, no one who newly immigrated is devoid of that particular historical obligation. But let me say this, we dont view a Reparations Program as a matter of individual guilt. It is a matter of national obligation, national responsibility. And thats why we place the onus of the status of the culpable party on the federal government, not any particular individuals. But thats the first argument. The second argument thats related is the notion of what are the reasons why individuals actually have come to the United States, and presumably theyve come to the United States because it has certain attributes that are attractive to them. And those attributes are usually linked to the degree of Economic Development in the United States. And to the extent that the u. S. Economic development is heavily, heavily linked to its history of enslavement, to the ways in which black labor continued to be exploited during the jim crow period, then we have a situation in which there is a benefit that redounds to folks who are more recent immigrants from coming to the United States thats associated with the historical exploitation of black americans. So ill speak to the second part of your question, david. This notion that the majority of white peoples families were not slaveowning families or they had no connections to the institution. So thats not true, thats not the case. People have not done the research, and they need to conduct their own investigation so that theyre informed. Slavery and slave holding were direct and intimate parts of the lives of many White Americans, particularly those in Southern States. Far from slave ownership being the purview of a tiny few, slaveholding families enjoyed a wider presence and prevalence than or previously acknowledged. Among white particularly those in the south, it truly was family affair. Even the civil war in 1960 at the 1860 at the national level, approximately 8 of all families owned at least one slave. This would seem a was influenced heavily by the 21 nonSouthern States where families owned slaves during the last days of the antibell. Period. Among 11 states that seceded from the union 1861 to establish the confederacy, arkansas, tennessee, virginia, North Carolina, texas and registered at the lower end with at least 20 of white families owning slaves. 20, 25, 26, 28, 28 and 29 respectively, the remaining five states all registered proportions of 4 or higher peaking 34 or higher. So a more dramatic indicator was slave ownership the proportion of white people who were member of slaveholding families. While the National Figure was 13 in 1860, onequarter of whites in arkansas and tennessee lived in families that owned at least one slave. In texas, virginia, North Carolina at least onethird of whites lived in slaveowning families. This proportion rose well above 40 in florida, governor, alabama and louisiana, a fantastic 55 and 57 in mississippi and South Carolina respectively. Something about, you know, just all of the other ways that the whites were engaged with, you know, with religious institutions one of the other things we point out in the book is that individuals who were not necessarily from slaveholding families might have a strong economic tie to the entire system of slavery whether theyre individuals who served as slave catchers, whether they were individuals that served as, if quotes in quotes, managers on plantations, whether they were individuals who were end guamed in trade engaged in trade with the mannation. So there was a plantation. So there was a set of what we might call backward and forward linkages that were closely connected to the overall system of slavery. We also point out in the book that actually there was a significant benefit from the system of slavery for many of the northern states but most, in a most pronounced way for connecticut and new york. And that new york city itself, its entire Economic Growth was closely, closely tied to the cotton sector in the United States, slavegrown cotton was decisive there. So there was kind of a permeation of the effects of the slavery system across many, many families in the United States. And i would add we emphasize also that the case for black rep asians reparations of descendants of u. S. Slavery is not restricted to the harms of slavery, but also must take into account the jim crow period and ongoing forms of discrimination and stigmatization. And individuals like, for example, the Senate Majority leader who says no one living was present at the time of slavery is actually being a bit disingenuous, because he himself certainly was alive during the jim crow period. As were kirsten and myself. Yeah, no. Speak to sandy raised an issue, and theres some questions about this. I think the gist of it is, well, there were and the book is just remarkably interesting on the big discussions of how to compensate is slaves immediately after the civil war and what went wrong during reconstruction. But there is a sense that, okay, the germans came to grips with this unwillingly as you point out relatively soon after the war. It took the u. S. Quite a while to deal with the question of japaneseamericans, but a lot of them were still alive. Does it matter that so much time has passed since the original sin of slavery in thinking about questions of redress and reparations, susan . Well, i think we say lets let [inaudible] susan in on this. Can you unmute, susan . Oh, you want susan. Sorry. Yeah. I mean, i think were basically in agreement that what counts is not simply the ending of chattel slavery, but the ending of legal discrimination, legal terror. I mean, in 1951, one of my favorite einstein stories, einstein with a group of clergymen petitioned harry truman someone went to the white house asking for a federal bill against lynching. I didnt understand this initially because i thought, hey, lynching is murder. Well, yes, of course. But the states were going to prosecute where it was being take, and harry truman if told Albert Einstein and a group of clergymen he couldnt pass a federal bill against lynching because it was politically inop por tube, okay . Inopportune, okay . This is the is second half of the 20th century. And those are the kinds of things that also were other forms of, you know, knee e yoslavery knee e yoslavery that has been documented in books like slavery by another name by douglas blackman, terrific book, or by brian stevenson. If slavery really had ended and reconstruction had worked and the 40 acres and the mule were were as fair, just pay for all of the wealth that the slaves had created, then, yeah, maybe you could have an argument