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First enslaved people brought to North American colonies. The practice of Slavery continued until

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American slavery began 400 years ago this month. This is referred to as the country’s original sin, but it is more than that: It is the country’s true origin.

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Within

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Courtesy U.S. National Archives (1667751)

Often misinterpreted to mean that African Americans as individuals are considered three-fifths of a person or that they are three-fifths of a citizen of the U.S., the three-fifths clause (Article I, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution of 1787) in fact declared that for purposes of representation in Congress, enslaved blacks in a state would be counted as three-fifths of the number of white inhabitants of that state.

The three-fifths clause was part of a series of compromises enacted by the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The most notable other clauses prohibited slavery in the Northwest Territories and ended U.S. participation in the international slave trade in 1807. These compromises reflected Virginia Constitutional Convention delegate (and future U.S. President) James Madison's observation that "...the States were divided into different interests not by their...size...but principally from their having or not having slaves."

When Constitutional Convention delegate Roger Sherman of Connecticut proposed that congressional representation be based on the total number of inhabitants of a state, delegate Charles Pinckney of South Carolina agreed saying "blacks ought to stand on an equality with whites...." Pinckney's statement was disingenuous since at the time he knew most blacks were enslaved in his state and none, slave or free, could vote or were considered equals of white South Carolinians. Other delegates including most notably Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania argued that he could not support equal representation because he "could never agree to give such encouragement to the slave trade...by allowing them [Southern states] a representation for their negroes."

With the convention seemingly at an impasse Charles Pinckney proposed a compromise: "Three-fifths of the number of slaves in any particular state would be added to the total number of free white persons, including bond servants, but not Indians, to the estimated number of congressmen each state would send to the House of Representatives." The Pinckney compromise was not completely original. This ratio had already been established by the Congress which adopted the Articles of Confederation in 1781 as the basis for national taxation.

Although the three-fifths compromise and others regarding slavery helped hold this new fragile union of states together, many on both sides of the issue were opposed. James Madison and Edmund Randolph of Virginia used the phrase "Quotas of contribution" to argue that slaves should be fully counted, one for one, and opposed the compromise.

Northern opponents correctly pointed out that slaveholding states had more representatives than if only the free white population was counted. By 1793, slaveholding states had 47 congressmen but would have had only 33 if not for the compromise. During the entire period before the Civil War slaveholding states had disproportionate influence on the Presidency, the Speakership of the House of Representatives, and the U.S. Supreme Court because of the compromise. By the 1830s abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison of Massachusetts used the clause in their argument that the Federal government was dominated by slaveholders.

The three-fifths clause remained in force until the post-Civil War 13th Amendment freed all enslaved people in the United States, the 14th amendment gave them full citizenship, and the 15th Amendment granted black men the right to vote.

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The Three-Fifths Clause of the United States Constitution (1787) *

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Often misinterpreted to mean that African Americans as individuals are considered three-fifths of a person or that they are three-fifths of a citizen of the U.S., the three-fifths clause (Article I, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution of 1787) in fact declared that for purposes ...

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Supreme Court rules that an enslaved person is still enslaved, even if their enslaver has moved to a Free State.

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The Supreme Court . The First Hundred Years . Landmark Cases . Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) | PBS

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Citizenship is limited to free Whites.

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On this day in 1790, the second session of the first Congress approved the new nation's initial effort to codify the rules under which foreign-born persons could become U.S. citizens.

The Naturalization Act of 1790 specified that "any alien, being a free white person," could apply for citizenship, so long as he or she lived in the United States for at least two years, and in the state where the application was filed for at least a year. The new law also provided that "children of citizens of the United States that may be born ... out of the limits of the United States shall be considered as natural born citizens."

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Men and women aliens were covered, as were their children younger than 21. However, citizenship could devolve only through the father and did "not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States." The law also excluded indentured servants, free blacks and slaves, who were regarded as "property" and not "persons."

When these requirements were met, an immigrant could file a naturalization petition with "any common law court of record" where he or she lived. The applicant would have to make "proof to the satisfaction of such court that he is a person of good character" and take an "oath or affirmation ... to support the Constitution of the United States."

In 1795, Congress amended the act to extend the minimum residence requirement to five years, which remains today.

The U.S. Constitution specified that only natural-born citizens, or those citizens born before the Constitution was adopted, were eligible to serve as president. The 12th Amendment extended that provision to vice presidential candidates as well. The nation's eighth president, Martin Van Buren, was the first one to be born in the United States after the Constitution was enacted.

SOUCE: A CENTURY OF LAWMAKING FOR A NEW NATION: U.S. CONGRESSIONAL DOCUMENTS AND DEBATES, 1774-1875; STATUTES AT LARGE, 1ST CONGRESS, 2ND SESSION, PAGES 103-104

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U.S. enacts first immigration law, March 26, 1790

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On this day in 1790, the second session of the first Congress approved the new nation's initial effort to codify the rules under which foreign-born persons could become U.S. citizens.

