Documenting the Costs Of Slavery, Segregation, and Contemporary
Discrimination: Are Reparations in Order for African Americans?
Joe R. Feagin
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL
September 2000
Working Paper 00-10
Center for Social Development
Washington University
George Warren Brown School of Social Work
This
paper was commissioned for the Inclusion in Asset Building: Research and
Policy Symposium, Center for Social Development, Washington University in
St. Louis, September 21-23, 2000.
The symposium
was sponsored by the Ford Foundation and the George Warren Brown School of
Social Work at Washington University. The
organizers and editors were Michael Sherraden and Lisa Morris.
Without
significant reparations for African Americans, the nation's deepest racial
divide will never be eliminated. As Randall Robinson
(2000: 204) has recently put it in his book, The Debt, if "African
Americans will not be compensated for the massive wrongs and social
injuries inflicted upon them by their governments, during and after
slavery, then there is no chance that America can solve its racial
problems . . . ." This is a strong statement, but true.
In this
article I examine why large-scale reparations should be made to African Americans
and how that task might be done. In a pioneering
1973 book, The Case for Black Reparations, a leading Yale law
professor, Boris Bittker (1973), argued that the oppression faced by
African Americans was more extensive than that faced by other racial
groups and thus required major reparations in compensation. At the
time, almost no one paid any attention to his analysis. Today,
however, the idea of reparations has been resurrected. There are now
many voices concerned about the high costs of antiblack oppression
over four centuries. It seems ever more likely that reparations of
some form will be paid to African Americans over the next half century.1
UNJUST IMPOVERISHMENT AND UNJUST ENRICHMENT
What are
the grounds for large-scale reparations for African Americans? The rationale
for group compensation lies in the stolen
labor and lives of the millions enslaved, the stolen labor and lives
of those legally segregated, and the continuing theft of labor and
lives of those who face contemporary discrimination. This theft of
labor and lives was carried out not only by whites acting as
individuals, but also, for at least its first 350 years, by various
local, state, and federal governments. Whites have been involved
individually and collectively in the exploitation and oppression of
African Americans for nearly four centuries.
In his
probing 1946 book, The World and Africa, the distinguished sociologist W.
E. B. Du Bois (1965 [1946]: 37) argued that the poverty
in Europe's African colonies was a "main cause of wealth and luxury in
Europe." African resources and development had been sacrificed to make
Europe wealthy. There is a similar connection between the immiseration
of African Americans and the enrichment and prosperity of European
Americans. Over several centuries most whites, as individuals and
families, have benefited from antiblack oppression and the
transmission of ill-gotten wealth and privilege from one generation to
the next. Today, the prosperity, long life expectancies, and high
standard of living for white Americans are significantly rooted in
centuries of exploitation and impoverishment of African Americans and
other Americans of color.
Unjust Enrichment Defined
The concept
of unjust enrichment is an old legal idea traditionally associated only
with relationships between individuals. From a legal perspective, unjust
enrichment involves
circumstances that "give rise to the obligation of restitution, that
is, the receiving and retention of property, money, or benefits which
in justice and equity belong to another" (Ballentine 1969: 1320).
In U.S. court decisions the defendant has been required to give up the
unjust enrichment, including gains later made from it (see Kull 1995).
For example, U.S. law does not generally permit a thief's children to
benefit from the father's theft. Some have suggested extending the
idea of remedies for unjust enrichment to the conditions of group
oppression, including that faced by African Americans over several
centuries. Whether or not this might make legal sense under current
legal institutions,2 it is a useful analogy. Indeed, it does make
moral sense and might conceivably be one basis for new legal
institutions aimed at restitution and reparations for the enrichment
stemming from past "crimes against humanity." Under this latter
circumstance, group remedies should encompass stopping the unjust
extraction of benefits now and in the future as well as the making of
restitution to the victim group for past oppression. Implicit here is
the counterpart idea of unjust impoverishment, which describes the
conditions of those who have suffered from those being unfairly enriched.
This unjust impoverishment has, on occasion, been recognized by
liberal whites. Thus, in a 1984 federal appellate case, Williams v.
City of New Orleans, appellate justice John Wisdom argued that the
anti-slavery amendments and the civil rights act enacted at and just
after the Civil War's end were designed to grant federal power "to
provide for remedial action aimed at eliminating the present effects
of past discrimination against blacks as a class. Wholly aside from
the fourteenth amendment, the thirteenth amendment is an affirmative
grant of power to eliminate slavery along with its 'badges and
incidents' and to establish universal civil freedom. The amendment
envisions affirmative action aimed at blacks as a race. When a present
discriminatory effect upon blacks as a class can be linked with a
discriminatory practice against blacks as a race under the slavery
system, the present effect may be eradicated under the auspices of the
thirteenth amendment" (Larry Williams et al. 1984: 1554, 1577). Since
there are close historical connections between past and present white
privileges and black disabilities, it is not surprising that most
whites wish to deny the historical linkages with such phrases as "My
family and I never owned slaves," or the "slavery was centuries ago." Recognition
of historical linkages is essential to build arguments for restitution
and reparations for African Americans.
