Week 5/Day 2: Blacks and Reparations

 

Key Facts About Black Americans

I)                    As of 2022 -47.9 million Americans were Black  up 32 percent since 2000

a.      Number self-identifying as another race in addition to Blacks increased nearly 254% since 2000.

b.      Reflects broad shift in how Americans identify as multiracial

                                                              i.      And how U.S. census asks about race and ethnicity

                                                             ii.      Number of Blacks who say they are Hispanics has increased 199% since 2000.

II)                  Number of new immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean and elsewhere major source of increase

a.      About 5.1 million immigrants in 2022

                                                              i.      Up from 2.4 million in 2000

III)                Black population grown fastest in states that historically have not had large numbers of black residents

a.      Utah experienced fastest increase going up 86%

b.      Nevada and Hawaii increased respectively 57% and 56%

c.      Fastest numerical increase was Texas went up 1 million, followed by Florida up 745,000 and Georgia up 595,000.

d.      Each now has higher BLACK POPULAITON THAN New York which was ranked no 1 in 2010.

e.       

IV)                Atlanta metro atrea has highest percent of black residents 36% black

a.      Followed by Washington =26%

b.      And Detroit 24%, followed by Philadelphia =23%

V)                  The Black population relatively young

a.      Median age is 32.1 years, half of the nations black population was younger than that age and half was older

b.      Median age of entire nation was 38.0

VI)                Education attainment among black Americans on rise

a.      26.1 % black adults ages 25 and older (7.8 million people) had earned at least ba degree, up 14.5 since 2000.

                                                              i.      Black women have made faster gains than black men.  

1.      28.9 black women compared to 22.8 % black men.

VII)              Black Americans less likely than other Americans to be married

a.      About a third black adults (32%) unmarried compared with 53$ of U.S. adults

                                                              i.      36% black men compared to 29% black women

                                                             ii.      Higher divorce rate for women (14%) than men (10%)

VIII)            Black household median annual incomes at $50,000 in 2022

a.      Compared to $60k for multiracial Black households

b.      $56,500 for Black Hispanic

c.      And $ 49,500 for single – race blacks

d.       

The Case For Reparations

1)      250 years after slavery, 90 years after Jim Crow, 60 years after separate but equal, 35 years after redlining -and we still are looking for reparations.

2)      Deuteronomy 15: 12-15 why start here.

a)      What is the right to seek reparations  from John Locke

a.      When some person receives damages for injury done to them or their group

b)      For unpaid labor, suffering, many times over -reparations is due

3)      What is just

a.      In 1920 Jim Crow Mississippi -kleptocracy where the black majority were tricked out of their vote by poll taxes and lynch mobs

                                                              i.      More people lynched in Mississippi between 1882 and 1968 than any other state

                                                             ii.      The best way to keep them from voting

1.      Done the nigtht before the election

2.      Quote from Theodore bilbo a Mississippi senator and proud Klansman

                                                           iii.      The state partnered in the robbery by allowing it to happen

1.      Enforcing vagrancy laws and forced labor under state’s penal system

2.      Failure to apprehend or prosecute lynch perpetrators

                                                           iv.      In Virginia land taken from black families became country club

                                                             v.      In 2001 Associated Prss published a investigation finding that 406 persons had lost 24,000 parcels land valued at tens of millions of dollars

                                                           vi.      Many of these were later fond to be oil fields in Mississippi, and another parcel is the baseball spring training facility in florida.

                                                         vii.      While white kids had buses to ride to schools, Blacks had to walk miles to get there

1.      Often, they could be threatened or robbed as was 10 year old ross

2.       Tell story of sharecropping

                                                        viii.      Many blacks fled the south to get out of the lynchings and the horror of jim crow they landed in northern cities such as Chciago starting around 1900

b.      In the North from 1930 to 1960 they faced red lining

                                                              i.      Could not get legitimate home mortgages

                                                             ii.      Could not buy in certain neighborhoods

1.      If they tried to integrate, they found restrictive covenants and bombings that served to keep neighborhoods segregated

2.      The federal government helped preserve the redlining when in 1934 it created the Federal Housing Administration            

3.      The FHA provided insured private mortgage, with low interest rates and small downpayment

a.      Not available to Blacks or Negro communities

b.      Black people viewed as contagion, racism blocked blacks from getting legitimate mortgages for the most part.

                                                           iii.      Exploring Redlining in Chicago

1.      The FHA adopted a racial policy which discriminated against low income and minority neighborhoods    

3.      This created the racial wealth gap as Whites were able with government backing to obtain credit and mortgages where as Blacks could not.

a.      Often they were forced to go to unscrupulous lenders who took their money and their properties

b.      One such person was Lou Fushanis who at his death owned over 600 properties, many in North Lawndale, with an estimated value of $3 million

                                                                                                                                i.    Much of it was from exploiting frustrated black migrants and many of he sharks earned at least $100k a year

c.       

                                                           iv.      Many blacks in 1968 decided to fight forming the Contract Buyers league in 1968

a.      This was a black homeowners association

b.      They refused to pay installments putting them into escrow accounts

c.      Then they brought suit against the contract sellers

d.      Asscusing them of bying properties and reselling them in such a way as to reap huge and ungust profits from Negros.

e.      They demanded return fro their deprivations of rights and privileges under the 13^th and 14^th admendment

f.        Asked the court for relief

g.       Payback all moneys paid on contracts and all moneys paid for structural improvement of properties

h.      65 interests mius fair, non discriminatory rental price for time they occupied

i.        Ask the court to declare that the sellers had acted willfully/maliciously and with malice

c.      They wer enot appealing for equality but charging society with a crime against their ommunity

                                                              i.      They wanted the crime to be publicly viewed

                                                             ii.      As an offense to the community

                                                           iii.      Wanted restitution for the great injury brought upon them.