saying, you know, 150 years is a long time. But as kirsten and sanity are pointing out sandy are pointing out, it just didnt end there. Now, it seems White Americans have a huge gap in our historical memory. Black americans, of course, are much more aware of things that we were able until fairly recently just to kind of brush over. Yes, there was i mean, i think jim crow is actually an obscene term. Everybody knew it jim crow sort of prettifies or turns what was really apartheid and, as kirsten pit, or the age of racial terror what Brian Stephenson calls it. Vaguely knew about something called jim crow and, of course, i grew up in the middle of the civil rights, so we knew about that. But the depth to which slavery continued or the effects continued, i think, is something that we simply didnt know. Is so if you actually look at, if you say that legal discrimination in the United States ended with the passage of the civil rights act, with the end of redlining, certain things like that, this isnt to say that oppression and humiliation and murder as with the police doesnt keep going on to this day, but lets just say the legal basis ended well, thats 50 years ago, you know . And that was about the amount of time that it took for germany not the reparations that were paid just after the war, but the ones that were to be paid in the year 2000 really sort of with a full heart and a full recognition, yeah, this is what we need to to do to make up forr history. So i know people talk about the historical differences, but and historical distances, but i thinkif the people who emphasize that really dont know enough about the history of postslavery. I certainly didnt until i began to research it. Thank you. So, sandy and kirsten, i wonder if we could turn a little bit to the practicalities here. When you look at the amount of money, how much money do you think it will take to narrow the wealth gap, and how do you think we can distribute it and to whom . So the estimate that we advance in the book is that closure of the racial wealth gap in the United States would require somewhere in the vicinity of 1012 trillion. We would distribute that in large part although there could be some other potential uses of the funds as long as those other potential uses of the fund contributed to elimination of the racial wealth gap we would contribute that to eligible recipients who we identify as follows thered be two criteria for eligibility. The first is an individual would have to common trait that he or she demonstrate that he or she or there had an ancestor who was enslaved in the United States. At least one ancestor who was enslaved in the United States. And then the second criteria would be that an individual would have to show that for at least 12 years before the adoption of a Reparations Program or the adoption of a Study Commission for a Reparations Program, they would have had to have selfidentified as black, negro or africanamerican. So there are two standards. Theres a lineage standard thats associated with, with a connection to United States slavery, and there is an identity standard, a selfidentification standard thats associated with a connection to the black community in the United States. So those are our two criteria. It looks like susan has a comment here, i dont know. [laughter]. Was he a mixed rate and i am trying to get a cab in manhattan. Nobody said let it race by. I wonder if the criteria for having had an ancestor if president obama doesnt need reparations but whether or not you need it we didnt examine what the economic status was restricted to the holocaust when they receive payment that isnt an issue. There is a moral operation. With who may have suffered. They cant trace their lineage to a slave. There is an irony. The ancestor was enslaved on his mothers side but not after the formation of the republic. It is not entirely accurate to say barack obama doesnt have any enslaved ancestors but this is the key point. The premise is that there was a denial of compensation to the formerly enslaved, that was associated with the failure to provide them with the promise of the acre land grant and their descendents are the individuals who should be beneficiaries of the program. The second point, individuals who were voluntary immigrants to the United States, not the sentence of folks who were compulsory immigrants to the United States saying i have incurred somebody treated bylaws of crime in the country that i come to but some form of reparation. If you migrate to a racist country how can you require or request preparations for the racism they experienced. 10 trillion is a lot of money even in america and how do we think about where this money should come from in the context that whatever resources we had before covid19 we are spending a lot to deal with this crisis. How does the pandemic and cost of the pandemic figure into your thinking . The remarkable speed and coping with the pandemic, whether it is used wisely, wants to do that, the remarkable speed came up with funds during the Great Recession is an indicator theres tremendous capacity to Fund Everything it desires. The ultimate barrier to public spending is the inflation effect. We have to do that in a sensible way but apart that we can purchase or spend whatever it wants to do, are we concerned about one shot, tens of trillions of dollars, we could space it with making sure over the course of a decade, 1 trillion to 2 trillion which is certainly not entirely manageable. Things you dealt with with a lot of these issues, with institutions, weve seen what georgetown acknowledges. Also states, what florida has done regarding the rosewood massacre. What is the responsibility of colleges and universities, state governments in this year . The integral role in characterizing black americans in that way, and so to see them engage in addition to engaging in health studies, looking at slavery and changing curriculum, with White Supremacists in the building, we would like to see those institutions, with reparations and a tremendous amount of clout. We are putting that to work in this reparation. Our own city in North Carolina decided to do just that and form a coalition of cultural institutions, Community Use of faith and any organizations that dropout not what we call peaceful reparations, to focus on their communities but also to say that is not enough. Individual efforts of georgetown which reflects 15,000 black americans, i dont know that georgetown is active. It is a possibility of preferential treatment. 