When confronting your family history means making slavery reparations

After Lotte Lieb Dula discovered her family connection to slavery, she crafted an online guide to reparations and racial healing.

At the national level, progress on making formal reparations for slavery has largely stalled. Various efforts at both the state and local levels have gained traction and seen more success, however.

But what about for individuals? How can white folks whose ancestors benefited from — and even profited because of — slavery begin to directly engage in reparative justice? Lotte Lieb Dula hopes to provide a path forward.

A retired financial strategist, Lieb Dula is the founder of Reparations4Slavery, a site that facilitates racial healing. She spoke with Marketplace special correspondent Lee Hawkins as part of our Golden Promises series, which explores the battle over slavery reparations in California. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Lee Hawkins: So Lotte, you looked into your family history. When did you start doing that? And what really struck you the most?

Lotte Lieb Dula: I discovered that my family had a connection to slavery. We’ve had plantations in the Mississippi Delta, and I had never known about this history. So in 2018, I met a young woman named Briayna Cuffie, who has since become my partner. And we have put together a presentation that takes each of us through our family history, showing at each turn the advantages my family is accruing through time, and all of the roadblocks her African American family is facing. So we can bring that up to the present day. And then we’re working together to try to make things more equitable for her family.

Hawkins: What were the key points where you saw definitely a big difference in the opportunities of the two families?

Lieb Dula: Well, post-Emancipation, one of the benefits that’s very, very clear is the ability to gain land from the Homestead Acts. I believe only 2% of the land grants that are given as the country moves west are given to African Americans. And sure enough, none of Briayna’s family members have received any kind of land grant. Another difference is my family, because plantation proceeds have paid for law school, we know all of the ins and outs of how to maintain our wealth and how to pass it on to the next generation. When Briayna and I present, we discovered that her family ends up losing much of their property to heirs property law, which are a series of laws — obviously designed by white people — to ensnare Black people in the system and basically take, take the land, cheat people of their land.

Hawkins: The question always comes into my mind: Well, what do you want them to do? You know, should white people feel guilty? Should white people get out their checkbook? What should white people who are not progressive like you are, who are not as committed and involved in this as you are, what should they do?

Lieb Dula: I find that whether you’re conservative, liberal, or pink or purple or whatever, once people see that there is a constructive way forward — and also that it’s fun. I can tell you, Briayna and I have a lot of fun doing this work. It’s really fun to try to put together your family history, make discoveries together and come upon the truth, and then also work to change things that are not right. We pair churches with Black-led men, nonprofits, we help fund their campaigns to get their businesses going, and then we also provide services that match our own skill sets and what their constituents need. Once you get white people working across the racial divide and engaging in areas that we have skills and those skills are appreciated, you start using the word “repair.” But eventually you can start using the word “This is a form of reparations.”

Hawkins: Do you think reparations will ever happen at the state level?

Lieb Dula: Overall, I’m encouraged by California’s progress as well as New York’s and now Colorado’s. I think that more public education is needed in order to bring the majority of people together to say, “Yes, reparations are due, and yes, engaging reparations benefits everyone.” It basically expands our economy, and that benefits every single person. Is this a short-term project? No. This work will need to be done over multiple generations beyond my lifetime.