1.      They were seeking reparations

4)      A difference of Kind not degree

a.      North Lawndale is now an impoverished area, with infant mortality twice the national average

b.      Forth-three percent of the people live below poverty line

                                                              i.      Double overall rate of Chicago

c.      45 percent of households on food stamps

d.      Three times the rate of the city

e.      Lawndale mirrors what is happening in the Citty and across the country.

f.        Poverty is matched with incarceration rates almost 40 times higher than white neighborhood

g.       A difference in kind not degree

h.      Not just poor but ecologically distinct

i.        While the whites only signs have gone, and black poverty has decreased along with teen pregnancy rates

j.        The income gap between black and white houselholds is the same, roguthly today as it was in 1970

                                                              i.      While 4% of whites, 62 percent of blacks in America live in poor neighborhoods

1.      W

k.       White households are 20 times worth more than black hoseholds

l.        Black families are on the edge of clamaty if a medical emereny, divorce or job loss hits

m.    Blacks today still are the most segregated ethnic group within the country

n.      Concentration of poverty only agrevates the effects of skin color bias -raism.

o.      This is not the result of too many men making too many babies that they do not care for

                                                              i.      Now we talking about the cradle to prison pipeline

p.      The Chicago trial challenging this lasted to 1976, and they lost their case

q.      Supreme court has gradually rolled back the progressive legislation of the 1960s

r.        Afirmative Action is out

s.       Voting Rights act has been virtually gutted

t.        Rafial germandering is on the increase

III) We inherit our ample patrimony

a.      The Case of Belinda royal -who sued for reparations having been forced into slavery and brought the U.S. from Ghana during the Revolution.

a.      She served 50 years

b.      She won her case and was granted a pension of 15 pounds and 12 shillings per year

                                                              i.      To be paid out of her masters estate

                                                             ii.      She got reparations.

                                                           iii.        

c.      In 1782 Quaker Robert Pleasants emancipated his 78 slaes

                                                              i.      Granted them 350 acres and built them a school and provided them education

                                                             ii.      He called it justice to the injured Africans

d.      Edward Coles, a student of Thomas Jefferson, inherited many slaves many of which he took to the north and granted them plots of land in Illinois

e.      John Randolph a cousin of Jefferson willed his slaves be emancipated upon his death and given 10 acres of land for those older than 40

b.      20 the century -rparations has also ben raised

a.      Including Confederae veteran Wlater R aughan who believed reparations would stimulate the South economy

b.      Black activists Callie House and black nationalist leaders like queen Mother Audley More and James Forman also called for repartions

c.      Teuy created an umbrella organization in 1987 called the National Coalition of Black reparations in America (N’Cobra)

d.      In 1993 the NAACP endorsed Reparations

                                                              i.      And Charles Ogletree jr, a professor at Harvard Law School brought the laim to court

c.      For 250 yeas the response has been the same, the Africans benefited from slavery -they learned a trade, were civilized, and learned English.

d.      But in reality they were terrorized

a.      Forced into overcrowded, overcharged, and undereducated in ghettos

b.      Discrimination from the Corporate office to the street, police brutality, and criminalization.

c.      The interests continue to accrue.

5. Questions abound -who will pay it, who will get paid, how will it be paid, what is just, and what will be the ticket for such

6. John Conyers for over 25years introduced a reparation bill each year he was in congress but never called up for a vote

7. The Ills that Slavery Frees us From

a. The beginning of America is the beginning of slavery

b. a country dedicated to equality and freedom that held slaves

c. Most of the presidents from Washington to Lincoln owned slaves

d. in 1860 slaves as an asset were worth more than all America’s manufacturing, all of the railroads, and all of the productive capacity of the US. Put together.

e. Slavery and the breakup of the black family produced tens of millions of dollars to antebellum America

f. in 1860 there were more millionaires per capita in Mississippi Valey than anywhere else in the country

h. their source of wealth -the slave.

i. slave families wer often broken up

1. A slave had a 30 percent chance of being sold in their lifetime

2> Interstate trades constituted 20 percent of trades destroyed first marriages and half of them destroyed a nuclear family

3. thus the breakdown of the  black family led to the roots of American wealth and democracy.

 

·         Represented a Quiet Plunder

o   Slave holders traded tips on best methods for breeding workers, exacting labor, and administering punishment

o   Slave ownership was much like homeownership normalized and prized

o   And it would get Lincoln assassinated for daring to attempt to free the black man

·         Reconstruction -after the Civil war there was an attempt to reconstruct   America

o   But it was quickly replaced by the White Liners the Red Shirts, and Klansmen -who vowed to redeem America.

o   A wave of terrorism was ushered into being covering the south

o   Blacks could be punished for refusing to hand over a whiskey flask, removing their hats, disobeying church procedures; using insolent language, failing to work or refusing to be tied like a slave

o   Sometimes the attacks were merely to thin out the black herd /community

o   When the federal troops left the south in 1877 Reconstruction died and a century of violence targeting the black community was launched

§  Black schools and churches burned

§  Black voters and political candidates intimidated

§  ‘Lynchings were the norm…