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Methodology · Full Cash Repair · Public Accounting
How the ledger is structured.
The Reparations Ledger is not built around a single number, a single emotion, or a single citation. It is arranged so a visitor can move from moral truth to documentary proof, from documentary proof to economic range, and from economic range to the public duty of full cash repair.
The method is simple but demanding: identify the injury, connect it to public records and published scholarship, show how it compounds across generations, and keep the repair question tied to measurable outcomes. A full repair framework must name cash compensation because the harm was not abstract. It also must name education, health, housing, land, safety, and inheritance because the financial wound spread through every institution that shaped Black American life.
Evidence standard Record, range, consequence.
Each major claim should be readable through three lenses: a record that shows what happened, a valuation range that explains how the harm may be measured, and a consequence that shows why the matter remains alive. This keeps the site accessible to first-time visitors while giving serious readers a pathway into deeper source review.
Repair standard No symbolic substitute for payment.
Symbolic acknowledgement can help a society tell the truth, but it cannot close a wealth gap, restore denied equity, or replace extracted labor. This methodology treats full cash repair as the financial center of the reparations claim and treats supporting repairs as necessary companions rather than replacements.
Geographic anchor Address of record: the United States Treasury.
The site’s geographic language is intentionally anchored to the U.S. Department of the Treasury in Washington, D.C. The point is not ceremony. It is jurisdiction, fiscal capacity, and public accounting: the place where a national debt should be read as a national obligation.
Historical Record A ledger, not a mood board
The structure keeps dates, promises, rescissions, land loss, exclusion, public sources, and compounding models in one archival flow so the case for full cash repair can be followed chronologically, financially, and humanely.
Evidence Architecture Government records, scholarship, and the uploaded report together
The reparations workbook and deck now sit inside the surface itself, which means visitors can move from a claim to the supporting estimate, into the public-record source trail, and then into the underlying slide narrative without leaving the ledger.
Present Tense Past injury, present consequence
The ledger does not treat the harm as closed history. It shows how old theft, exclusion, and broken promises continue to shape wealth, health, land, housing, education, safety, and inheritance now.
Full Repair Standard Cash compensation is the center, not the ceiling
Full cash repair is named as the financial center of the claim while the wider repair framework also makes room for education, health, land, housing, safety, and public accountability.
Source Foundational federal records for promises, rescissions, congressional action, and the public paper trail behind reparations accounting.
Official or reference URL
Source Wealth-gap framing source used to connect historical extraction to present balance-sheet residue.
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Source Redlining and HOLC map archive that makes state-backed housing exclusion visible as a repair category.
Official or reference URL
Source Black farmland-loss evidence base for acreage, production, collateral, and inheritance loss.
Official or reference URL
Source Modern state-level reparations model and report, useful for understanding government-backed harm categories and valuation design.
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Source Present-injury metrics, health context, criminal-justice context, and public systems data that keep repair tied to current outcomes.
Official or reference URL