My 3rd great-grandfather in Tennessee owned a few slaves, but I have not received a dime’s worth of benefit from it. Knowing the circumstances of his daughter, my 2nd great-grandmother, I’m positive she didn’t either. Her husband, my 2nd great-grandfather, was a Union solider who served the entire duration of the war and marched with Sherman to the sea. Maybe my family and I should be compensated for his role in ending slavery and saving the Union, because I’m pretty sure he got nothing but his monthly pay and his meals during those four years. Maybe grandma got a meager pension. But I’m not going to push it. He’s long gone, as are all the slaves he helped free.
Slavery contributed uncompensated manual labor to the building of America but it can’t be said that it “built” it. Other factors such as the technological innovation, capital investment, managerial and accounting professions, educational institutions, religious universities, abundant natural resources, protection from foreign invasion, and a host of other factors were the real builders of America’s wealth. Outside the deep South there was no significant contribution from African slave labor although much of the expansion of the West was built by Asian slave labor.
The entire issue of reparations is designed to inflame resentment and race conflict and would not begin to address the important real cultural issues that perpetuate poverty across generations.