The Case for Reparations Lesson Plan

What are the ways Clyde Ross was stopped from improving his circumstances?

Coates spends the first section explaining Clyde Ross’s circumstances in detail. He was born in the early 1920s in Mississippi. His parents owned land and made money through farming. This is a promising opening, yet Coates describes how Ross was harmed by racist policies and institutions throughout his life: Mississippi authorities argued that Ross's father owed back taxes, and when they were unable to protect themselves from this claim the family lost their land, buggy, and animals. They were forced into the peonage system of sharecropping. Ross’s teacher wanted him to attend a more challenging...