Editor’s Note: The Iowa Unity Coalition invited me to participate in its Des Moines Mayoral Forum held last week at the Machinist Hall in Des Moines, where I posed three questions to the candidates.
Prior to WW1, the vast majority of black Americans (~90%) lived in the South, specifically the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Why? Those were the agrarian states who's economies were based on two labor intensive cash crops (cotton and tobacco) which used slave labor to turn a profit. The Midwest (including Iowa) never had slavery. It was outlawed from its territorial beginnings in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.
If blacks want reparations then perhaps they should whine to those Southern states that enslaved their ancestors.
Thank you for covering this.
This is great reporting. Thanks for laying out these responses to these great questions.
Prior to WW1, the vast majority of black Americans (~90%) lived in the South, specifically the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Why? Those were the agrarian states who's economies were based on two labor intensive cash crops (cotton and tobacco) which used slave labor to turn a profit. The Midwest (including Iowa) never had slavery. It was outlawed from its territorial beginnings in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.
If blacks want reparations then perhaps they should whine to those Southern states that enslaved their ancestors.