400, 000 talking about all of these descendents to enslave folks in the 1830s. There are 12,000. Even if all of them were and acted, would significantly move the wealth gap needle, a holistic program. Why do you think giving money to individuals is the way to go rather than creating institutions and programs that might succeed in lowering the wealth gap . These institutions will not change the wealth gap. In our minds that is the key determinant of what this is the damage that can be measured for enslaved people. You can create all kinds of institutions. We have all kinds of institutions but it hasnt made a significant difference in these health outcomes. I would add that it is vital, members of the community would be receiving reparations, the community that merits reparation should have discretion over the use of the phones, some said that what the Us Government should do is support repatriation, africanamericans to the african continent but i dont think theres a significant number who would choose that option rather than staying in the United States to achieve full citizenship and full participation, but if there are individuals who receive reparations payment for that purpose, its a matter of individual discretion that has to be validated by a reparation program. It is interesting that in the other cases of reparations we have been talking about, the german payments to victims of the holocaust, the United States government payment to at japanese americans, monetary payments were made, but nobody seems to have been concerned about that the way people are concerned about one of the questioners, natosha howard at the university of new mexico asks what you think about Public Memorials, how the erecting of Public Memorials in the book. At length in the book, the concept of this. And active efforts. And to whitewash our history. To be little black president. To alter textbooks, they dont receive, we made a Research Trip to charleston and visited to visit the Confederate Museum and every caption in the museum and found only one that mentioned the word slave in the entire museum. There is an effort to create this distant memory. I have an inaccurate memory. All of those were educated in schools, that receive the test back. They are not there but they did, they are across the country. Most havent read them. Many of them are woefully, there was the case of texas, the blacks, they were coming to the us for opportunity. And seeking their fortune by coming to the us. The seventeenth and eighteenth century. I would add those that emphasize to a great extent. The memory project in germany with respect to the horrors of the holocaust, we mentioned this in the context of the book. Apart from the monetary payments is the confederate reservation, that is to say providing americans with an accurate story of the civil war, reconstruction and reversing the lines invented in the lost cause so the memory dimension is also critical in this type of respiration. I have the sense you want to add to that. No, no. I am in agreement. Let me ask one final question. I mentioned a number of times. You stand on the shoulder of people who tried so hard to get reparations of some form. Looking through the book i cant find the story i am looking for so i hope i give you enough clues that you can tell us. It was about an africanamerican woman who was petitioning tell us about her. The historian has done a superb biography, in the latter part of the Nineteenth Century managed to establish a movement to get Pension Funds for the folks who had formerly been enslaved and she got 300,000 petitioners. And the United States government is not enthusiastic about your efforts. There has to go to jail for a while. It was directed toward Marcus Garvey in the early twentieth century. Undermined his movement. Doctor barrys book indicated that there were followers that moved in, very interesting set of connection. One of the problems i have in this country that comes as a consequence of not having told the truth, the truth was told after the civil war in subsequent years that history was changed but what you end up with was folks celebrating the confederacy. South america south americans serving the military all over the world. They would raise the confederate flag. And it was ubiquitous. Before we handed in the manuscript for my book, i was driving on the new jersey turnpike when they told old dixie down on the radio. That was covered by joan baez. She would stand up person during the Civil Rights Movement, she was in mississippi. This is somebody whos decent credentials are not in question and without even thinking about it she could cover this song which is actually in elegy for the confederacy. It isnt just southerners who joined the marines to go to iraq. It is progressive folks, not really hearing what we are singing along to. The confederacy is covered with this sort of miss of magnolias in spanish mosque, looks really great and if the real. We need to Pay Attention to how deep the confederate station is even among people who would consciously dean i that they had any part of the confederacy. I want to thank you for joining us from berlin. I regret we couldnt do this in person. Iou our lunch in washington, but in the meantime i recommend this book, the historical nuggets, they resonate, as we think about where we are today. Thank all of you who joined in and all of you who ask questions. If you enjoyed this so much and you want to watch it again, the video will be on our website. Have a good day. And having lived through loss of confidence in our institutions a wave of cynicism that left us unable to trust what we are told by anyone who calls themselves an expert it becomes difficult for us to rise to a challenge like this which are reaction is to say no, they are lying to us, they are only in it for ourselves and a lot of our National Institutions have to take on the challenge of persuading people again that they exist for us, they are here for the country. June 7th at noon eastern on in depth a live conversation with father and American Enterprise Institute Scholar live in. His most recent book is the great debate in the fractured republic. Join the conversation with your phone calls, tweets and textbook messages. Watch in depth with yuval e lvein on cspan2. My name is Vanessa Mendoza with the Manhattan Institute, your host for the Young Leaders circle. I thank all of you for taking the time, our general membership. Im sorry we cant all be together in person but i hope it will be sometime soon but in the meantime it is nice to connect this way. The Manhattan Institute is putting together a ton of virtual content theyl
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