White
privilege entails the array of benefits and advantages inherited by
each generation of those defined as "white" in U.S. society.
These racialized advantages are both material and symbolic, and they
penetrate and encompass many interactions among whites and between
whites and others over the course of lifetimes. White privilege is
ubiquitous and imbedded even where most whites cannot see it; it is
the foundation of this society. It began in early white gains from
slavery and has persisted under legal segregation and contemporary
racism. Acceptance of this system of white privileges and black
disadvantages as "normal" has conferred advantages for whites now
across some fifteen generations.
Transgenerational Transmission of Wealth
Looking
at U.S. history, one
finds that racial oppression encompasses the intertemporal reproducing
of ill-gotten wealth, as well as the organizational structures and
ideologies buttressing the reproduction of wealth. Socially reproduced
over time are racially structured institutions, such as the economic
institutions that perpetuate the exploitation of black labor and the
legal institutions protecting that exploitation. Each new generation
of Americans has inherited this persisting framework of racial
inequality and privilege. From at least the early 1700s to the
mid-1800s much of the surplus capital and wealth of the nation's white
families and communities came directly, or by means of economic
multiplier effects, from the African slave trade and the slave
plantations and related enterprises (see Bateman and Weiss 1981;
Lebergott 1984). The worldwide trade generated by British and French
plantations in the Americas was the source of much capital for
European commercial and industrial revolutions. Much of British,
French, and American industry, shipping, naval development, and
banking was ultimately grounded in enslaved black labor. From the
1600s to the 1800s the majority of major agricultural exports in the
Western-dominated world trade were produced by enslaved Africans.
Without this labor, it seems unlikely that there would have been a
successful British and U.S. textile industry, and without that first
major industry it is unclear how or when Britain and the U.S. would
have become industrial powers (Wiecek 1996; Browne 1990). Perhaps the
most important technological development of the 18th century, James
Watt's improved steam engine, which greatly accelerated
industrialization, was bankrolled by British investors with capital
accumulated in the West Indies trade in slaves and slave-produced
products. Without the often profitable enterprises around African and African
American enslavement, it is unclear how or when the United States would
have developed as a modern industrial nation (see Solow
and Engerman, 1987).
Labor Stolen
under Slavery
For some
fifteen generations the exploitation and oppression of African Americans
have redistributed
income and wealth earned by black labor to generations of white
Americans, leaving the former relatively impoverished as a group and
the latter relatively privileged as a group. Consider just the value
of the African American labor that was expropriated. The white owner's
cost for maintaining an enslaved African American was generally very
low, and under many circumstances large profits could be generated
off the labor
of such a subordinated worker (Du Bois 1992 [1935]). Larry Neal has calculated
that the current (1983) value of the slave labor
expropriated by whites from 1620 to 1865 ranges from about $1 trillion
to as much as $97 trillion, depending on the rate of interest chosen
(Swinton 1990: 156). James Marketti has estimated the dollar value
of
the labor taken from enslaved African Americans from 1790 to 1860
at,
depending on the historical assumptions, from $7 billion to as much
as
$40 billion. Such a figure roughly indicates what black individuals
and families lost in income because they did not control their labor.3
Marketti suggests that, if that stolen income is multiplied by taking
into account lost interest from then to the present, the current
(1983) economic loss (income diverted) for black Americans ranges
from $2.1 to $4.7 trillion (Marketti 1990: 118).4 Updating these 1983
estimates places the current value of the diverted labor income in
the
trillions of U.S. dollars.
Numerous white analysts have attacked the idea of white society owing
such back wages for slavery; they argue that figuring out the debts
of
distant history is just too difficult (see Warren 1965: 434-35).
Yet
such an argument almost always fails to note that the damages done
to
African Americans did not end with slavery, but persisted for another
one hundred years in the form of legal segregation and then for
several more decades in present-day discrimination. The era of black
enslavement was not followed by a century of justice and equality. Labor Stolen under Segregation
After
the Civil War, white southerners
used terrorism for a few years to win a major goal of that war--the
continued oppression of African Americans. Organizing Ku Klux Klan
violence and other coercion, whites in all classes worked to deny
the
newly freed blacks access to land, credit, political power, and
education (see Ransom and Sutch 1981: 150-51). There was much other
racial discrimination, and soon legal segregation was established
in
all southern and some northern states. Significantly, government
officials were involved in maintaining racial oppression. Under
legal
segregation, the economic losses for black Americans were again
high.
One research study estimated the cost of labor market discrimination
for 1929-1969 (in 1983 dollars) at $1.6 trillion (Swinton 1990:
156).
