The Case for Reparations

“In the 1920s, Jim Crow Mississippi was, in all facets of society, a kleptocracy. The majority of the people in the state were perpetually robbed of the vote—a hijacking engineered through the trickery of the poll tax and the muscle of the lynch mob […] The state’s regime partnered robbery of the franchise with robbery of the purse.” 

Coates presents twin claims of harm to African Americans: being deprived of the rights of full citizenship even after slavery ended and being deprived of their property through plunder. Written in the second paragraph of the essay, these claims set out the author’s main arguments, but he saves the more damning evidence for later. Although these two facts alone could warrant reparations, some readers might point to the fact that the plunder of African Americans after slavery ended was the work of individual actors. Coates demonstrates that it also involved the federal government, which made plunder a systemic act, thus bolstering his case for reparations. 

“In 2001, the Associated Press published a three-part investigation into the theft of black-owned land stretching back to the antebellum period. The series documented some 406 victims and 24,000 acres of land valued at tens of millions of dollars. The land was taken through means ranging from legal chicanery to terrorism. ‘Some of the land taken from black families has become a country club in Virginia,’ the AP reported, as well as ‘oil fields in Mississippi’ and ‘a baseball spring training facility in Florida.’”

Coates argues that the wealth gap between whites and blacks in America occurred partially because whites stole the property of blacks. The value here is reported as “tens of millions of dollars,” yet that comes from just over 400 people. As Coates goes on to explain, the systematic plundering of African Americans involved many more people over hundreds of years (both during and after slavery).

“Three months after Clyde Ross moved into his house, the boiler blew out. This would normally be a homeowner’s responsibility, but in fact, Ross was not really a homeowner. His payments were made to the seller, not the bank. And Ross had not signed a normal mortgage. He’d bought ‘on contract’: a predatory agreement that combined all the responsibilities of homeownership with all the disadvantages of renting—while offering the benefits of neither. Ross had bought his house for $27,500. The seller, not the previous homeowner but a new kind of middleman, had bought it for only $12,000 six months before selling it to Ross. In a contract sale, the seller kept the deed until the contract was paid in full—and, unlike with a normal mortgage, Ross would acquire no equity in the meantime. If he missed a single payment, he would immediately forfeit his $1,000 down payment, all his monthly payments, and the property itself.” 

This quotation explains in detail the predatory contracts that African Americans were forced to accept if they wanted to purchase a home. The purchase price was usually double the market value (or more).