Dear Dean Magazine: December 22, 2022

M Y R O N J . C L I F T O N
Black Americans paid reparations to former
slaveholders.
Former slave owners petitioned the government
for reparations, demanding compensation for
losing “their property” and they won.
Most reports say slaveowners received $300 per
lost enslaved person but that number is
incomplete when factoring in what they *really
received in the form of free labor from the
enslaved – men, boys, women, and girls, for
generations. (We will assign monetary value in
In each of these cases Black people were either
parts 2 and 3.)
explicitly denied or prevented by force and
intimidation from participating and receiving a fair
Enforcers of slavery also often received free land,
share of our land.
reduced or no taxes, and profits from enslaved
labor… for generations.
These acts contributed to individual white people
and white owned corporations to build wealth using
Black Americans gave away millions of acres of
Black Americans tax dollars and labor to do so.
free land
Almost simultaneously, as America wanted to
Black Americans paid Reparations to Europe Twice
populate the western states, Black people gave
Black Americans gave Britain and France around
massive amounts of western land to settlers
$10b to finance their World War 1 efforts.
(colonizers) as the nation expanded its footprint,
while needing to encourage eastern and southern
Then in what is commonly known as The Marshall
people to go west.
Plan, Black Americans bailed out Europe after World
War 2, to help them rebuild after, let us face it, white
Black Americans gave white settlers 160 million
people went crazy and tried to enslave or destroy the
acres of land under the Homestead Act starting
world.
around 1862 for the nation, but it started earlier
in Washington and Oregon.
The money given from our taxes was $22b or close
to $200b in today’s dollars.
And there were other land giveaways including:
Southern Homestead Act of 1866, Timber Culture
Black Americans paid Japanese Americans
Act of 1873, Kinkaid Amendment of 1904,
reparations
Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909, Stock-Rising
The U.S. government flexed its racist muscle at home
Act of 1916, Subsistence Homesteads provisions
during World War 2 by placing eighty-two thousand
under The New Deal of 1930, and the Small
Japanese Americans in concentration camps. After
Tracts Act in 1938.
DEAR DEAN MAGAZINE | p.10