The Problem and the Solution: Centering Taxation in the History of Civil Rights

When African-American history is done well, it allows us to see the places where inequality hides. Scholars in the areas of the history of capitalism, African-American history, and urban studies have popularized the language of historical phenomena such as white flight, redlining, and privatization, in the process of explaining the origins of contemporary challenges. A reasonably educated person understands that deindustrialization at mid-century led to job losses. Every May, pundits write essays about the failure to equalize schools as the nation memorializes the anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Popular journalists Ta-Nehisi Coates and Nicole Hannah-Jones owe their careers to their study of historical work in order to leverage public-facing conversations from reparations for slavery to the politicization of the teaching of civil rights. Essentially, good history helps us search for the state practices and policies that soften the blow of inequality, assault human dignity, and normalize poverty. In his deeply researched and thoughtfully written book The Black Tax , Andrew Kahrl addresses another obscure mechanism that has historically worked to dispossess and disadvantage African Americans across regions and generations, and has ensnarled both landowners and tenants. Kahrl's book forces readers and scholars to think about the ways that a lack of federal authority and will to protect Black citizens allowed states and municipalities to assess, tax, and place liens on Black property—from vacant plots to farm land to family homes.