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Enslaved people who had run from their enslavers, would have to be returned to their enslaves if found. Even if they were found in a Free State.

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...Egerton, Gabriel's Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802 (1993) Peter Kolchin, American Slavery, 1619-1877 (1993) Howard McGary and Bill E. Lawson, Between Slavery and Freedom: Philosophy and... ... Read MoreAfrican American History: Bibliography

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Egerton, Gabriel's Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802 (1993) Peter Kolchin, American Slavery, 1619-1877 (1993) Howard McGary and Bill E. Lawson, Between Slavery and Freedom: Philosophy and... ... Read MoreAfrican American History: Bibliography

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Kansas-Nebraska Act - Definition, Date & Significance | HISTORY

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The Kansas-Nebraska Act was an 1854 bill that allowed settlers of Kansas and Nebraska to decide whether slavery would be allowed within their state’s borders. The conflicts that arose between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers in the aftermath of the act’s passage led to the period of violence known as Bleeding Kansas, and contributed to unrest that led to the American Civil War (1861-65).

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Nonwhites barred from testifying in court, or providing testimony against Whites.

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People v. Hall (1854) - Immigration History

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This California Supreme Court case ruled that the testimony of a Chinese man who witnessed a murder by a white man was inadmissible, denying Chinese alongside Native and African Americans the status to testify in courts against whites.

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Despite slavery being abolished, Southern States developed laws aimed at restricting the freedoms of Black Americans and ensuring a cheap labor source for White Americans.

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Black Codes and Pig Laws | Slavery By Another Name Bento | PBS

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Immediately after the Civil War ended, Southern states enacted "black codes" that allowed African Americans certain rights, such as legalized marriage, ownership of property, and limited access to the courts, but denied them the rights to testify against whites, to serve on juries or in state militias, vote, or start a job without the approval of the previous employer. These codes were all repealed in 1866 when Reconstruction began.

But after the failure of Reconstruction in 1877, and the removal of black men from political offices, Southern states again enacted a series of laws intended to circumscribe the lives of African Americans. Harsh contract laws penalized anyone attempting to leave a job before an advance had been worked off. "Pig Laws" unfairly penalized poor African Americans for crimes such as stealing a farm animal. And vagrancy statutes made it a crime to be unemployed. Many misdemeanors or trivial offenses were treated as felonies, with harsh sentences and fines.

The Pig Laws stayed on the books for decades, and were expanded with even more discriminatory laws once the Jim Crow era began.

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Black Codes and Pig Laws | Slavery By Another Name Bento | PBS

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Immediately after the Civil War ended, Southern states enacted "black codes" that allowed African Americans certain rights, such as legalized marriage, ownership of property, and limited access to the courts, but denied them the rights to testify against whites, to serve on juries or in state militias, vote, or start a job without the approval of the previous employer.

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Laws specifically written to segregate, and restrict Black Americans access to education, loans, work, voting and other opportunities.

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Freedom Riders | Article

The segregation and disenfranchisement laws known as "Jim Crow" represented a formal, codified system of racial apartheid that dominated the American South for three quarters of a century beginning in the 1890s. The laws affected almost every aspect of daily life, mandating segregation of schools, parks, libraries, drinking fountains, restrooms, buses, trains, and restaurants. "Whites Only" and "Colored" signs were constant reminders of the enforced racial order.

Signs such as "Colored Waiting Room" constantly reminded travelers of the enforced racial order. Credit: Library of Congress

In legal theory, blacks received "separate but equal" treatment under the law - in actuality, public facilities for blacks were nearly always inferior to those for whites, when they existed at all. In addition, blacks were systematically denied the right to vote in most of the rural South through the selective application of literacy tests and other racially motivated criteria.

Sign at a Greyhound Bus Station in Rome, GA. Credit: Library of Congress

The Jim Crow system was upheld by local government officials and reinforced by acts of terror perpetrated by Vigilantes. In 1896, the Supreme Court established the doctrine of separate but equal in Plessy v. Ferguson, after a black man in New Orleans attempted to sit in a whites-only railway car.

In 1908, journalist Ray Stannard Baker observed that "no other point of race contact is so much and so bitterly discussed among Negroes as the Jim Crow car." As bus travel became widespread in the South over the first half of the 20th century, it followed the same pattern.

"Travel in the segregated South for black people was humiliating," recalled Diane Nash in her interview for Freedom Riders. "The very fact that there were separate facilities was to say to black people and white people that blacks were so subhuman and so inferior that we could not even use the public facilities that white people used."

Transit was a core component of segregation in the South, as the 1947 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) pamphlet and Bayard Rustin song, "You Don't Have to Ride Jim Crow" attests. Keeping whites and blacks from sitting together on a bus, train, or trolley car might seem insignificant, but it was one more link in a system of segregation that had to be defended at all times - lest it collapse. Thus transit was a logical point of attack for the foes of segregation, in the courtroom and on the buses themselves.

