For 246 years, the US used Black people’s unpaid slave labor to build up its economy and wealth. Even after slavery ended, legalized discrimination and racial terror created enormous barriers for Black people trying to build wealth and access basic needs like housing, health care, and education. As a result, generation after generation of Black people have worked toward well-being and justice with fewer resources and opportunities than their white counterparts. Providing reparations – which can take many forms including grants, direct cash payments, and long-term investments – is one way to acknowledge and redress the injustices Black people have survived. Reparations are not a new concept in the US. In 1988, because of the efforts of Japanese American organizers, the federal government paid $20,000 and formally apologized to people of Japanese ancestry who were incarcerated during World War II. On a federal level, the ACLU has been pushing Congress to pass H.R. 40, a bill that w...