Reparations for Black Communities Through Educational Reform

Introduction

Just over four centuries ago, the first African slaves arrived in the United States, beginning what would become a rapidly growing and lucrative industry that persisted well into the 19th century. By the start of the Civil War in 1861, there were nearly 4 million Black slaves in the United States, despite the federal government having banned the importation of new African slaves in 1808 (Hacker, 2021). The importation ban did little to stop the trade, and the practice continued on a large scale after 1808 in defiance of federal law (Africans in America, 2022). Although precise figures are unavailable, current estimates indicate that during the period between 1619 and 1865, enslaved Africans in the United States contributed approximately 410 billion hours of labor to the American economy (Hacker, 2021). Moreover, modern scholars routinely underestimate the economic value of these billions of hours of forced labor; the value could easily run into the trillions of dollars depending on which calculation method is used (Darity et al., 2022).

Beyond the capital produced by slaves in the United States, the value of their physical bodies — used as instruments to generate that capital — was estimated to exceed all of the investments in the burgeoning republic's railroads and factories combined (Ray & Perry, 2020). The net effect of these financial contributions was to further enrich American society in general and elite white slaveholders in particular, at the expense of their human captives. As Ray and Perry (2020) emphasize, "Slavery enriched white slave owners and their descendants, and it fueled the country's economy while suppressing wealth building for the enslaved" (para. 6).

These are critically important points in any modern discussion of reparations because they underscore the fact that slavery not only unjustly enriched white slaveholders during its existence but also helped to build intergenerational wealth among their descendants that would not otherwise have been possible. Many of the descendants of slaveholders continue to benefit from the forced labor of ancestors who were either brought to this country against their will or born into lifelong servitude. The post-Civil War scenario would have been nightmarish enough for the four million recently freed slaves — most of whom lacked the skills needed to secure meaningful employment — but their suffering did not end in April 1865.

As the research that follows will show, emancipated Black Americans continued to suffer from a constellation of unconstitutional stratagems specifically intended to prevent them from exercising their right to vote or improving their station in life. Despite some progress over the past 70 years in helping African Americans secure voting rights and equitable access to public institutions, Black Americans in the United States remain marginalized today as measured by every available quality-of-life standard. African Americans have higher incarceration rates, shorter life expectancies, lower average incomes, and lower educational attainment compared to their white counterparts, and these grim statistics have remained largely unchanged — or have even worsened — for far too long. As Ray and Perry (2020) point out:

The United States has yet to compensate descendants of enslaved Black Americans for their labor. Nor has the federal government atoned for the lost equity from anti-Black housing, transportation, and business policy. Slavery, Jim Crow segregation, anti-Black practices like redlining, and other discriminatory public policies in criminal justice and education have robbed Black Americans of the opportunities to build wealth (defined as assets minus debt) afforded to their white peers. (para. 7)

Problem Statement. The history of Black oppression in the United States is well documented. From the days of slavery through the Jim Crow era and into the present, Black Americans have faced discrimination and violence at the hands of their white counterparts. This long history of racism has left Black communities at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to education. In order to begin to rectify this injustice, reparations should be paid in the form of educational reform.

Purpose. The overarching purpose of this study was to develop a timely and informed answer to the guiding research question: "In what ways can educational reform serve as reparation for Black communities?" To this end, the paper demonstrates that educational reform should take many forms, including but not limited to increased funding for Black-majority schools, hiring more Black teachers and administrators, and expanding curriculum options that focus on the experiences and contributions of Black Americans.

This purpose is highly congruent with the need for the citizens of the United States to reckon with the lingering legacy of segregation in the public education system. School districts should be desegregated in order to promote diversity and equity. It is important to remember that reparations are not a handout; they are a means of beginning to make up for centuries of oppression and maltreatment. Educational reform is one step toward justice for Black Americans, and it is time for the country to make things right.

The Need for Reparations for Black Communities

It is critically important to note that reparations are not the same thing as simple restitution or compensation. The payment of reparations is specifically intended to address a serious legal wrong that has been inflicted on others. In this regard, Black's Law Dictionary (1998) generally defines reparations as "payment for injury or damage; redress for a wrong done" (p. 1298). In the context of American slavery, Green et al. (2017) define reparations as "a program of acknowledgment, redress, and closure of a grievous injustice [which in the case of Black Americans] include[s] slavery, legal segregation (Jim Crow), and ongoing discrimination and stigmatization" (p. 485).