It would take several decades of legal action and months of nonviolent direct action before these efforts achieved their intended result.

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Jim Crow Laws | American Experience | PBS

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The segregation and disenfranchisement laws known as "Jim Crow" represented a formal, codified system of racial apartheid that dominated the American South.

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The federal government, through the Federal Housing Administration, worked to actively prevent Black Americans from owning property in "desirable" locations.  They refused to insure mortgages, and tied property value and loan eligibility to race.

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On maps from nearly a century ago created by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, immigrant populations were deemed "hazardous." The presence of black people was a "detrimental influence" or an "infiltration." In the 1930s, these "residential security" maps served as guidelines for real estate professionals and loan officers. The maps categorized regions across the country that supposedly deserved investment and others that were considered too "risky" for mortgage lenders. The risk was based solely on the racial makeup of a community.

Stark red lines on the maps outline neighborhoods made up of people of color. Green lines mark the "safe" areas of mostly white families. The maps are codified racism.

Though eventually made illegal, the blatantly racist practice scarred black Americans for generations, blocking access to capital, a proper education, government financing for homeownership and all the basic tenets for wealth-building.

Created under the New Deal, The Home Owners' Loan Corporation program was meant to ease the effects of the Great Depression. Yet, these policies destined redlined regions for disinvestment and concentrated poverty. Redlining was followed by other detrimental efforts such as urban renewal, which cleared neighborhoods to construct housing projects and highways, in turn displacing communities of color, once again changing the urban geographical landscape.

Redlining and its aftermath is the premise of a massive free exhibit currently on display at the Boston Architectural College, up through April 29. The traveling exhibit, which is called "Undesign the Redline," looks at this discriminatory housing policy through the lens of history, segregation and discrimination.

Created by a design studio called "Designing the WE," back in 2015, it first focused on stories out of New York and the Bronx, but has since expanded to other major American cities. April De Simone, co-founder and partner at Designing the WE, grew up in the Bronx, the daughter of a Puerto Rican mother. It's where she watched her mother struggle to keep her home as their community changed.

"We don't know the magnitude of the collateral consequences of these policies, we're only beginning to scratch the surface," De Simone said. "Why? Because it's not a discussion that people have. So people like her are my heroes."

The exhibit is numbered into sections, which include an introduction to redlining, a timeline, stories of those affected and how to reframe the conversation. In the last several years, it's expanded to cities across the country such as Cleveland, Atlanta and Los Angeles. Replicas of the exhibit are up in each of those cities.

In each location, they add the local history.

"[Redlining made] skin color and class synonymous with the devaluing of property, reinforcing a perception of the 'us' and 'them,' De Simone said, "stating [that] if a certain 'element' comes in, at all costs, you have to try to keep them out because that's how you'll maximize your value."

Since January, De Simone has traveled from New York to Boston on a weekly basis to co-teach a seminar at the Architectural College called, "UnDesign the Redline: The Transformation of Place, Race, and Class in America" with Katherine Swenson, the vice president of design and sustainability at Enterprise Community Partners, a national nonprofit geared toward designing affordable homes that offer opportunity such as jobs, education, health care and convenient transit. The two organizations partnered together to host the exhibits nationwide.

"We've been talking a lot about issues around perception ... what makes a good neighborhood?" Swenson said. "Part of what this exhibition does is it reveals the structural underpinnings of how decisions are made and what is happening below the surface that is creating the kind of inequities that we see."

The two instructors have challenged a classroom of aspiring architects to research, interview community members, and ponder an important question: What would it look like to begin to undo decades of of inequality? Approaches mentioned in the exhibit include learning from people's lived experiences, providing a framework for trust and equity, and creating spaces to heal traumas.

"This is not a history that I've ever learned before," said Molly Schmidt, a second-year master's student at the architectural college. "It was really shocking and kind of emotional and but felt like a relief, like I'm not crazy, there's evidence that there are things that are wrong in our built environment and there's actually reasons why."

One group of students focused on East Boston and the ongoing challenges of evictions. They found, unsurprisingly, that East Boston, like Dorchester and other neighborhoods, continue to be shaped by structural racism and biased ideas of what makes a "good or a bad" community.

Schmidt's group found that the perception of East Boston as a place that's "deteriorating" and plagued by a bad element was propagated even by local government. It was used as an excuse for private development to build more "desirable" areas, bulldozing existing infrastructure for more "desirable" populations.A prime example occurred in 1969 when Massport officials seized properties along Neptune Road by eminent domain to make more room for Logan Airport. It led to the destruction of the beloved seaside destination on the Emerald Necklace called Wood Island Park.

Schmidt said when her group talked to a community organizer in East Boston, he said the neighborhood needed a memorial that gave a glimpse of these stories of displacement. It would be one way to remember those families who were driven out of their homes in the name of progress. He also told her they need raw data, but those numbers are difficult to track as new immigrants may not feel empowered or have the language ability to fight these illegal housing practices. A landlord may sell a property and issues eviction notices in English to clear out the building.

