Justice Delayed: An Analysis of Municipal-Level Proposals for Slavery Reparations

Abstract

In this paper, I aim to comprehensively document and analyze all municipal proposals for Black reparations in the United States. I first analyzed the demographic make-up of all cities with reparations proposals, which tended to be less Black, more educated, and have relatively high costs associated with housing. Cities with developing but incomplete proposals tended to have higher Black populations and lower indicators of wealth, better capturing the intervention’s intended demographic. To supplement this macro-level view, I used John Kingdon’s 1984 Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) to conduct a document analysis of Asheville, North Carolina’s proposition of reparative policy interventions. This cases study suggests that while indicators of the problems and politics stream were present, the Asheville city council lacked sufficient reparations policy options to implement a concrete policy at the time of the resolution’s passage. Pre-existing non-governmental organizations and Black council members were key in the introduction of a reparations resolution.