CONGRESSWOMAN SUMMER LEE (D-PA)
Maryland’s Democratic Governor Wes Moore recently vetoed a bill that proposed to establish a commission to study and recommend reparations for slavery and racial discrimination.
The governor explained that the state has already approved the State Commission to coordinate the study, commemoration, and impact of the history and legacy of slavery in Maryland.
Moore stated that researchers have studied reparations for slavery. It’s now time to focus on the work itself: narrowing the racial wealth gap, expanding homeownership, uplifting entrepreneurs of color, and closing the foundational disparities that lead to inequality.
The Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland was disappointed.
MARYLAND GOVERNOR WES MOORE
The LBCM believed Moore had an obligation to sign the bill as the first Black governor of Maryland. California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, and Illinois have introduced efforts to pay reparations at the state level. LBCM claimed that the governor squandered an opportunity to join these state efforts.
At the federal level, Congresswoman Summer Lee (D-PA) reintroduced former Congresswoman Cori Bush’s Reparations Now bill.
In 2023, Bush proposed spending $14 trillion to “eliminate the racial wealth gap that currently exists between Black and White Americans.” (This bill is distinct from H.R. 40, which intends to establish a federal commission to study reparations and was proposed by Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) a few months ago.)
Advocates for reparations made their case at both the state and federal levels, but we must address a two-part question. Does the federal government owe reparations for slavery, and is eliminating the wealth gap between Blacks and Whites a valid demand for reparations?
It can be argued that states, rather than the federal government, were responsible for slavery.
Between 1619, when the first Africans landed in England’s Jamestown colony in present-day Virginia, and 1776, when the thirteen British colonies in America declared independence from England, the federal government did not exist.
During the American War for Independence, the colonies formed a unified government under the Articles of Confederation. The colonies defeated the British in 1783, but they quickly discovered the Articles of Confederation were inadequate. A new Constitution approved the establishment of the current federal government in 1788.
Reparations advocates argue that America must make amends for centuries of slavery; however, if the current federal government were to pay reparations, it would only be responsible for the 77 years between 1788 and when slavery was abolished in 1865, not for centuries, but the federal government owes no reparations for those 77 years.
Why not?
The Tenth Amendment stated that all powers not delegated to the federal government by the Constitution were reserved to the states. At the time, it was up to each state to address the issue of slavery within its borders.
Reparations advocates disregard the fact that states abolished slavery before the United States Constitution was ratified. Vermont abolished slavery in 1777, followed by Pennsylvania in 1780, Massachusetts (including Maine) and New Hampshire in 1783, Connecticut and Rhode Island in 1784, and the Northwest Ordinance in 1787, which applied to the territories that later became Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
Following the establishment of the current federal government, New York began gradual slavery emancipation in 1799, and New Jersey followed suit in 1804. The remaining states chose to continue practicing slavery until the federal government abolished it.
Individuals seeking reparations for slavery should direct their complaints to the states that continued to practice it from 1783 to 1865. The federal government is the wrong entity to demand reparation payments from.
The other concern is that the Reparations Now bill asks the federal government for trillions of dollars to eliminate the wealth gap between Blacks and Whites. Reparations advocates argue that past discrimination prevented Blacks from accumulating wealth.
It is necessary to distinguish between the wealth and income gaps.
The first is the difference in net worth (assets minus debt), and the second is the difference in earnings. President Lyndon B. Johnson addressed Howard University in 1965, saying that past discrimination had hampered Black Americans’ earning potential and that the federal government needed to make amends. LBJ explained how the Great Society programs will help alleviate poverty and income disparities. Eventually, the introduction of affirmative action programs helped reduce the income gap between Blacks and Whites.
In 2021, a Kaiser Family Foundation study found that when comparing annual income levels among adults age 65-plus with the same level of education, there’s a much narrower gap between Blacks and Whites than between the two groups when education is not factored in. However, a 2024 article published by the U.S. Census Bureau stated that the income “race gap” between low-income Black and White Americans narrowed, but the “class gap,” or the difference in earnings between young adults born to low- and high-income parents, widened, regardless of race.
As the class difference grows, so does the wealth gap.
Reparations advocates argue that America has a moral obligation to correct the wealth imbalance between Blacks and Whites because their progressive political philosophy holds that all wealth inequality is the result of exploitation, but the current class and wealth disparities are caused by contemporary variables, not injustices committed before 1965.
“Eliminating the wealth gap” is not a valid reason to seek reparations from the federal government. The Pew Research Center found in 2023 that Asian households possessed a higher level of wealth compared to all other households. That means reparations advocates are more interested in parity with Whites than eliminating the wealth gap.
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