PLEASE HELP I BEG Reparations go beyond apologies and offer tangible, usually financial, compensation for past injustices either to the victims themselves or to their descendants. The financial compensation might simultaneously be a symbolic acknowledgment of the effects of injustice and a very real attempt to repair, to some extent, the negative effects that the past injustice caused for the opportunities and wealth of the victims and their descendants. In 1994, the state of Florida offered reparations to the victims and their descendants of the Rosewood Massacre, a 1923 episode of racial violence that began with the false accusation that a black man raped a white woman and led to the complete destruction of an all-black town by a mob of white Floridians. In 1994, the Sun Sentinel newspaper described the debate in the Florida legislature and the terms of the reparations they passed as follows: “Our system of justice failed the citizens of Rosewood,” said Sen. Daryl Jones, D-Miami. “This is your chance to right an atrocious wrong.” Jones and Reps. Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee, and Miguel De Grandy, R-Miami, overcame heavy odds to persuade their colleagues to support reparations. The House earlier passed the bill 71-40.“It’s time for us to send an example, a shining example, that we’re going to do what’s right—for once,” said Sen. Matthew Meadows, D-Fort Lauderdale. The package includes $1.5 million to be divided among the 11 or so survivors of the massacre, $500,000 to compensate Rosewood families who were run out of town for the property they lost and $100,000 in college scholarships for Rosewood descendants and other minorities. Sen. Charles Williams, D-Tallahassee, whose district includes the area that used to be Rosewood, said the state should spend the $2.1 million on more pressing matters. “How long do we have to pay for the sins of our forefathers?” he said.

Connection Questions 1. What do you think reparations can accomplish? What do they fail to accomplish? 2. How might you calculate the damage done by acts of racial violence and injustice? How might you estimate the damage done by the legacy of those acts? 3. How would you answer Charles Williams’s question at the end of the article?