Cal Thomas: Reparations are a bad idea

Cal Thomas, Tribune Content Agency on Mar 11, 2025

A new law, buried inside an otherwise obscure piece of federal legislation, permits the Washington, D.C., City Council to establish a commission that will give “reparations” to descendants of enslaved people who can demonstrate how slavery and Jim Crow laws have negatively affected their lives. Talk about a high bar.

The 12-member commission – yet to be appointed – will include a “social justice expert,” which should tell you all you need to know about its likely liberal slant.

According to reporting by The Washington Times, the reparations will come from government appropriations and private donations.

The project is ripe for abuse, as we are seeing from the alleged misspending exposed by DOGE.

How does one “prove” negative effects from slavery and Jim Crow laws from the 19th and early 20th centuries, the latter of which were created by Southern Democrats?

Will money go to African-Americans who are in prison? Will it be paid only to the poor, and if so, what if it is misspent and the money runs out? Suppose the recipient has proved irresponsible or is abusing drugs and alcohol?

California passed a reparations measure that allocates $12 million for “reparations bills.” The Times reports: “State lawmakers have not approved cash payments despite a 2023 report recommending reparations of up to $1.2 million to each eligible resident.”

California is noted for some crazy ideas, but this might top them all.

Better to focus on choices one can make for a better life than to assume one’s ancestors have forever trapped their descendants in an endless life of poverty and despair. Better to inspire people with the stories of others who overcame difficult circumstances by making decisions that improved their lives with little or no help from the government.

History.com tells the stories of five men who were slaves, but overcame their circumstances by not taking it as a final verdict. All five became statesmen.

“Blanche K. Bruce was the son of an enslaved black woman and her white master. He was a house servant on plantations in Virginia and Mississippi. Bruce later worked as a teacher and opened Missouri’s first school for Black children before moving to Mississippi in the late-1860s. He arrived in the state with only 75 cents to his name, but within a few years, he became a successful land speculator and planter. His sharp mind and genteel demeanor also made him a rising star in the Mississippi Republican Party, leading to jobs as a sheriff, tax collector and county superintendent of education.

“In 1874, the Mississippi legislature elected Bruce to the U.S. Senate, making him the second Black senator in American history and the first to serve a full six-year term.”

I especially love this one: “Robert Smalls’ journey from slave to U.S. congressman began with a famous act of defiance. In 1862, the South Carolina native was serving as a wheelman aboard a Confederate steamer called the Planter. When the white crew took an unsanctioned shore leave in Charleston in the early morning hours of May 13, Smalls and several other slaves hijacked the ship, piloted it past Fort Sumter and surrendered it to a Union blockading squadron. Smalls went on to captain the Planter for the Navy. After the Civil War ended, he used his reward for capturing the ship to purchase his former master’s home in Beaufort, South Carolina.”

All five of these former slaves were Republicans, due in part, I suspect, out of gratitude for Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

Congress, which has ultimate authority over the District of Columbia, will have an opportunity to reverse the D.C. Council’s reparations legislation. It should. Inspiration, followed by motivation and a considerable amount of perspiration changed the lives of many former slaves and their descendants. These qualities have a better record of improving lives than reparations ever could.

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Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas’ latest book “A Watchman in the Night: What I've Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America" (HumanixBooks).