"We seek to reframe East Boston's most valuable asset as its resilient community," the students wrote in their presentation.

Alissa Marcano Santelli, a 23-year-old college student who is originally from Curaçao, said the issue of housing instability hits home. Moving to Boston was a culture shock after growing up on an island for much of her life and finding stable and affordable housing in the city has been a challenge. She currently lives in a basement apartment.

"In the three years I've been here, I'm going to be moving the fourth time," Marcano Santelli said.

There's trauma that can accompany such abrupt fluctuations, the lack of power in seeing a neighborhood change or being priced out of your home, De Simone says. She hopes this exhibit sheds light and that her students will use what they learned to design more equitable and welcoming communities.

"For me this exhibition is an indictment on that you could do these things with impunity," De Simone said. "It's saying no more. We're going to talk about this and it's going to have each of us reflect and look in the mirror and ask ourselves how are we complicit in this system?"

To Ben Goodman, a third-year student at the architectural college getting his master's in landscape architecture, change begins with conversations like this and by including community stakeholders in the process.
"There's seems to be not enough opportunities or even interest in having discussions about how much of an effect spatial designers can have on the communities that experience them ... how to actually best serve that community and not just the clients," Goodman said. "So I'm really grateful that we've had the opportunity to participate in this discussion."

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Redlining Was Codified Racism That Shaped American Cities And This Exhibit Shows It Still Exists

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On maps from nearly a century ago created by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, immigrant populations were deemed "hazardous." The presence of black people was a "detrimental influence" or an "infiltration." In the 1930s, these "residential security" maps served as guidelines for real estate professionals and loan officers.

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While this piece of legislation did help to rebuild America in the midst of the Great Depression, it was at the cost of Black jobs and Black advancement.

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FDR and The New Deal | Slavery By Another Name Bento | PBS

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During the Great Depression, African Americans were disproportionately affected by unemployment: they were the first fired and the last hired. After Roosevelt was elected, he began to institute his "New Deal," a series of economic programs intended to offer relief to the unemployed and recovery of the national economy. Though African Americans were not the intended audience for these programs, they benefitted as many citizens did. Labor laws that encouraged union organization and defined a minimum wage also supported black workers.

Roosevelt's relief programs made him popular with many African Americans, though he shied away from aggressively promoting civil rights or an anti-lynching law, for fear of alienating Southern whites. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was more sympathetic to black causes. She created a stir when she helped to move Marian Anderson's performance at the Lincoln Memorial after the black singer was prohibited from performing at Constitution Hall because of her race.

After the United States entered World War II, Roosevelt quickly moved to shore up African American support and silence foreign propaganda about the treatment of the negro in America. He ordered the justice department to not only pass anti-lynching laws but to finally begin enforcing longstanding anti-peonage laws aimed at ending forced labor in the South.

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FDR and The New Deal | Slavery By Another Name Bento | PBS

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During the Great Depression, African Americans were disproportionately affected by unemployment: they were the first fired and the last hired. After Roosevelt was elected, he began to institute his "New Deal," a series of economic programs intended to offer relief to the unemployed and recovery of the national economy.

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American minorities denied social security and Union protections.

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Early Social Assistance in America

Economic security has always been a major issue in an unstable, unequal world with an aging population. Societies throughout history have tackled the issue in various ways, but the disadvantaged relied mostly on charity from the wealthy or from family and friends.

In the early 17th century, England established "poor laws," acknowledging the government's responsibility to care for its less-fortunate citizens.

The Pilgrims brought these laws with them to the New World. Eventually, colonial governments created new laws to care for the poor and destitute, deeming which citizens were worthy or unworthy of different types of assistance. Poorhouses or outdoor relief (where people were given monetary or other assistance to keep them out of a poorhouse) were common means of public assistance.

By the mid-19th century, conditions in poorhouses were often deplorable. Yet thanks to deteriorating economic conditions they were also packed to the rafters, and local governments struggled to keep up with the overwhelming need.

Early Forms of Social Security

A large segment of American citizens received an early form of social security decades before President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act of 1935.

Starting in 1862, hundreds of thousands of veterans disabled in the Civil War and their widows and orphans could apply for a government pension for veterans. In 1890, the law was amended to include any disabled Civil War veteran, regardless of how the disability occurred. In 1906, the law was amended again to include old age as a criterion.

Company pension plans came on the scene in 1882 when the Alfred Dolge Company created a pension fund for its employees. A handful of companies followed suit, but few employees received even a nickel. Most of the companies went out of business before the pensions could be distributed, or the pensions were never dispersed.

Industrial Revolution in America

According to the Social Security Administration, four changes beginning in the late 19th century helped abolish the economic security policies of the time: the Industrial Revolution, America's urbanization, the vanishing extended family and a longer life expectancy.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, many people were farmers and managed to support themselves during hard times, and extended family often lived together on family farms and cared for one another as they aged or struggled.

