Randall Robinson

About the author: Randall Robinson is founder and president of the TransAfrica Forum, a think tank in Washington, D.C., and author of The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks, from which this viewpoint is excerpted.

The United States profited enormously from the unpaid labor of black slaves for 246 years. The practice of slavery in America created a social atmosphere rife with racism and an economic disparity between whites and blacks that remains today. This economic inequality perpetuates slavery's legacy of racism and prevents blacks from reaching their full potential. These problems can only be solved when the U.S. government recognizes how destructive the institution of slavery has been to the African American community and compensates the descendants of slaves accordingly. The black community must...