PROBLEM STATEMENTS:

(a) As the first African American female to run for the Governor of the State of Tennessee, I bring to the table the backlash, systemic racism attacks, and judicial prejudice that I have encountered in the United States and the State of Tennessee. My lived experiences set the credibility roadmap to address this matter. Living in a poverty-stricken community, I have the constant reminder of the devastation that descendants of enslaved individuals have encountered and the spillover of that today through housing disparities, economic disparities, gross mass incarceration, taxation without representation, discriminatory policies, insidious bills, disinvestment of underserved and marginalized neighborhoods, environmental injustice, police brutality, gentrification, redlining, gerrymandering, voter suppression, predatory lending, and intentional and structural governmental harm.

(b) The State of Tennessee has never investigated, researched, analyzed, or considered Reparations for African Americans for the cultural atrocity regarding enslaved individuals brought here to the United States and assisted in building this Volunteer State. Enslaved people played a major role in building the infrastructure, economy, and physical structures of Tennessee, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries. They were used to construct railroads, state government buildings, including the Capitol, and numerous private homes, furnaces, and plantations, while driving agricultural output.

(c) Black people were frequently lynched in Tennessee. Between 1877 and 1950, at least 236 to 237 racial terror lynchings of Black people were documented in Tennessee. These murders were acts of racial terrorism, often involving large, unmasked mobs and sometimes taking place with a carnival-like atmosphere.

(d) Historically, the politicians in the State of Tennessee have intentionally overlooked the economic hardship that African Americans have suffered from decades through economic neglect, disinvestments, cultural insensitivity to being survivors of African descendants who have suffered from many atrocities on American soil and in the State of Tennessee.

Now the Governor and the legislative body have removed slavery from the Tennessee Constitution with no compensation to these citizens. These citizens have waited too long for Restorative Reparation.

As the fight for reparations for the descendants of enslaved African Americans stalls at the federal level, state and local officials are taking matters into their own hands.

I will be the innovative Governor in this State that addresses TENN ROOTS (Reparation Outreach Opportunities to Survivors), which will be a 500-page report detailing the harms done to Black residents in the State of Tennessee. The plan will make recommendations ranging from reforms in policing to housing grants for Black families that were forced from their homes to make way for various Tennessee state projects like freeways and parks, gentrification, and disinvestment.

As the next Governor, I will start with housing, but this Restorative Reparation Plan will incorporate all forms of repair such as housing grants, cash payments, business grants, access to education, and healthcare. In the State of Tennessee, we must address and bring to the forefront the explicit connection from slavery to Reconstruction to Jim Crow to the contemporary moment, where there are state and federal policies that intentionally and actively discriminated against Black communities that actually have caused these education gaps that have caused these wealth disparities.

Due to the pandemic, this devastation has caused added financial hardship to these disenfranchised survivors known as the Tennessee Roots. It is time to make it right for the citizens that have lived in poverty, worked subservient jobs, experienced discriminatory actions on all levels of insidious behaviors, abused by the judicial system, targeted by police brutality, cycled through the prison system, survived through bank and housing discrimination, loss of family farms due to USDA discrimination and other atrocities that go unnoticed even in 2025 by the Governor of the State of Tennessee and the legislature body.

It is time to bring equity, equality, and justice into this area for every citizen who must have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Reparations must be made to make this segment of individuals in our society whole. Black Tennesseans deserve better, and I will give them a seat at the table for economic prosperity and social justice.

Lynchings in Tennessee include:

Looking back at the history of lynching in this nation is absolutely critical in understanding our present and how best to heal and move forward. This sets the perimeter and the stage for Reparations in the State of Tennessee.

• High Frequency Areas: According to the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), Tennessee's Lake and Moore counties had some of the highest lynching rates in the nation, while Shelby County had a high number of victims.

• Targeted Victims: Victims were often killed for minor social transgressions, demanding fair treatment, or simply due to racial animosity.

