A dirty secret in U.S. history is how local property taxes have been used to steal massive amounts of land and money from Black people, for the last 160 years. The Black Tax, a new book by historian Andrew Kahrl, exposes these scams that helped create the colossal racial wealth gap of today. The damage to Black Americans? More than $600 billion in straight-up theft – and trillions in lost generational wealth!

SHOW NOTES

Guest: Andrew W. Kahrl

Andrew Kahrl is a Professor at the University of Virgina. His research focuses on the social and political history of racial inequality in the United States. He teaches courses on African American history, race and real estate, and U.S. urban history.

Books by Andrew Kahrl:

• The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America
• The Land Was Ours: How Black Beaches Became White Wealth in the Coastal South
  

Related readings and resources:

• The Whiteness of Wealth: How The Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans - And How We Can Fix It by Dorothy A. Brown
• “Blacks in South Struggle to Keep the Little Land They Have Left” (NY Times 1972)
• Federation of Southern Cooperatives (Land Assistance Fund)

HIGHLIGHTS OF EPISODE:

[10:55] Over-taxing of Black-owned property

[13:54] Under-servicing of Black communities

[22:18] The tax sale scam

[26:06] The saga of Evelina Jenkins

[29:08] The tab: damages to Black Americans for stolen property

[39:32] Andrew Kahrl’s proposals to repair the tax system

[42:22] Importance of solidarity to creating a more just system

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This is an exciting time in the fight for Black reparations! As momentum builds across the country, Pay The Tab is expanding in new directions - including the first-ever reparations course at UCLA Law School. In this special episode, Tony and Adam bring the latest news, answer your questions, and share things we all can do to disrupt America's toxic system of racism, denial, and capitalist greed.

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The largest-ever court award for slavery reparations came from an unlikely plaintiff. Henrietta Wood was an enslaved woman who gained her freedom in the 1840s - only to be kidnapped and sold back into slavery for 15 more horrific years. Her heroic fight for payback is inspiration for today’s reparations battle. Join us with historian Caleb McDaniel, whose book telling Wood's story, Sweet Taste Of Liberty, won the Pulitzer Prize.

SHOW NOTES

Guest: W. Caleb McDaniel

Dr. McDaniel is a professor at Rice University and U.S. historian, focusing on the Civil War Era and the struggle over slavery. He chairs the Department of History and serves as co-chair of Rice's Task Force on Slavery, Segregation, and Racial Injustice. His book, Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America, was awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in History.

• Caleb McDaniel's home page
• Caleb McDaniel's book about Henrietta Wood, Sweet Taste Of Liberty
• Stolen by Richard Bell - story of five Black boys kidnapped from Philadelphia into slavery in 1825
• More about Henrietta Wood's son Arthur Sims including his photo in Jet Magazine when he was America's oldest practicing Black lawyer!
  
  

HIGHLIGHTS OF EPISODE:

[5:57] The “reverse Underground Railroad” and kidnapping gangs in border states
[12:51] The villain: Zebulon Ward
[17:37] The case: Henrietta Wood v. Zebulon Ward
[20:38] Generational impact of court award on Wood’s family
[28:42] Importance of political action in the fight for reparations
[31:52] The hero: Henrietta Wood

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