In other words, most advocates of reparations are not suggesting that the United States pay tens of millions of direct descendants of African American slaves cash money in return for their ancestors' forced labor, but rather to "redress a wrong done" by leveling the educational playing field. The Overton window has never been open as wide with respect to public support for reparations. According to Darity and Mullen (2022), "While the nation has not arrived at a political majority that approves of black reparations, there has been a marked growth in public and political support for it" (p. ix). A confluence of trends seems to have created something of a sea change in thinking about reparations, and Darity and Mullen (2022) suggest that there may never be a better opportunity to achieve this outcome:

While most reports on public opinion toward black American reparations emphasize the still substantial opposition, a shift in support from 4 in 100 persons to 30 in 100 is a dramatic change. The trajectory is positive. Whether this support can be nurtured and sustained remains to be seen, but it does look like there is a much greater opportunity for redress than has been present at any previous point in our lifetimes. (p. x)

It is therefore essential for American policymakers to act decisively if Black Americans are ever going to realize full equality with the mainstream population. The cumulative effects of institutionalized racism that emerged following the end of the Civil War have diminished the expectations of most Black Americans that they will ever fully share in the traditional "American dream" (Ray & Perry, 2020). Moreover, longstanding negative stereotypes about Black Americans have created a national mindset — among some people of color as well — that the current state of affairs is the natural result of personal lifestyle choices rather than a lifelong struggle against racism and its deleterious effects on the full spectrum of the human condition.

As noted above, Black Americans today generate approximately ten times less wealth compared to whites, and white college graduates enjoy seven times as much wealth as Black college graduates. As Ray and Perry (2020) conclude, "Making the American Dream an equitable reality demands the same U.S. government that denied wealth to blacks restore that deferred wealth through reparations to their descendants … in the form of wealth-building opportunities that address racial disparities in education, housing, and business ownership" (para. 10). Taken together, the payment of reparations in the form of educational reform is long overdue.

Educational Reform and Academic Disparities

There is little disagreement that the "peculiar institution" exacted an enormous toll on enslaved Black Americans, and these losses have been quantified as noted above. Several centuries of slavery alone could justify the payment of reparations; however, the adverse effects of slavery did not end overnight, and the lingering effects of the prejudices that fueled the Civil War remain present in virtually every aspect of American life today (Green et al., 2017).

Although the antecedents of suboptimal academic performance by Black Americans are multiple, authorities agree that Black students in the United States remain educationally marginalized and cite recent statistics in support (Royal, 2022). SAT scores, for example, provide a valid prediction of the potential for academic success in college and serve as a useful measure of race-based inequalities that persist into adulthood (Reeves & Halikias, 2017). As that data shows, Black students are primarily clustered in the lower half of the national SAT math score distribution, with an average score of 428 — substantially lower than the Asian average of 598, the white average of 534, and the Latino average of 457 (Reeves & Halikias, 2017). Similarly, an assessment of the 2013–2014 national LSAT scores showed that Black Americans scored an average of 142 versus 153 for whites, representing an achievement gap of more than a full standard deviation (1.06 SD), which is significantly larger than the national SAT disparities (Reeves & Halikias, 2017).

Comparable trends demonstrating inequities exist with respect to SAT reading scores as well as standardized tests in other areas, and data confirms that the academic achievement gap for Black students has widened further as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In other words, Black Americans remain at a disadvantage academically compared to other minorities and the white majority, and this disadvantage is intensifying in severity (Davis, 2021). Identifying educational reform strategies that can address these disparities therefore represents a timely and valuable enterprise (Green et al., 2017).

Conclusion

Complex problems require complex solutions, and the research was consistent in showing that this is certainly the case with the payment of reparations to the descendants of Black slaves in the United States today. The research showed that public opinion in support of reparations has never been greater, but many Americans are still reluctant to direct their tax dollars toward this purpose. Nevertheless, the payment of reparations in the form of educational reform is not a "handout," nor even a "hand up." It is simply restorative justice in action — albeit too little, too late, according to some critics.

Moreover, the educational reform initiatives described above will benefit all students irrespective of race by improving the nation's public schools in ways that help prepare young learners to compete in an increasingly globalized workplace. In reality, however, it is reasonable to conclude that no amount of financial reparations can fully compensate the generations of descendants of slaves who have been forced to live as second-class citizens, despite the guarantees of equality clearly set forth in the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights.

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