• Specific Examples:

  • Ell Persons (1917): Burned alive in Memphis after being accused of a crime, with thousands in attendance.

  • Eliza Woods (1886): A woman lynched in Jackson after being accused of poisoning her employer, despite her innocence. The first of at least three racial terror lynchings that took place in Madison County.

  • The Trenton Massacre (1874): A mob of 400-500 white men seized and lynched 16 Black men from the Gibson County jail.

  • Anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells began her pioneering journalism work in Tennessee after three of her friends were lynched in Memphis in 1892.

  • On August 26, 1874, a mob of white men seized 16 Black men from the Gibson County Jail in Trenton, Tennessee, and lynched them.

  • On October 9, 1893, a Black man named Bob Hudson was shot to death by a white lynch mob in Weakley County, Tennessee, near the town of Dresden.

  • James Cordie Cheek (17 years old): In 1933, Cheek was abducted from Nashville by a county magistrate and others, after a grand jury failed to indict him for an alleged crime due to lack of evidence. He was taken back to Maury County and lynched by a mob.

  • Unidentified Boy: Historical research by groups like the Weakley County Reconciliation Project has uncovered records of an unidentified Black boy lynched on August 24, 1869

  • The Walker Family (including an infant): In 1908, the entire David Walker family, including parents, four children, and an infant, was murdered by "Night Riders" near the Tennessee-Kentucky border

  • In the 50 years between 1869 and 1918, 50 African Americans were lynched in a sparsely populated three-county area, far removed from the Cotton Belt and outside the ambit of the Tobacco Black Patch, along the state line in northwest Tennessee and southwestern Kentucky.

  • Many of the names of lynching victims were not recorded and remain unknown, but over 200 documented lynchings took place in Tennessee alone, at least six having taken place in Davidson County.

  • In 1931, twelve-year-old Thomas J. Pressly witnessed the lynching of George Smith in Union City, the county seat of Obion County, Tennessee. 

  • The last known or recorded lynching in Davidson County took place in 1924 near this site. or the murder of Samuel Smith. Samuel Smith was a 15-year-old African-American youth who was lynched by a white mob, hanged and shot in Nolensville, Tennessee, on December 14, 1924. Kidnapped from a hospital and lynched in Cane Ridge. The last known or recorded lynching in Davidson County took place in 1924 near this site. Around midnight on December 14, 1924, a mob of at least six armed, white, masked men entered Nashville General Hospital and abducted Samuel Smith, age 15. Despite a grand jury investigation, public outcry, and a reward offer in local newspapers, no one was ever arrested, charged, or held accountable for the murder of Samuel Smith.

Lack of Justice: Perpetrators were rarely held accountable, and many lynchings were ignored or covered up by local officials.

(d) Enslaved laborers were rented or owned by companies and the state to build railroads (e.g., Nashville & Chattanooga), turnpikes, and canals. The Tennessee State Capitol was built using 15 enslaved men who were skilled in carving and construction.

(e) Enslaved people were foundational to the farming economy, handling the labor-intensive tasks for cash crops like cotton and tobacco.

(f) In cities like Nashville and Knoxville, enslaved laborers were crucial in building early homes, businesses, and government structures. Beyond construction, enslaved individuals worked in homes and specialized in trades like masonry, carpentry, and blacksmithing.

(g) In 2025, Tennessee lawmakers formally honored 15 specific enslaved workers who were key to the construction of the Tennessee State Capitol, rectifying a lack of recognition that had lasted over 160 years.

While many politicians have remained silent regarding this atrocity, I will be a bold and unwavering Governor to address this long-awaited agenda to make it right for these Tennesseans.

(h) Until we correct the atrocities that have happened to one group in the State of Tennessee, how can we move forward with the inclusion of all Tennesseans based on their life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? As Tennesseans, we must come to the realization that reparations must be addressed in Tennessee, even in these turbulent times.