The Industrial Revolution, however, enticed people to flock to cities for jobs that were often threatened by layoffs and recession, leaving many without a way to support themselves if they lost their job. The urbanization of American also found many people leaving their extended family behind to fend for themselves.

As sanitary and general conditions in America improved, the life expectancy of its citizens did, too. When more and more people grew older, many were unable to work or became sick and required care.

Impact of The Great Depression

The Great Depression left millions of people unemployed and struggling to put food on the table. It struck the elderly especially hard and many states passed legislation to protect their elder citizens.

But most elder-assistance programs of the time were a dismal failure. They were underfunded, poorly run and, in some cases, flat out ignored by officials. Those seniors who received assistance only got about 65 cents a day.

As the depression raged on, government officials and frustrated private citizens alike moved to find ways to help struggling Americans and introduced plans to increase economic security. Most ideas were basically federal or state financed pension plans. Some included all citizens while others included only the elderly.

None of the plans became law; however, many had huge followings and initiated spirited dialogue about how to care for the disadvantaged and the elderly.

Roosevelt's Radical Idea: Social Security

Until Franklin D. Roosevelt became president, most social assistance plans in America were dependent on the government, charities and private citizens doling out money to people in need.

Roosevelt, however, borrowed a page from Europe's economic security rulebook and took a different approach. He proposed a program in which people contributed to their own future economic security by contributing a portion of their work income through payroll tax deductions.

Basically, the current working generation would pay into the program and finance the retired generation's monthly allowance.

Social Security Benefits

In June 1934, President Roosevelt created the Committee on Economic Security (CES) and tasked them with creating an economic security bill. Led by the first woman to hold a U.S. cabinet post, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, the CES drafted the Social Security Act aimed at giving people economic security throughout their lives.

The bill included:

an old-age pension program

unemployment insurance funded by employers

health insurance for people in financial distress

financial assistance for widows with children

financial assistance for disabled individuals

After much debate, Congress passed the Social Security Act to provide benefits to retirees based on their earnings history and on August 14, 1935, Roosevelt signed it into law. This firmly placed the burden of economic security for American citizens on the federal government's shoulders.

Social Security Cards

After signing the Social Security Act, President Roosevelt established a three-person board to administer the program with the goal of starting payroll tax deductions for enrollees by January 1, 1937. It was a daunting task, but by November 1936 registration for the program began.

Not everyone could participate, though. Self-employed professionals, field hands and domestic workers were excluded.

To become eligible, workers completed an application at their local post office and received a national identity card with a unique, nine-digit identification number. Within eight days of rolling out the program, over one million workers had Social Security numbers.

Four months later, almost 26 million had enrolled despite most projected payouts being below poverty level. The Social Security card was-and still is-used to track workers earnings and benefits.

Social Security Act Amendments

Many amendments have been passed to the original Social Security Act. For instance, originally, monthly payouts of old-age benefits were slated to start on January 1, 1942. Eligible people who turned 65 prior to that date received a lump sum payment.

On August 10, 1939, an amendment passed to move up the start date to receive monthly benefits to January 1, 1940. Another amendment extended eligibility to dependents and survivors of retired workers.

In the 1950s, amendments were made which extended Social Security eligibility to domestic and farm workers, non-farm self-employed professionals and some federal employees. It also offered voluntary coverage to some state and federal employees, hundreds of thousands of nonprofit employees and workers in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

In addition, benefits were increased for millions of beneficiaries and a new contribution schedule established.

Medicare: Medical Insurance For Social Security Recipients

In 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved legislation to allow Social Security benefits for disabled workers and their dependents.

The Social Security Amendments of 1965 provided medical insurance to Social Security beneficiaries age 65 and older. This new "Medicare" program also offered people 65 and older the chance to purchase supplemental medical insurance.

In 1972, President Richard M. Nixon signed legislation to provide an automatic cost of living allowance each year to offset the cost of inflation. Prior to the new law, annual increases required Congressional approval.

Efforts to Keep Social Security Solvent

By 1977, it was clear Social Security was in financial peril. An amendment was passed changing the benefit qualification formula for people born after 1917. Other amendments were also passed including increasing the payroll tax and slightly decreasing benefits to help cut costs, leaving some beneficiaries with less money during difficult economic times.

These efforts didn't prevent the program from facing a serious financial crisis in the 1980s, however, and President Ronald Reagan created a commission to examine how to keep Social Security in the black. In 1983, he signed legislation that gradually increased the retirement age to 67, taxed Social Security benefits and provided Social Security benefits to federal workers.

After taking office in 2001, President George W. Bush appointed another Social Security Commission with its top priority being Social Security reform. No revolutionary changes were made to keep the program solvent long-term. Still, the Bush administration extended disability benefits and food stamps to qualified immigrants and their children, eliminated wage credits for the military and expanded Medicare prescription drug coverage.

