Freedmen Ledger
Outstanding balance—

The Outstanding Balance
owed to American Freedmen since 1865

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Compounding rate scenario

What the U.S. government pays to borrow

Base figure $14 trillion — Darity & Mullen, From Here to Equality — compounded from a January 2023 anchor. The Treasury rate is the default because it is the most conservative defensible choice. The other scenarios are shown because the figure is model-dependent, and a number presented to the cent owes you the range. Read the methodology →

What this is

A documentary record of what is owed, and what is being done about it.

Freedmen Ledger tracks legislation, court decisions, policing incidents and reparations developments that materially affect American Freedmen — people whose lineage traces to persons enslaved in the United States.

Every entry carries a rating for its effect on Freedmen specifically, a written justification for that rating, and at least one primary source. Nothing publishes without a court opinion, bill text or official record behind it.

Freedmen is a lineage, not a race

The designation is documentary. The test is traceability of lineage to the 1870 United States Census — the first federal census to record formerly enslaved people by name, and the anchor record alongside the Freedmen's Bureau archives.

This distinction is not stylistic. Race-conscious classifications face strict constitutional scrutiny; descent-based classifications are a different legal question. The Ledger holds that line consistently, including where holding it is inconvenient.

How entries are rated

Impact is recorded on two independent axes, because a single number cannot carry both meanings at once:

  • Direction (−2 to +2) — what the measure would do to Freedmen if it took full effect.
  • Force (0.10 to 1.00) — how far it has actually travelled, from introduction through enactment.

A bill written to penalize reparations programs is recorded as hostile on the day it is introduced, because that is what it would do. Its low odds and early stage are carried by force, not by pretending it points nowhere.

A ledger that only records credits is a brochure. Entries harmful to Freedmen are published on the same terms as beneficial ones — documented, sourced, and rated.

The case record and map are in preparation. The methodology behind the balance above is published in full.