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It’s no secret Republican U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson opposes reparations for Black Americans whose ancestors endured slavery. A new study pushes back against the idea that reparations is too tall a task to undertake.
H.R. 40 is a House Resolution that, if passed by Congress and signed by President Biden, would form a committee to study reparations proposals. It’s been collecting dust every year since first introduced by the late Rep. John Conyers in 1989.
During a 2019 debate in the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, Congressman Mike Johnson made his thoughts clear.
“The fair distribution of reparations would be nearly impossible once one considers the complexity of the American struggle of slavery,” he said.
Currently, after centuries of enslavement, decades of lychnings and Jim Crow terrorism, redlining and other harmful policies, the racial wealth gap has become astronomical.
In 2023, Black families own roughly 24 cents for ever $1 dollar White families own, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
From Historic Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma to the state of California, efforts to achieve reparations via the legislative or judicial routes are ongoing.
New study calls reparations “an investment”
Meanwhile, two progressive organizations–Liberation Ventures and The Bridgespan Group– teamed up this year to produce a report that re-centers reparations, not simply as an indictment on the past, but as an investment in the nation’s collective future.
The study, titled: “Philanthropy’s Role in Reparations and Building a Culture of Racial Repair”, encourages the private sector to join in the effort to close the racial wealth gap and create a culture of racial repair.
“One of the big misconceptions about reparations is that it is a discussion stuck in the past, only about history long ago rather than an investment, perhaps the investment, in the future,” Bridgespan Group Partner Dr. Tonyel Edwards told The Black Wall Street Times.
“Reparations and the repair that comes with it is an opening, an invitation, and an opportunity to transform ourselves, our communities, and our nation,” she said.
The idea of passing reparations proposals through a public-private partnership, instead of entirely through taxpayer dollars, has a chance of drawing support even from conservatives.
“We need to build a culture of repair even outside of government, too, because private and social sector institutions have harmed Black communities as well,” Aria Florant, co-founder and CEO of Liberation Ventures told The Black Wall Street Times.
“We know that philanthropy has caused harm to Black communities, and we think they should be a first mover in demonstrating what it can look like for an institution to repair,” she said.
House Speaker misquoted Dr. King to oppose reparations
Mike Johnson, a staunch conservative Republican from Louisiana, became second in line to the presidency on October 25. It followed a drama-filled rise to the Speakership. Among other issues, his views and past statements on reparations quickly came to light.
Speaker Johnson has made several excuses to ignore the nation’s duty to provide compensation to the descendants of those who built the country.
After acknowledging that his “adopted” Black son has struggles his White sons don’t face in 2014, he walked back his previous comments years later.
By 2019, he was misquoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words to argue against reparations. House Speaker Johnson did not respond to our request for comment.
Meanwhile, as part of the new study, its researchers define reparations as a “comprehensive federal program that addresses the legacy of slavery and the centuries of documented race-based policies thereafter.”
Reparations study offers pathway forward
Ultimately, the study proposes solutions that could lead the nation to offering true reparative justice.
Redress, or acts of financial restitution, combined with accountability, acknowledgement and an educational reckoning, reflect the kind of reparations that could heal the nation, the study shows.
The study notes as the Baby Boomer generation passes away, an estimated $84 trillion in wealth will transfer to a new generation.
“With the United States in the midst of the largest wealth transfer in its history, we have a tremendous opportunity to do things differently–as opposed to reinforcing the nation’s inequtiy for the next generation,” Dr. Edwards said. “There is philanthropic capital available, and it is our aim to move it off the sidelines and move it off urgently.”
Notably, support for reparations has slowly increased in recent years as cities and states begin the process of offering proposals or plans.
In 2021, Evanston, Illinois became the first municipality in the nation to establish and enact a limited reparations program.
Researchers of the new reparations study believe it represents just the beginning of what’s possible.
“I really think fundamentally that repair is an issue that should not be political,” Florant said. A 2019 study from McKinsey & Company shows closing the racial wealth gap would increase the nation’s GDP by four to six percent.
“I think we get conservatives on board by really focusing on these nationwide goals that are important.”
To view the full study, visit bridgespan.org.
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