(i) Slavery was foundational to Tennessee’s development, with enslaved people comprising 25% of the population by 1860, concentrated in Middle and West Tennessee for agricultural labor, particularly tobacco and cotton. It was an immediate, systematic institution in early settlements, featuring major trading hubs in Nashville and Memphis.

(j) Professional traders working in the state as early as 1820, including in smaller markets like Knoxville, Clarksville, Elizabethton, and Athens. Memphis, Tennessee, was one of the central hubs of the interstate slave trade. Key Memphis traders included Byrd Hill, the Bolton brothers, the Little brothers, and the Forrest brothers. Nashville was a second-tier market, "advantageously situated for purchases in Kentucky and sales in northern Alabama and northeastern Mississippi. Much local and intra-state trading was a matter of course." East Tennessee manifested early abolitionism and colonization-movement activism, but slavery remained widespread in that region until emancipation.

(k) Not only did the city government of Nashville own slaves, but in 1836, the state government "organized a lottery to raise money for internal improvements (mainly road construction). Lottery prizes included assets such as land, a farm, steamboats, and five slaves: a 45-year-old man named Charles, a 43-year-old woman named Nancy, and three girls named Matilda (12), Rebecca (11), and Maria (6). Hiring out of slave laborers was extremely common and provided significant household income for their enslavers.

Aspects of Slavery in Tennessee:

• Economic Impact: Enslaved labor was vital for clearing land, agriculture, and domestic work. Major operations, such as the Belle Meade Plantation, utilized enslaved people as skilled laborers, including horse trainers and jockeys.

• Demographics: While present statewide, the highest concentrations were in West Tennessee (cotton) and Middle Tennessee (tobacco/agriculture).

• Legal Landscape: Tennessee laws regarding slavery became more punitive after 1831, following fears of rebellion, though it was one of three states that never passed anti-literacy laws.

• Slave Trade: Nashville was a major center, with enslaved individuals sold in the Public Square area. Prominent traders, including Isaac Franklin, operated in the state.

• Final Abolition: Slavery was officially ended in Tennessee on February 22, 1865, via a state constitutional amendment.

• Modern Constitution Update: In November 2022, Tennessee voters approved Amendment 3, with 79.54% of the vote, removing language that allowed slavery as a punishment for a crime, thereby fully banning all forms of slavery. Nevertheless, there were no reparations to address the barbaric treatment of human beings in the State of Tennessee.

Reparations for Black Americans, whether for chattel slavery at the federal level or more local forms of redress for past harm at the state and municipal levels, have long been dismissed as unrealistic and unattainable from a policy perspective. Broad public support for reparations policies has consistently remained shy of a majority nationally, even at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, when mass protests and awareness campaigns highlighted the history of harm and injustice done against Black people in the United States.

(l) While most Black Americans support reparations, the majority of white, Hispanic, and Asian Americans surveyed do not, even though Japanese-Americans, Native Americans, Tuskegee Study Victims, Survivors of Racially Motivated Violence, Victims of Police Torture, and Slave Owners have received reparations in America, none of whom have received the horrific brutality of Africans and African Americans on American soil. The Obama administration awarded $12 Million in 2015 to support Holocaust survivors in the United States. While the U. S. has not paid directly for the atrocities, it has assisted the Jewish Claims Conference in negotiations with Germany, which has paid over $90 billion in reparations to survivors.

(m) This present presidential administration has been hostile toward efforts to promote equity through government. On day one of the administration, President Trump rescinded all previous executive orders related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and introduced new executive orders to explicitly preclude future federal efforts pursuing equity. Rhetorically, the administration and its supporters have resisted any consideration of racial equity, even by private institutions. Furthermore, executing vicious acts to erase black history, attack HBCUs, dismantle the Civil Rights Act, dismantle Affirmative Action, ignore the George Floyd Bill, gerrymandering, redlining, voter suppression, housing disparities, and economic disparities.

