Resources

Accessing “The Case For Reparations”

• The Atlantic – The Case for Reparations
• The Atlantic – The Case for Reparations Project
• Sound Cloud – Recorded Version of “The Case For Reparations”

Teaching “The Case for Reparations”

• ACLU – Reparations, H.R. 40, and the Path Forward
• ACLU – The Tulsa Massacre and the Destruction of Black Wall Street | The Case for Reparations and H.R. 40
• Reparations4Slavery – Guides and Resources
• Reparations4Slavery – 400 Years of Inequality Timeline
• Chronology of the Reparations Movement of Africans in America
• Pulitzer Center – 1619 Project Curriculum
• TED Talk – Brittney Cooper, “The Racial Politics of Time
• Facing History – Debate Over Reparations and Racial Justice, Educator Resource

Additional Timeline Resources

1923 – Racial Terrorism in Mississippi

• Equal Justice Initiative – Lynching in America Report
• Lynching: Violence, Rhetoric, and American Identity – Dr. Ersula J. Ore

2001 – AP Report on Plunder of Black Farmers

• Original AP Article on Discrimination Against Black Farmers
• Vice News – The Young Black Farmers Defying a Legacy of Discrimination
• The Atlantic – How Black Americans Were Robbed of Their Land
• The Atlantic – The Great Land Robbery
• AJ+ – Why Are All The Black Farmers Vanishing?
• Los Angeles Times – ‘When They Steal Your Land, They Steal Your Future’

1934 – Creation of FHA

• Fresh/NPR – A ‘Forgotten History’ of How The U.S. Government Segregated America
• The Atlantic – The Racist Housing Policy That Made Your Neighborhood

1968 – Contract Buyers League

• The Atlantic – The Story of the Contract Buyers League
• The Chicago Reporter – Interview with Clyde Ross, Contract Buyers League
• Chicago Tribune – Contract Selling: $500 Million “Legally Stolen” from Chicago’s African Americans
• The Contract Buyers League Website
• “In My Father’s House There Are Many Mansions—And I’m Going to Get me Some of Them Too”: The Story of the Contract Buyers League – Written by James Alan McPherson
• Duke University Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity – The Plunder of Black Wealth in Chicago: New Findings on the Lasting Toll of Predatory Housing Contracts
• Chicago Tribune – Why A Housing Scheme Founded in Racism is Making a Resurgence Today

1783 – Belinda Royall Petitions for Reparations

• Stuff You Missed in History Class – Belinda Sutton’s Post-Enslavement Petitions
• Zinn Education Project – Belinda Sutton Petitions for a Pension as Reparations
• JSTOR – Belinda’s Petition: Reparations for Slavery in Revolutionary Massachusetts, Roy E. Finkenbine

1782 – Pleasants Frees 78 Enslaved People

• Jefferson Monticello – Robert Pleasants
• Encyclopedia Virginia: Virginia Humanities – Robert Pleasants (1723-1801)
• The Root – Tracing Your Roots: Were My Ancestors Freed in a Big Court Case?
• Pleasants v. Pleasants Road Marker

1987 – Establishment of N’COBRA

• Website for National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America
• Reparations4Slavery – N’COBRA
• IBW21.org – N’COBRA Demands Reparations From University of Chicago

1989 – John Conyers Proposes H.R. 40

• Congress.gov – Original Proposal for H.R. 40
• Vox – America is Having an Unprecedented Debate About Reparations. What comes next?
• ACLU – H.R. 40 Is Not a Symbolic Act. It’s a Path to Restorative Justice.
• Detroit Public TV – John Conyers | American Black Journal Archival Interview

1619 – First Africans Forcibly Brought to North America

• History Channel – First Enslaved Africans Arrive in Jamestown, Setting the Stage for Slavery in North America
• National Geographic Magazine – 400 Years Ago, Enslaved Africans First Arrived in Virginia
• Voices of the Civil Rights. Movement – First Enslaved Africans Arrive in New World
• Library of Congress – Record of 1619 Encounter in Jamestown
• The New York Times – The 1619 Project

1676 – Bacon’s Rebellion

• Facing History and Ourselves – Inventing Black and White
• WORLD Channel – How America Invented Race | The History of White People in America

1863 – Reconstruction “Begins”

• Smithsonian Magazine – The Deadliest Massacre in Reconstruction-Era Louisiana Happened 150 Years Ago
• NPR Fresh Air – The ‘Unresolved Legacy’ of Reconstruction
• Reconstruction Updated Edition: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 – Dr. Eric Foner

1650 – Black People Can’t Carry Arms

• PBS – Colonial Laws
• Sedgwick County – The Racist Origins of Gun Control: Laws Designed to Disarm Salves, Freedmen, and African Americans
• The Atlantic – The Secret History of Guns
• Al Jazeera – Gun Control’s Racist Past and Present
• Al Jazeera English – The Racist History of Gun Control in the US Explained

1705 – Virginia and the Dismemberment of Enslaved People

• Encyclopedia Virginia: Virginia Humanities – “An act concerning Servants and Slaves” (1705)

1840 – Value of Cotton

• PBS – Why Was Cotton ‘King’?
• Lumen Learning – The Economics of Cotton
• NHPR – Without Slavery, Would The U.S. Be The Leading Economic Power?
• Pacific Standard – America, The House That Slavery Built
• NBC News – 1800s-1850s: Expansion of Slavery in the U.S.