President Obama 's administration temporarily reduced the Social Security tax rate from 6.2 to 4.2 percent in 2011 and 2012. The move helped ease financial strain on American workers but did little to stop the risk of Social Security going into future debt.

The Future of Social Security

The Social Security Act has provided Americans with much-needed financial help when they need it most. For many of America's most vulnerable, it's the only source of income they have.

Still, despite attempts to keep it solvent, the Social Security program faces a major long-term shortfall. The retirement age to receive full benefits continues to increase and many beneficiaries are claiming benefits much later in life to receive maximum payouts, often at age 70.

As partisan politicians continue to debate the problem each year, the Social Security Administration-which is now an independent government agency-works behind the scenes to keep Social Security intact. Administering the program is a monumental and always-changing task.

Each year, the Social Security Administration rolls out changes to the program. In 2018, they announced a two percent cost-of-living adjustment, a taxable earnings increase, an earnings limit increase for beneficiaries who still work and a slight increase in disability payments.

Despite the program's pitfalls, most Americans want Social Security to continue and consider it a retirement lifeline, according to a National Academy of Social Insurance survey. And eighty-one percent of them are willing to pay more taxes to ensure it. Whether politicians are listening and can come up with a viable solution remains to be seen.

Sources

5 Facts About Social Security. Pew Research Center.
5 Social Security Changes to Expect in 2018. Investopedia.
Administering Social Security: Challenges Yesterday and Today. Social Security Office of Retirement and Disability.
Frances Perkins: The Force Behind Social Security. Roosevelt Institute.
Historical Background and Development of Social Security. Social Security Administration.
How FDR Created Social Security. AARP.
Key Dates in the History of Social Security. National Academy of Social Insurance.
Poor Relief in Early America. VCU Libraries Social Welfare History Project.
Social Security Turns 80: Past, Present and Future. National Academy of Social Insurance.

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Economic security has always been a major issue in an unstable, unequal world with an aging population. Societies throughout history have tackled the issue in various ways, but the disadvantaged relied mostly on charity from the wealthy or from family and friends.

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Black Americans who served their country, returned home to face discrimination and poverty. While White servicemen were allowed to buy new homes and access other opportunities through this Bill, Black servicemen were denied.

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In the week after the election, the Equal Justice Initiative, of Montgomery, Alabama, released a new report-a fifty-three-page addendum to last year's "Lynching in America," an unprecedentedly thorough survey of American racial violence and terror between 1877 and 1950. Drawing on small-town newspaper and court archives, along with interviews of local historians and victims' descendants across the South, "Lynching in America" tallied four thousand and seventy-five lynchings, at least eight hundred more than any previous count. The new report, "Lynching in America: Targeting Black Veterans," concludes that, during the same period, "no one was more at risk of experiencing violence and targeted racial terror than black veterans." The susceptibility of black ex-soldiers to extrajudicial murder and assault has long been recognized by historians, but the topic has never received such comprehensive standalone treatment. In the aftermath of Trump's victory, it seems eerily relevant.

Like "Lynching in America," the new report, which is available online, was compiled by E.J.I. attorneys and research fellows. The organization is, at its core, a law firm that challenges illegal convictions, unfair sentences, and prison abuse. But, as Jeffrey Toobin noted in his recent Profile of E.J.I.'s founder and director, Bryan Stevenson, over time the nonprofit has taken on another mission: complicating mainstream American narratives about race, history, and violence.

"We do so much in this country to celebrate and honor folks who risk their lives on the battlefield," Stevenson told me recently. "But we don't remember that black veterans were more likely to be attacked for their service than honored for it." To be a soldier is to receive training in weapons, in organizations, in tactics: the skills of self-assertion. It is also to lay claim to the reverence that America sets aside for its former warriors. For these reasons, the return home of black soldiers after war has infuriated and terrified white America, setting the stage for reactionary aggression.

When the Civil War broke out, the Union was reluctant to let black soldiers fight at all, citing concerns over white soldiers' morale and the respect that black soldiers would feel entitled to when the war ended. But, as the Union death toll increased, the skeptics relented. By war's end, almost two hundred thousand black men had enlisted. This is widely known today, thanks in large part to works of art like the 1989 film "Glory." Unfortunately, less cultural bandwidth has been devoted to what happened to those black troops after the fighting stopped. Few high-school or college students, when they learn about military history, learn about the lynching of black veterans.

In 1877, when Reconstruction ended, black veterans living in Southern states quickly became targets for white violence. White newspapers spread rumors of black soldiers assaulting white police. States across the South prohibited blacks from handling weapons. Compared to those who had not served, former soldiers were disproportionately assaulted, driven from their homes, and, in the most extreme cases, lynched in public. "Targeting Black Veterans" traces this trend in coolly objective prose, occasionally detailing shocking examples. "At Bardstown in Nelson County, Kentucky, a mob brutally lynched a United States Colored Troops veteran," we learn. "The mob stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and then cut off his sexual organs. He was then forced to run half a mile to a bridge outside of town, where he was shot and killed."

