Who Got Paid? Not Us: The Unspoken History of Reparations in America**

**By Black Lives Matter Georgia**

**"America has paid reparations. Just not to us."**

This isn't a conspiracy theory. It's not a debate. It's documented history.

So the question we pose isn't radical—it's righteous: **Who got paid? And why do Black Americans keep getting denied?**

**Reparations Have Been Paid Before. Here's the Proof.**

**• Japanese Americans (1988):** After being incarcerated during World War II in U.S. internment camps, over 80,000 Japanese American survivors received **\$20,000 each** and a formal apology through the **Civil Liberties Act**.

**• Holocaust Survivors (1990s–2000s):** Many Holocaust survivors living in the U.S. received compensation from court-ordered settlements against European banks and corporations complicit in Nazi crimes. While not paid by the U.S. government directly, the courts helped open the door to justice.

**• Slaveowners in D.C. (1862):** Yes, you read that right. When slavery was abolished in Washington D.C., the U.S. paid **up to \$300 per enslaved person** to the **enslavers** — *not* the enslaved. The District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act made slaveowners whole. The newly freed got nothing.

**• White Americans on Native Rolls:** Under the Dawes Act, many white Americans fraudulently claimed Native identity to receive land, oil rights, and benefits. This manipulation is known as "paper genocide" — erasing Native identity while profiting from it. And some are still receiving those benefits to this day.

**And Us?**

No land. No checks. No acknowledgment.

Just generational poverty, trauma, and delay.

We survived the Middle Passage, forced labor, Reconstruction betrayal, Jim Crow, COINTELPRO, mass incarceration, environmental racism, redlining, stolen wealth, and state violence.

And we are still told to "wait."

**Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied.**

This is not about hate. It's about truth.

If America can cut checks to those it wronged, why are the descendants of enslaved Africans the only ones left empty-handed?

Black Americans have built this country, been brutalized by its systems, and still lead its fights for democracy, justice, and peace.

We are not asking for pity. We are demanding **justice**.

**Reparations Are Not Impossible. They Are Inevitable.**

Whether through direct payments, land return, educational investment, debt cancellation, or guaranteed rights, reparations are not just feasible—they are overdue.

And the longer this country stalls, the louder we will get.

**We Need Your Support.**

We are building a future rooted in truth, justice, and collective liberation. But we cannot do it alone.

**DONATE. JOIN. SPEAK OUT.**

Together, we move from unpaid labor to paid justice.

**#ReparationsNow #BLMGeorgia #WhoGotPaid #DebtOwed**