The Seattle King County NAACP commits to focusing on reparations education, advocacy, and legislation at the local, state, and federal levels to help move the country towards racial healing. Our advocacy—which would include programming, conversations with community leaders, as well as political action—will allow the NAACP to uphold its original mission, ensure economic equality, and eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination.
What is a wealth gap? A disparity of cumulative assets across races and ethnicities. This disparity results from differences in income and in the historical accumulation of assets across generations.
What is the magnitude of the wealth gap that must be closed? The statistics around the wealth gap are quite stark. The most recent Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances report from 2019 showed median U.S. household wealth was $122,000. However, the median wealth of Black households was $23,000, while the median wealth of White households was $184,000. This represents an 8x difference in wealth and is the focus of our efforts to close the wealth gap. What are reparations? Reparations are economic justice. Reparations are a program of acknowledgment, redress, and closure. -From the book, “Here to Equality,” by Dr. William Darity and A. Kirsten Mullen Why is there a wealth gap between black and white American families? Four hundred years of slavery, Jim Crow, Reconstruction, segregation and todays atrocities like the murdering of unarmed citizens, mass incarceration, poverty, racist housing policies, and a national culture of anti-blackness is an inescapable part of the Black American experience. These racialized experiences were backed by Federal laws and slave codes and have led to the oppression of Black Americans economically and socially. These socioeconomic wounds are as large as they’ve ever been and continue to widen. Addressing the issue of reparations is the first step toward removing present-day impediments to our society’s progress, and a key strategy to closing the wealth gap, the structural economic gap that exposes Black Americans socio-economic condition.