When the First World War broke out, black thinkers and writers debated the merits of signing up to fight for a country that functionally denied them full citizenship. Three hundred and eighty thousand black men heeded W. E. B. Du Bois's call to enlist in the segregated Army, many of them hoping that doing so would increase the standing of blacks on the home front. But for much of white America, front-line military service by blacks undercut the claims of racial superiority around which their lives-and their economies-were structured. In a speech on the Senate floor in 1917, Mississippi Senator James K. Vardaman warned that the return of black veterans to the South would "inevitably lead to disaster." Once you "impress the negro with the fact that he is defending the flag" and "inflate his untutored soul with military airs," Vardaman cautioned, it was a short step to the conclusion that "his political rights must be respected."

After the Armistice, black veterans returning home were greeted not with recognition of their civil rights but, instead, with an intense wave of discrimination and hostility. Whites speculated that, while stationed in Europe, black soldiers had enjoyed wartime liaisons with white French women, increasing their lust-which, in the white imagination, was already dangerously high-for sex with white American women. Many black veterans were denied the benefits and disability pay they'd been promised. In the first summer after the war, known as the Red Summer, anti-black riots erupted in more than twenty American cities, including Houston, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. "This is the right time to show them what will and what will not be permitted, and thus save them much trouble in the future," one Louisiana newspaper opined, in an editorial titled "Nip It In the Bud." In the years after the war, at least thirteen black veterans were lynched. Countless more survived beatings, shootings, and whippings. As E.J.I. staff examined these attacks in detail, they noticed that, often, the only provocation was a black man's insistence on wearing his uniform in public. "It's really shocking," Stevenson said. "Just the sight of a black soldier, just the suggestion that he might take on that empowered, adult, mature identity-that could get him killed."

And yet 1.2 million black men enlisted during the Second World War-a display of commitment to, and faith in, America that is as moving as it is mind-boggling. Initially, these men were barred from combat, and instead assigned to service duties such as cleaning white officers' quarters and latrines. Just as in the Civil War, only mounting casualties convinced the generals to allow black soldiers the privilege of risking their lives on the front line. And just as in the First World War, a vast chasm quickly sprang up between wartime rhetoric and wartime reality. Black soldiers stationed at military bases in the segregated South were forbidden from eating in restaurants that opened their doors to German prisoners of war.

After the war, multiple veterans were attacked almost immediately, often by drivers or fellow-passengers on the buses and trains transporting them back to their homes. Many more soon realized that the G.I. Bill had been constructed in such a way that most of its benefits-including mortgage support, college tuition, and business loans-could be denied to them. Racial violence spiked.

The experience of service did boost black veterans' sense of entitlement to basic rights. So did the more equal treatment they received, during the First and Second World Wars, from Europeans whom they met while stationed abroad. Often, military service elevated black soldiers' sense of themselves as people more capable of pushing back. (As Du Bois put it in a 1919 Crisis editorial on the subject, "We return. We return from fighting. We return fighting.") It is no coincidence that so many veterans, including Hosea Williams and Medgar Evers, went on to play key roles in civil-rights organizations.

Reading "Targeting Black Veterans" in early November, it was almost impossible to avoid comparison to our present moment, in which the hopes of many that the election of a black President could usher in a new era of racial reconciliation have been dashed. "Historically, it was a provocation for black men to wear the uniform, to claim that role," Stevenson said. "A black man sitting in the White House is a similar provocation. The reality of a more diverse society, with more people demanding respect, is a provocation. And Trump is the response."

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The Tragic, Forgotten History of Black Military Veterans

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In the week after the election, the Equal Justice Initiative, of Montgomery, Alabama, released a new report-a fifty-three-page addendum to last year's "Lynching in America," an unprecedentedly thorough survey of American racial violence and terror between 1877 and 1950.

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This bill disproportionately impacted minority communities through increasing police presence, racial discrimination, and removing eligibility for educational grants for those who had been convicted.

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This year marks the 25-year anniversary of the passage of the most sweeping crime bill in U.S. history-the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, also known as the crime bill. In many ways, this 350-page bill's passage characterized the bipartisan tough-on-crime movement of the late 20th century. While the bill contained a handful of positive provisions such as increased accountability for law enforcement and new protections for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, it was also responsible for exacerbating racial disparities in criminal justice involvement.

As previous CAP work has pointed out, the bill contributed to ongoing rampant police misconduct and racial profiling by deploying hundreds of thousands of officers into neighborhoods of color, and it jeopardized reentry for returning people of color by eliminating their Pell Grant eligibility while in prison. The bill also expanded the use of the death penalty; imposed mandatory life sentences for individuals with three or more felony convictions; and levied harsh new penalties for justice-involved youth. Many of these harmful provisions remain in effect today and continue to target and destabilize communities of color. Here are three ways the 1994 crime bill continues to undermine the safety and well-being of communities of color:

1. Authorized the death penalty for 60 new federal offenses

Known as a " direct descendant of lynching," the death penalty has always targeted and terrorized black and Latinx communities. The crime bill's Federal Death Penalty Act permitted the use of the death penalty for 60 new federal offenses, including certain drug offences not related to a homicide. In the five years following the bill's passage, 74 percent of defendants with death penalty recommendations from federal prosecutors were people of color. Notably, 44 percent were black and 21 percent were Hispanic.

