In a move poised to stir debate, Florida state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, introduced a legislative measure seeking to prohibit reparations for slavery descendants in Florida.
Citing concern over other states, like California, that are currently considering reparations, the senator hopes a constitutional amendment will ban any future debate of the issue in Florida.
SJR-582, the joint resolution Ingoglia filed Monday, specifically seeks to block any form of reparation payments by the state or its political subdivisions to descendants of enslaved individuals predating Dec. 6, 1865 — the day the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, officially ending the institution of slavery, was ratified.
Ingoglia hopes to see the amendment placed on the 2024 ballot. But before that happens it would need to pass with 60% of support from both houses of the Florida Legislature.
“Congress, as well as politicians in states like California, and others, are proposing reparations. Florida should be proactive because bad ideas in some states seem to find their way into other states,” Ingoglia told Florida Politics. “Giving the voters the option to enshrine the prohibition into our Constitution takes the prospect of vote buying in the form of ‘reparations’ off the table, in order for legislators and community leaders to talk about how to really make a difference in Black and brown communities.”
In 2020, California convened a special task force dedicated to scrutinizing and crafting reparation proposals. By July 2023, this task force had completed its mission, producing a comprehensive report that put forth recommendations for systemic reforms in health care and education, among other sectors. The report also outlined a proposed methodology for calculating financial compensation, with figures some project could potentially reach up to $1.2 million for everyone deemed eligible.
The debate around reparations is not new, with historical precedents and contemporary proposals often igniting fierce discussion — and bitter disappointment.
40 acres and a mule order overturned
In 1865, at the end of the American Civil War and in the wake of the Confederacy’s downfall — in what is considered the first attempt in American to provide reparations — Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman issued an order, commonly referenced as “40 acres and a mule.”
The federal government would confiscate 400,000 acres of private property owned by Confederate landowners from South Carolina to Florida and grant each family of freed slaves 40 acres. The order also pledged that the U.S. military would protect them, “until such time as they can protect themselves.”
Although the order did not specifically promise mules, some were distributed by the Union army.
But that same year, President Andrew Johnson overturned the order and returned the land its original owners.
The reparations issue dates back to the mid-1800s.
Despite being one of the earliest recipients of reparations in the nation, Henrietta Wood’s narrative remained absent from historical texts and largely overlooked until the recent resurgence of the reparations debate brought her story back to light.
After being born into slavery in Kentucky, Wood was given her freedom in Ohio in 1848. But it only lasted five years. In 1853, she was kidnapped and sold back into slavery by the same man who previously enslaved her.
Following the end of the Civil War, she returned to Ohio in 1869 as a free woman. Wood later sued the man who kidnapped her for $20,000.
In 1878, a federal court awarded her $2,500.
The story of Rosewood, Florida
On Jan. 1, 1923, a white woman living in Sumner, Florida, claimed she was assaulted by an unidentified Black man — although a witness stated it was a white man who visited her home that New Year’s morning.
The sheriff organized a posse that soon grew to between 400 and 500 white men to search for the suspect.
About a mile from Sumner was Rosewood, a small, predominantly Black community named for the red cedar once abundant in the area. Families lived there, and residents owned and operated several businesses within the hamlet. There were two general stores, three churches, a sugar mill, a school, and a community baseball team.
Over the course the next seven days, Rosewood was gone, burned to the ground by the angry mob. At least eight people died. The people who survived the onslaught were driven into the swamplands and never returned.
At the time, a grand jury found insufficient evidence to prosecute.
But after an exhaustive investigation, in 1993, researchers from the University of Florida, Florida State University and Florida A&M University submitted “A Documented History of the Incident Which Occurred at Rosewood, Florida in January 1923″ to the Florida Board of Regents to set the record straight.
As a result of the findings, in 1994, Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles signed Florida House Bill 591. A law that granted $150,000 to each of the nine living survivors of the Rosewood massacre and a scholarship fund for their descendants.
The bill marked an unprecedented moment in American history in which a governmental body not only recognized its involvement in the longstanding systemic discrimination, violence and financial detriment inflicted upon Black Americans, but also provided them with restitution for these injustices.
If the Legislature passes Ingoglia’s resolution to block any form of reparation payments, the issue will be left for Florida voters to decide in 2024.