Free exchange|Stony the road

摘要

THE DEATH of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis po-lice has focused minds around the world on America's glaring, stubborn racial inequalities. The income of the median black household is less than 60% of the white one. The median white American has a net worth about ten times that of the typical black American-a gap that has not budged since 1990. Injustice began with the original sin of slavery. But as a growing body of scholarship reveals, injustice has endured because racism and discrimination have, too. Over the course of America's history, dearly won progress towards equality has been followed by a racist backlash. The cycle of progress and regression began as soon as slavery ended. As the civil war drew to a close, many northern Republicans envisioned a reconstruction of the South, which raised black southerners to a position of equality with other Americans. In 1867 Congress ordered southern states to form new governments, and the occupying federal army protected newly freed (male) slaves' right to vote, leading to a sharp increase in the number of black elected officials. Representation made a big difference to the lives of black Americans. Research by Trevon Logan of Ohio State University finds that each new black politician raised per-head tax revenue at the county level by 20 cents, for instance, money that then tended to be spent on education or land redistribution. Black officials delivered real benefits for constituents. In places with more of them, land tenancy was more common than exploitative share-cropping, and literacy rates among black people were higher.