Racial disparities in capital punishment persist to this day. While black and Hispanic people represent just 31 percent of the U.S. population, they represent 53 percent of death row inmates, at 41.9 percent and 11.3 percent, respectively. Furthermore, the death penalty is more likely to be recommended when the victim of the crime is white rather than black, despite the fact that black men are the most likely victims of homicide. Last year, the Trump administration called upon federal prosecutors to pursue the death penalty in cases " dealing in extremely large quantities of drugs." If this directive survives litigation, it is expected to worsen racial disparities in the application of the death penalty, as black people are far more likely than white people to be arrested, charged, convicted, and incarcerated for drug crimes-even though they use and sell drugs at similar rates.

2. Imposed mandatory life sentences for individuals with three or more felony convictions

The crime bill implemented a rash of new three-strikes laws-laws that impose automatic life sentences for people convicted of certain felony offenses if they already have two convictions on their record. Dozens of states followed suit and enacted three-strikes laws, resulting in a ballooning of the incarceration rate in certain states, especially for black and Latinx Americans.

Imposing life sentences simply because an individual has a criminal record disproportionately targets people of color, who are more likely to have a record in the first place because of unequal contact with police and the justice system. Harsh collateral consequences limit employment opportunities for returning people, especially people of color, and increase the likelihood of recidivism. The crime bill's three-strikes provision sent thousands of Americans to prison for life based on previous offenses for minor crimes such as stealing loose change from a parked car. In 2016, 78.5 percent of Americans serving life sentences in federal prison were people of color.

Some states have recognized the damage and disproportionate effect that three-strikes sentencing has on communities of color, especially black communities, and have undergone major reform efforts. In California, for instance, black people were 12 times more likely than white people to be incarcerated under three-strikes laws until the state passed the Three Strikes Reform Act of 2012. This act amended the law to require one's third strike to be a series or violent felony and allowed those currently serving three-strikes sentences to petition the courts for a reduction of their term. However, 28 states still have a three-strikes sentence on the books. In Maryland, Mississippi, and Louisiana, black people alone constitute approximately three-quarters of those sentenced to life in prison. While the federal government recently replaced its mandatory life sentence with a 25-year minimum sentence, it neglected to apply this change retroactively, meaning that hundreds of Americans will die in prison as a result of the three-strikes law.

3. Levied harsh new penalties for justice-involved youth

The crime bill also expanded the school-to-prison pipeline and increased racial disparities in juvenile justice involvement by creating draconian penalties for so-called super predators-low-income children of color, especially black children, who are convicted of multiple crimes.

Among other things, the crime bill allowed prosecutors to charge 13-year-old children as adults for certain crimes. As a result, today, two-thirds of Americans who were sentenced to life in prison as juveniles are black. Juveniles of color also constitute a majority of cases that are transferred to adult criminal court, regardless of the offense category.

Additionally, the bill included an increase in funding for school resource officers (SROs). These school-based, licensed police officers can make arrests and are sometimes armed, depending on local jurisdictions. This increase exacerbated the school-to-prison pipeline for black children, as SROs are twice as likely to discipline black students compared with white students.

The bill also called for sentencing enhancements for youth who are convicted of certain offenses and believed to be associated with gangs. However, while white youth represent a significant portion of self-identified gang members, at 40 percent, law enforcement report that more than 90 percent of gang members are people of color. As a result, police and prosecutors are more likely to target people of color for suspected gang association.

Conclusion
Ranya Shannon is an intern for Race and Ethnicity Policy at the Center for American Progress.
The legacy of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 continues to harm communities of color. It is past time for lawmakers to dismantle these harmful policies and enact comprehensive public safety solutions that reduce reliance on incarceration, prevent unnecessary criminalization, and eliminate the draconian laws keeping millions of Americans in prison.

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3 Ways the 1994 Crime Bill Continues to Hurt Communities of Color - Center for American Progress

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This year marks the 25-year anniversary of the passage of the most sweeping crime bill in U.S. history-the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, also known as the crime bill. In many ways, this 350-page bill's passage characterized the bipartisan tough-on-crime movement of the late 20th century.

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Because of all of the previous events, a wealth gap between White and Black Americans exists today. Because of a lack of access to equitable opportunities, a government that actively discriminated against the community, and a society that devalued their humanity, Black America is still facing racism today.

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Examining the Black-white wealth gap | Brookings

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A close examination of wealth in the U.S. finds evidence of staggering racial disparities.