This article about an apology and reparations for slavery caught my eye in light of the research I'm doing for a few projects on the economic history of the South. Here's Wlater Block's argument that convinced me of the appropriateness of reparations for slavery and Jim Crow.

1:10 PM Addendum: Check out this letter from former slave Jourdon Anderson to his former master. A quick calculation assuming a 10.47% average annual return--this is the long-run average annual return on the S&P 500--between 1865 and 2009 suggests that the $11680 in forgone wages Anderson claims to have been cheated out of by his former master would have grown to about $19.7 billion today. There are all sorts of other things that would need to be considered before we could find out exactly how much the master's heirs owe Anderson's heirs (the implicit value of food, clothing, & shelter provided by the master), but this is a starting point.