Which black Americans should get reparations? | The Washington Post

[dropcap]D[/dropcap]URHAM, N.C. — He’s been one of academia’s leading authorities on American racial inequity for years, in high demand by Democratic presidential candidates who hope he’ll endorse their proposals to close the “racial wealth gap” — a term that his research helped popularize. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″]

But as William “Sandy” Darity shuffles through papers in his second-floor office at Duke University, the gray-haired economist explained that he was hard at work on his own proposal, one that could be the most sweeping of his career — a concrete plan for paying monetary reparations to the descendants of slaves.

Darity has enlisted a dozen black academics and activists, the self-titled “Planning Committee for Reparations,” to craft a report that will lay out not only a rationale for why descendants of slaves should be paid reparations but also suggestions for how to implement such a program.