Slaves never got reparations. How has this effected America today and why?

Question

Slaves that were freed following the civil war in America were each promised 40 acres of land and 1 mule to work the land. Lincoln promised this. However following his assassination, the next president Andrew Johnson canceled out this deal and blacks never got anything. How has this effected America today and why?

Answer 1

Although the slaves never received their reparations, they were finally freed. This has created much resentment throughout the entire African-American community towards the government. In a usually high "white" populated government, the African-American voice has still been deemed "unheard". That is just one reason why many African-Americans do not trust our government.

Answer 2

This is an interesting question ... maybe the answer is 'not at all', or maybe the answer is a great deal. Questions like this are designed to bring forth discussion.

The arguement for reparations include the idea that since slaves were not able to work for money and save equity they therefore ended up passing poverty down from one generation to the next. Reparations would then compensate them for lost wages and lost savings/equity. Yes, it does make some sense.

Some things perhaps contradict this, however. 1 - Many or most immigrants came to this country with little or nothing. They have not needed savings not equity to make it in this country. 2 - Why should the descendents of recent immigrants have to pay for the slave owners in the South? Most Northerners and Southerners were non-slave owners and they gained nothing, and in fact were probably economically hurt by slave owners. Should they be compensated? 3 - There were some African-American slave owners (a little know fact) ... the Nat'l Park Service controls a house/museum in Natchez Mississippi of William Johnson, a free-black in pre-Civil War Natchez WHO OWNED SLLAVES. How should his descendents be treated since they were slave owners and not slaves? 4 - What about those who were part of the wage-slavery system in the north? Should they be compensated? (Another little know fact).

This question, as are all of these questions, is larger than what appears, at first.

Answer 3

This ethnicy has affected history books. Today, we leave out important battles so we can include a paragraph or two describing obscure writers. Actually, paying out reparations invites a step up to a very slippery slope gong all the way back to Spanish colonial expansion. Blacks were offered relocation to Africa, with many refusing, some returning.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy African-Americans as part of the American make-up. What is important is what America is today.

Answer 4

Some got it, they just weren't allowed to keep it. The only effect it has today is that some people think that descendants of former slaves deserve reparations because they didn't get them then.