Reference

The Reparations Glossary

The terms that drive the reparations debate — defined plainly, and linked to our in-depth reporting.

4

40 Acres and a Mule: The popular name for Special Field Order No. 15, issued by Union General William T. Sherman in January 1865, which set aside roughly 400,000 acres of coastal land for formerly enslaved families. President Andrew Johnson reversed the order within months, returning the land to former slaveholders. The broken promise became the symbol of America's unpaid debt — and the reason H.R. 40 carries its number.

A

Apology Resolution: A legislative measure that formally apologizes for a historical wrong without providing compensation. The U.S. House (2008) and Senate (2009) each passed apologies for slavery and Jim Crow; California enacted its own apology in 2024 (AB 3089). Advocates distinguish apologies from reparations: acknowledgment is not restitution.

B

Black Caucus: A group of Black legislators who coordinate legislative priorities and votes. The Congressional Black Caucus serves in the U.S. Congress; state legislative Black caucuses operate in their own legislatures. California's Legislative Black Caucus has advanced reparations measures, but a caucus proposal or endorsement is not an enacted payment program. Coordinated votes, public hearings, and budget negotiations can help move compensation legislation for descendants of American slavery.
Black Codes: Laws passed by Southern states immediately after the Civil War to control the labor and movement of freed Black Americans — restricting property ownership, employment, and travel. The Black Codes were the bridge between slavery and Jim Crow, and a key part of the documented chain of government-inflicted harm.

C

CARICOM Ten-Point Plan: The Caribbean Community's 2014 reparations framework demanding that European nations formally apologize, fund development programs, cancel debt, and support repatriation for the transatlantic slave trade. It is the leading international model for state-to-state reparations claims.
Chattel Slavery: The system of slavery practiced in the United States in which human beings were legally property — bought, sold, inherited, and used as collateral — with that status passing to their children in perpetuity. Its hereditary, race-based character distinguishes it from other historical forms of bondage and grounds the inheritance argument for reparations.
Commission: A government-authorized body charged with investigating a question and reporting findings — often used interchangeably with 'task force.' Commissions can document harm and recommend remedies, but their recommendations are not law until legislatures act. New York (2023) and Maryland (2025) created reparations commissions by statute.
Convict Leasing: A post-emancipation system in which Southern states arrested Black Americans on fabricated or minor charges and leased their labor to plantations, mines, and railroads. It re-enslaved thousands under the Thirteenth Amendment's punishment exception and generated revenue for state governments — a direct, documented continuation of slavery's economics.

D

Direct Cash Payments: Compensation paid straight to eligible individuals rather than routed through institutions or community programs. Direct payments are the clearest form of restitution because they transfer wealth to the descendants who inherited the loss — a government investment in a neighborhood is not the same as compensating a family.

E

Eminent Domain Restitution: Remedies for property taken from Black owners through government seizure — often for parks, highways, or redevelopment — at below-market prices or through racially motivated proceedings. California's 2021 return of Bruce's Beach to the Bruce family is the landmark example; a 2025 state bill to expand such restitution was vetoed.

F

Foundational Black American (FBA): A term for the descendants of people enslaved in the United States — the historically established Black American population shaped by chattel slavery, Jim Crow, and subsequent government discrimination. The term centers lineage rather than broad racial identity, which is why it anchors the eligibility debate in modern reparations policy.
Freedmen's Bureau: The federal agency created in 1865 to aid formerly enslaved people with food, labor contracts, education, and legal protection. Underfunded and dismantled by 1872, it represents the federal government's first — and abandoned — attempt at repair. Its records are now a primary source for genealogical verification.

G

Genealogical Verification: The process of documenting that a person descends from someone enslaved in the United States, using census records, birth and death certificates, probate files, and historical archives. California's SB 437 (2025) funds research into verification methods, and the new Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery includes a Genealogy Division. Fair verification must account for the incomplete recordkeeping slavery itself caused.

H

H.R. 40: The Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act, first introduced by Rep. John Conyers in 1989 and reintroduced every Congress since. Numbered for the broken promise of 40 acres, it would create a federal commission to study slavery's legacy and propose remedies. The House Judiciary Committee advanced it for the first time in April 2021; it has never received a floor vote.

J

Jim Crow: The system of state and local laws enforcing racial segregation and disenfranchisement from the end of Reconstruction through the 1960s. Jim Crow restricted education, employment, housing, and voting — compounding slavery's economic harm for another century and forming a major part of the reparations claim against government.

L

Lineage-Based Eligibility: A reparations eligibility standard tied to ancestry — specifically, descent from people enslaved in the United States — rather than present-day racial identification alone. California's task force recommended it in 2023, and the state's 2025 laws built verification systems around it. Supporters argue it preserves the link between the original injury and the people entitled to redress.

N

N'COBRA: The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, founded in 1987. The movement's principal advocacy organization, N'COBRA has been a driving force behind H.R. 40 and state and local reparations campaigns.

R

Racial Wealth Gap: The persistent disparity in household wealth between Black and white Americans — the median white household holds roughly six to eight times the wealth of the median Black household. Economists trace the gap directly to slavery, land dispossession, and discriminatory federal policy, making it the central measurable harm reparations seek to close.
Reconstruction: The period from 1865 to 1877 when the federal government attempted to rebuild the South and secure rights for freed Black Americans — who voted, held office, and built institutions. The withdrawal of federal troops in 1877 abandoned them to Jim Crow. Reconstruction is remembered as the first attempt at repair, and its collapse as the original broken promise.
Redlining: The practice — formalized by the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation and FHA in the 1930s — of grading Black neighborhoods as hazardous for investment, denying their residents mortgages and driving decades of disinvestment. Because homeownership is the primary engine of American family wealth, redlining is a direct, government-authored cause of today's wealth gap.
Reparations: Repair and compensation for documented harm. In the American-slavery claim, reparations are a debt owed to descendants of people enslaved in the United States for stolen labor, wealth, and subsequent government-backed discrimination. Eligibility follows lineage and the underlying injury, not racial identity alone. Studies, apologies, and general community investment are not the same as delivering compensation to the descendants entitled to it.
Reparations Debt: The framing of reparations as an obligation owed — not charity requested. The debt rests on documented transactions: 246 years of uncompensated labor, the reversal of land redistribution, and a century of discriminatory government policy, each with identifiable beneficiaries and victims. A debt is owed to specific creditors; that is why lineage matters.
Restitution vs. Reparations: Restitution restores a specific thing taken — a parcel of land, a sum of money, property records. Reparations is the broader framework of repair for systemic harm, which can include restitution plus compensation, apology, and institutional reform. The distinction matters when evaluating whether a policy actually compensates victims or merely gestures at the past.

S

Sovereign Immunity: The legal doctrine shielding governments from lawsuits without their consent. It has blocked reparations litigation since 1915, when the first federal reparations suit (Johnson v. McAdoo) was dismissed on these grounds — one reason advocates pursue legislative remedies like H.R. 40 rather than the courts.

T

Task Force: A temporary government body established to study an issue and recommend action. California's AB 3121 task force (2020–2023) was the first state reparations task force in U.S. history. Reading a task force report critically — who qualifies, what is recommended, what is actually enacted — is an essential skill for following the movement.

V

Veto Override: When a legislature re-enacts a bill over a governor's rejection, usually requiring a supermajority. Maryland's Reparations Commission became law this way in December 2025 after Governor Wes Moore's veto — proof that reparations measures can survive executive opposition when legislative support is organized.

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