Slavery was state-sanctioned in the US for over 200 years. According to some sources, ten of America’s first twelve presidents enslaved African people. One even conducted slave trade from the Oval Office.
These enslaved people contributed significantly to the development of America and served as the foundation for the economy of the 18th and 19th centuries. Since the abolition of slavery, various efforts have been made to assist the descendants of enslaved Black people and individuals of African origin.
U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman wants to make the federal government accountable for slavery’s legacy and establish a $14 trillion reparations program to help enslaved people’s descendants.
The bill seeking $14 trillion in slavery reparations for Black Americans was filed in 2023, 35 years after a bill establishing a congressional commission to explore reparations was originally introduced. The law is still pending and reintroduced this year, according to lohud.
HR 414 aims to provide free college education to 107 historically black colleges and universities, fund the National Publishers Association and National Association of Black Broadcasters, and restore voting rights for incarcerated individuals.
“I think people incarcerated should be able to vote,” Bowman, who represents New York City’s northern suburbs, said of the bill he is co-sponsoring. “And I definitely think that when they come out, they should automatically be enfranchised.”
According to the 2020 census, the United States has an estimated 42 million African Americans, accounting for 12% of the total population. According to Bowman, when divided evenly, each person is expected to receive $333,000, which may be distributed over the course of ten years.
“Who says the $14 trillion needs to be paid out in one shot,” said Bowman. “It might be possible for it to be paid out over 5 or 10 or 20 years. You could take that $333,000 and break it up into monthly checks over X amount of time. There are creative ways to do the right thing and do what needs to be done.”
Bowman wants a comprehensive approach to reparations due to the yawning inequities that America was built on including “housing, mass incarceration, higher education, and wealth inequality,” according to BET.com.
“There were 246 years of free labor that produced trillions or hundreds of trillions of dollars for the U.S. economy,” said Bowman. “The economy wouldn’t exist in the way it does today if slavery hadn’t built it.”