Slavery in the United States was legal until 1865, Black people produced labor for over 200 years with no compensation, that is documented economic extraction that created wealth for others while leaving none to transfer forward. After slavery, Black Americans were locked out of wealth building through law and policy, the Federal Housing Administration underwrote mortgages in the 1930s and 1940s while labeling Black neighborhoods high risk, this practice known as redlining restricted access to home loans, at the same time white families received subsidized mortgages that allowed them to purchase homes in growing suburbs, homeownership is the primary driver of wealth in America and the largest source of intergenerational transfer. The GI Bill expanded access to low cost mortgages and college education after World War II, but it was administered locally and Black veterans were widely excluded from those benefits through discriminatory practices, meaning one group built assets and credentials while another was restricted at the same moment in time. Federal highway and urban development policies routed infrastructure through Black neighborhoods across the country, reducing property values and displacing residents while investment flowed into suburban areas where ownership was already high, this shifted wealth geographically and structurally. These are not opinions, these are documented federal and local policies with measurable outcomes tied directly to housing, education, and access to capital. That history did not reset, it compounded. Today, Black households hold a fraction of the wealth of white households, research including findings from McKinsey & Company shows the racial wealth gap remains large and persistent across income, assets, and business ownership, with estimates that trillions in economic output have been lost due to this disparity. In Columbus, Black homeownership rates rank near the bottom among major cities, and a significant share of Black households have zero or negative net worth, meaning there is little to no financial buffer and limited ability to pass down assets. The mechanism is still active today, lower ownership means fewer families benefit from rising property values, higher rent burden means more income is spent on housing instead of savings, and uneven access to credit limits entry into homeownership and business formation, when housing costs increase those without ownership do not gain wealth they absorb higher costs, when investment enters historically disinvested neighborhoods displacement risk increases for renters who do not control assets. This is not past harm, this is a current system producing current outcomes along the same lines created by earlier policy. The wealth gap was built through policy that controlled access to ownership, credit, education, and land, and it is maintained through conditions that continue to produce unequal outcomes in those same areas. Reparations is not just about a check, it is about whether documented harm created by law and policy that produced a measurable and ongoing wealth gap requires a documented policy response tied to the same areas where the damage occurred, housing, capital access, ownership, and asset building. If no repair is made, the data already shows the direction, the gap continues, ownership remains lower, wealth does not accumulate at the same rate, and the cycle repeats across generations. That is not rhetoric, that is already documented.