Recent reporting has highlighted suggestions by Dr. William Darity of Duke University and co-author A. Kristen Mullen that the U.S. government pay approximately $14 trillion dollars in reparations to Black Americans. Their book From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century (University of North Carolina Press, 2022) provides details about the plan, suggesting both that the Federal government facilitated the oppression of Black Americans, and that it is the only entity in a practicable position to pay the reparations. Such payments, on the order of $350,000 for every Black American, would do a great deal to combat the dramatic wealth disparities that exist between White and Black households, and could be accomplished without inducing dramatic inflation.
