Throughout history, the U.S. and other countries have paid reparations to a wide range of people and groups, for a variety of wrongs. But reparations to African Americans have not been paid to date. In the final episode of the ARC of Justice – From Here to Equality, listen in on a live conversation about reparations. […]
Social Policy
S6E5: White Brutality
Throughout the nation’s history, time and again, promising signs of African American progress have been shattered by acts of violence serving the interests of white supremacy. The extent of that violence is widespread and ongoing. From lynchings to the decimation of entire communities in Colfax (1873) and Coushatta, Louisiana (1874), in Wilmington, North Carolina (1898) […]
S6E4: Whitening the Middle Class
Time and again, the route to upward mobility in American society has been blocked for African Americans. Consider the GI Bill, which provided college education and housing benefits for veterans after World War II. The GI Bill was a conveyor belt into the middle class for millions of white WWII veterans, but many African American veterans […]
S6E3: A Tale of Two Cities
How the Federal Government Promoted Housing Segregation and Thwarted Black Home Ownership Home ownership played an important role in how many Americans built wealth in the 20th century. Yet African Americans faced significant obstacles on the path to owning a home, in the same time period. In today’s episode, we’ll discuss how government policies promoted […]
S6E2: This Land is My Land
The Racial Wealth Gap’s Roots in Federal Policy The promise of “40 acres and a mule” officially was made in 1865. The U.S. government decided that newly freed African Americans should have a plot of land to call their own. Three years earlier, when 90% of African Americans still were enslaved, the federal government enacted […]
S6E1: Not So Long Ago
One Nation Under Slavery White households in Boston have a median net worth of about $247,000 dollars. The median net worth of a Black household in Boston is a mere $8 dollars. Inequality like this is a national issue, and we’re dedicating this season of the podcast to the topic. What could have been done, […]