Ruth Ellen Steinman Bloustein and Edward J. Bloustein Memorial Lecture
April 7, 2021
Thomas
Craemer is an associate professor of public policy at the University of
Connecticut. In this lecture, he traces slavery reparations proposals from the founding of the United States to the present. He also addresses some historical precedents for slavery reparations, albeit in the wrong direction, that is, to the descendants of slave owners rather than the enslaved. Various estimation methods have been developed for the outstanding debt to African American descendants of the enslaved,
land-based, price-based, and wage-based. Craemer will present the wage-based method to calculate what the enslaved lost by not being paid for their time. Historical reparations precedents can help us in the design and implementation of future federal reparations policies with the goal of closing the racial wealth gap.