EP 322 Reparations for Slavery: An Idea That’s Too Late or Whose Time Has Come?

Reconstruction interruptus.  It is of the great untold stories in America history.  Lincoln was shot and what died along with him was the hope and promise that America could make things right for so many who had contributed to the economy of the nation, but could not partake in its rewards.  Through a long 100 year period of Jim Crow leading to hard won civil rights legislation in the 1960’s, it’s hard to calculate the economic injustices still visited upon blacks in America.  The costs have been apparent in housing, education, employment and the gaping disparity in net worth between the races. So as the question of reparations comes up again, primarily as a result of author Ta-Nehisi Coates’ article in ‘The Atlantic’ in 2014, and conversations begin swirling around it, many questions about necessity and plausibility are raised. Draper Chair in American History at the University of Connecticut, Manisha Sinha, weighed in on the subject in the ‘Wall Street Journal’ recently.  We reached out to discuss this issue with some historical record so everyone is clear that modern history, including our own, has made accommodation to groups upon whom grave injustices were visited.  So, has the time come or passed for some form of recompense to take place?  Listen in and consider the matter in context.

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