1921 – Tulsa Riot and “Black Wall Street”

• Vox – The Massacre of Tulsa’s “Black Wall Street”
• CNN – The History of Tulsa’s ‘Black Wall Street’ Massacre
• HBO – Watchmen: Black Wall Street – Behind the Scenes of Season 1
• Black Wall Street 19
• Smithsonian – Confronting the Past
• All Things Considered/NPR – The History and Legacy of Tulsa Race Massacre

1933 – New Deal Excludes Black Americans

• CATO Institute – Why did FDR’s New Deal Harm Blacks?
• Smithsonian Channel – How the New Deal Left Out African-Americans
• The Socialist Worker – Blacks and the Great Depression
• Art Institute of Chicago – World’s Highest Standard of Living
• The Washington Post – The New Deal As Raw Deal for Blacks in Segregated Communities
• Brookings Institute – Why We Need Reparations for Black Americans

1933 – Creation of Home Owners’ Loan Corporation

• National Community Reinvestment Coalition – HOLC “Redlining” Maps: The Persistent Structure Of Segregation And Economic Equality
• Journal of Urban – Redlining and the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation
• Washington Post – Redlining Was Banned 50 Years Ago. It’s Still Hurting Minorities Today.
• Urban Displacement Project – Redlining and Gentrification
• The Two-Way/NPR – Interactive Redlining Map Zooms In On America’s History of Discrimination
• The New York Times – How Redlining’s Racist Effects Lasted For Decades
• The National Geographic – Newly Released Maps Show How Housing Discrimination Happened

1917 – Chicago Real Estate Board

• JSTOR – The Origins and Diffusion of Racial Restrictive Covenants
• History Channel – The Red Summer of 1919
• Chicago DeTours – Witness the 1919 Chicago Race Riot in Jun Fujita’s Photos
• Newberry Library – Chicago and the Great Migration, 1915-1950

1951 – Cicero Race Riot

• Zinn Education Project – Cicero Riot Over Housing Desegregation
• Chicago Magazine – How White Housing Riots Shaped Chicago

1978 – Affirmative Action

• C-SPAN Landmark Cases – Regents Of The Univ. Of Cal. V. Bakke
• The Atlantic – The Supreme Court Justice Who Forever Changed Affirmative Action
• PBS – Expanding Civil Rights and Regents of University of California v. Bakke (1978)
• Stitcher – Landmark Cases
• Duality – Fair Admission: Regents v. Bakke | Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard
• Michigan Law Review – The Causation Fallacy: Bakke and the Basic Arithmetic of Selective Admissions

1905 – Varadman and Parchman Prison

• PBS News Hour – Inside Mississippi’s Notorious Parchman Prison
• Innocence Project – The Lasting Legacy of Parchman Farm, the Prison Modeled After a Slave Plantation
• The New York Times – 12 Deaths in Mississippi Tell a Grim Story
• Mississippi Department of Archives & History – Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman) Photo Collections

1845 – President Polk Sells Enslaved People in White House

• The White House Historical Association – The Enslaved Households of President James K. Polk
• Time – Slaves at the White House Did More Than Just Build It

1952 – West Germany Pays Reparations

• The National Library of Israel – The Reparations Agreement of 1952 and the Response in Israel
• The New York Times – Bonn Signs Pact With Israel For $822,000,000 Payment

2004 – Tulsa Lawsuit Fails

• Human Rights Watch – The Case for Reparations in Tulsa, Oklahoma: A Human Rights Argument
• Tulsa World – Tulsa Race Riot’s Lawsuit Denied
• NBC News – Judge Nixes Tulsa Race Riot Reparations
• Los Angeles Times – Reparations Sought Decades After Race Riot
• Tulsa Reparations Coalition

2010 – Racism and Foreclosures

• American Sociological Review – Racial Segregation and the American Foreclosure Crisis
• American Quarterly – Race, Empire, and the Crisis of the Subprime
• Brookings Institution – Discriminatory Housing Policy Leads to the Devaluation of Black People
• TED Talk – Racism Has a Cost For Everyone | Heather C. McGhee

2005 – Wells Fargo Wealth Building Seminars

• CBS News – Civil Rights Group Teams With Wells Fargo Despite Charges of Predatory Lending
• Netflix Explained by Vox – The Racial Wealth Gap

2011 – Bank of America Settlement

• BBC News – Bank of America Fined $335m for Minority Discrimination
• PBS News Hour – Bank of America to Pay $335M to Settle Countrywide Case of Alleged Racial Bias
• C-SPAN – Bank of America Mortgage Lending Settlement