Using Economic Analysis to Incorporate Reparations for Black Americans into the US History Classroom

Abstract

The United Nations recognizes that if a nation-state violates the civil rights of its citizens, it is responsible for providing reparations to the harmed group. Many Black Americans assert that the prolonged civil rights abuse they incurred during enslavement and post-slavery discrimination necessitate the US government provide reparations. Thus, many factions of the ongoing civil rights movement (Hall, 2005) focus on securing Black Americans' reparations. However, in my research, I found that US History standards and curricular resources often paint the civil rights movement as completed and reparations as a decontextualized political debate. This article encourages US History teachers to include reparations into their Civil Rights Movement instruction by incorporating economic analysis. To assist in this shift, I detail a framework that can support US History teachers in interweaving economic thinking and data to situate the topic of reparations into their Civil Rights curriculum.