Calculating the cost of antiblack discrimination from the end of
slavery in 1865 to the year 1969, the end of legal segregation,
and
putting that calculation into year-2000 dollars would likely increase
that wage-loss estimate to several trillion dollars. Continuing Theft of Labor Today
Since
the end of official segregation
black Americans have suffered additional economic losses. A number
of
economic studies have suggested how much African American workers
annually lose from continuing discrimination and informal segregation
in employment. For one year in the 1970s the estimate of the cost
of
continuing racial discrimination in employment has been put in
the
range of $94-123 billion (Darity 1990: 11). Estimating a dollar
figure
for the period since the end of segregation to the present day
would
doubtless bring this figure of lost income and purchasing power
from
continuing discrimination to another several trillion dollars. William Darity reminds us that what blacks lose whites often gain:" These
are pretty good calculations, but they are all made on the assumption
that if racial discrimination were eliminated everything
else would be much the same. Discrimination appears as a deadweight
loss to all Americans. No attention is given to the interdependence
between the incomes of blacks and whites, and the possibility that the
incomes of whites are higher because the incomes of blacks are lower" (Darity
1990: 11). Thus, one can see much of these dollar figures as added and undeserved
income for white Americans.
Clearly,
the sum total of the worth of all the black labor stolen by whites through
the means of slavery, segregation, and contemporary
discrimination is staggering--many trillions of dollars. The worth of
all that labor, taking into account lost interest over time and
putting it in today's dollars, is perhaps in the range of $5 to $24
trillion.
Other Economic
Costs Labor lost means capital lost, both that directly generated and that
which might have otherwise been borrowed. As David
Swinton has noted, "Discrimination and racism reduced the historic
accumulation [of] capital by blacks and increased accumulation by
whites. The resulting disparities in ownership of capital are
transmitted intergenerationally. These capital disparities would
prevent attainment of racial equality even if current discrimination
ended and blacks and whites had identical tastes and preferences" (Swinton 1990: 157).
After the
Civil War some congressional proposals were aimed at giving those recently
freed arable land--the famous 40 acres and a mule. Yet
most black families never got access to the land promised, and the
inequality in wealth-generating agricultural land has been a major
cause of persisting racial inequalities. Passed under the Abraham
Lincoln administration, the Homestead Act provided access to
productive land and wealth, mostly for white families, from the 1860s
to the 1930s. Some 246 million acres were provided by the federal
government, at minimal cost, for some 1.5 homesteads. Research by
Trina Williams (in this book see pages XXX-YYY ) estimates
that--depending on calculations of multiple ownership, mortality,
marriage, and childbearing patterns--somewhere between 20 and 93
million Americans are now the beneficiaries of this large
wealth-generating program over several generations. Williams (2000)
suggests that the most likely figure is in the middle range, perhaps
46 million, a figure equal to about one quarter of the current
population.5 Almost all of these beneficiaries have been white, as
only 4,000 African Americans made entries under the Homestead Act. In
order to build successful families and provide for their children,
parents need access to significant resources, and land is one major
resource. Indeed, Stephen DeCanio's research indicates that those
formerly enslaved who were propertyless and emancipated without arable
land were fated to endure major longterm economic disparity with
whites. The initial gap in land access can be shown to produce the
longterm racial gap in income, even without considering other factors
(DeCanio 1981).
Added to
the lack of land was the rigid legal and de facto segregation that developed
in the decades just before and after 1900. This further
prevented black Americans from getting good jobs, buying decent homes,
and thereby generating the family assets necessary to compete
effectively with whites over many lifetimes. There has been relatively
little economic inheritance across generations. In contrast, many
white families garnered some economic resources in the past and
enhanced those assets over generations. Historically, a majority of
whites have accumulated material advantages by the transmission of
assets such as savings, land, small businesses, or homes. Many decades
of discrimination in employment and housing have resulted in black
families being less likely to be homeowners. Discriminatory practices
in home sales and insurance have long limited the ability of black
Americans to build housing equities that might be used to start a
business or help children get a good education (see Oliver and Shapiro
1995: 36-50). Because of racial discrimination in securing mortgages
for homes, as well as for businesses, African Americans are losing an
estimated 100 billion in equity over this current generation as
compared to comparable whites. Moreover, over the last few generations
this lost home equity doubtless totals many tens of billions of
dollars. In addition, recent research indicates that the current
white-black differential in assets is not the result of differences in
savings rates (Darity and Myers 1998: 150-52).
The Current Bottom Line: Economic Inequality
For recent
decades U.S.
census data show the black median family income to be consistently in
the range of 55-61 percent of the white median family income. Today,
as in the past, black families face poverty at a much greater rate
than white families and an unemployment rate roughly twice that of
whites (Darity and Myers 1998: 7-10). Black workers are often the
first laid off during economic recessions and the last to be recalled.
Coupled with a high unemployment rate is a high underemployment rate.
In recent decades this rate has ranged to one third or more of black
workers in many communities, a much greater figure than for whites.
Perhaps the most dramatic indicator of generations of white access to
the acquisition of material and educational resources can be seen in
measures of family net worth. The median net worth of white households
is about ten times that of black households. In addition, black
families have most of the assets they hold in cars and houses, while
white families are far more likely than black families to have
interest-bearing bank accounts and to hold stock in companies (U.S.
Bureau of the Census 1994: xiii-xiv).
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