Historian and researcher Dr. Karcheik Sims-Alvarado is the chair of the Fulton County Reparations Task Force. She is also an assistant professor of Africana Studies and director of Public History and Historic Preservation at Morehouse College. She has developed a theorem she describes as a starting point for translating the harm of slavery into monetary value.
The calculation is based on what she calls public extraction plus private accumulation, multiplied by an interest rate and the number of years people were enslaved. Using this framework, the research team calculated the value of stolen labor in Fulton County between 1853 and 1865. Sims-Alvarado estimates that the stolen labor during that period amounted to $8.9 million, which equals approximately $375 million today.
Sims-Alvarado, along with Dr. Amanda Meng, the task force’s secretary and a Georgia Tech professor, led the research effort that culminated in a 650-page Harm Report. The report was recently presented to the Fulton County Board of Commissioners and documents both public and private entities directly connected to slavery.
Dr. Karcheik Sims-Alvarado and Dr. Amanda Meng of the Fulton County Reparations Task Force discussed some of the key findings of its Harm Report on “Closer Look.” ( LaShawn Hudson/WABE and Brian Huyhn)
Historian and researcher Dr. Karcheik Sims-Alvarado is the chair of the Fulton County Reparations Task Force. She has developed a theorem she describes as a starting point for translating the harm of slavery into monetary value.
The calculation is based on what she calls public extraction plus private accumulation, multiplied by an interest rate and the number of years people were enslaved. Using this framework, the research team calculated the value of stolen labor in Fulton County between 1853 and 1865. Sims-Alvarado estimates that the stolen labor during that period amounted to $8.9 million, which equals approximately $375 million today.
Sims-Alvarado, an assistant professor of Africana Studies and director of Public History and Historic Preservation at Morehouse College, along with Dr. Amanda Meng, the task force’s secretary and a Georgia Tech professor, led the research effort that culminated in a 650-page Harm Report. The report was recently presented to the Fulton County Board of Commissioners and documents both public and private entities directly connected to slavery.
The professors discussed their findings in detail with “Closer Look” host Rose Scott, outlining the extensive process used to identify, compile and analyze the historical harms. Meng explained that the county’s legislative mandate guided the scope of the research.
“We knew from the piece of legislation that the county wanted to look at slavery and Jim Crow and the responsibility of the county in the harm during those time periods,” she said. “We outlined what the county is responsible for — voting, public health, slavery, taxation, the chain gang and convict labor. We started by identifying those subject areas, then developing research questions under each one, and determining what data and methodologies were needed to answer them.”
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