(n) Reparations represent a commitment to acknowledge and apologize for the harm done in the past; to provide material redress for that harm; and to make the structural changes necessary to prevent that harm from recurring. Each of these commitments is critical to counterbalance this administration and its supporters’ efforts to deceptively erase the role of race and racism in the economic story of our country. As we face threats of fascism and the glorification of the nation’s sordid history of white supremacy, continuing the push toward reparations reinforces commitments to righting the wrongs of the past and fighting for a more equitable future.

Tennessee will be the first U.S. southern state to formally study and develop a comprehensive, statewide reparations plan for Black residents. While several cities have implemented local programs, no state has yet issued direct cash payments, though the State of Tennessee will turn task force recommendations into legislative proposals, including housing, education initiatives, and possible monetary distributions.

FORCED PREDATORY LENDING:

Predatory lending disproportionately affects vulnerable, cash-strapped populations, including low-income individuals, the elderly, minorities, and people with poor credit or disabilities. These practices trap borrowers in debt cycles via high-interest payday loans, car-title loans, and subprime mortgages, often causing bankruptcy, home foreclosure, and loss of assets.

Targeted Vulnerable Populations

Predatory lenders deliberately target individuals facing financial distress or those with limited access to traditional banking, including:

• Low-Income Borrowers & Working Poor: Individuals struggling to pay monthly bills.

• Minorities and Communities of Color: Often targeted for, or steered into, more expensive loan products.

• The Elderly and Retirees: Specifically targeted because their home often represents their only significant equity.

• People with Disabilities: Frequently on fixed incomes and targeted for high-cost debt.

• Individuals with Poor Credit or No Credit: Those who may be denied traditional financing.

Specific Effects of Predatory Lending

• The Debt Trap: Loans often feature "roll-overs," where borrowers cannot repay the principal and take out new loans to pay off old ones, incurring massive fees.

• Loss of Assets: Predatory lenders often use equity-stripping, leading to the loss of homes or automobiles (car-title loans).

• Financial Ruin: Subprime mortgages and high-interest loans lead to high rates of foreclosure and bankruptcy.

• Credit Damage: Abusive loan terms often result in damaged credit histories.

• Perpetuating Wealth Gaps: These practices worsen economic injustice by targeting specific communities, deepening poverty in already vulnerable neighborhoods.

GENERATIONAL WEALTH GAP:

The generational wealth gap between white and Black households in the U.S. is vast and, according to Brookings and NCRC research, has continued to expand. In 2022, median white households held $284,310 in wealth, more than six times the $44,100 held by median Black households. This disparity persists regardless of income or education, driven by historical, structural factors, and lower rates of inherited wealth.

Statistics and Trends

• Growing Disparity: Between 2019 and 2022, the gap in average net worth between Black and white households rose by 38% to $1.15 million, according to Duke University.

• Median Wealth Ratio: For every $100 in wealth held by white households, Black households hold only $15, reported Brookings.

• Wealth vs. Income: The gap is more severe than income inequality. Even at similar income levels, Black families often hold significantly less wealth, the Center for American Progress finds.

• Asset Ownership: White families are more likely to own homes, businesses, and stocks, and when Black families own these assets, they are often valued lower, the Center for American Progress reports.

Drivers of the Generational Gap

• Intergenerational Transfers: Black families are less likely to receive large inheritances or financial gifts, which are crucial for early homeownership or debt reduction.

• Structural Racism/Policy: Historical policies like redlining and unequal access to the GI Bill prevented Black families from building equity over generations, says the Urban Institute.

• Debt Disparities: While white households often have higher total debt, Black families often carry more high-interest, non-mortgage debt, such as student loans, according to the Treasury Department.

• Education Gaps: Wealth disparities persist even with similar education levels; for example, Black households with a college degree often have less wealth than white households.

Impact on Future Generations

• Widening at Older Ages: The wealth gap increases with age, as white households benefit more from compounding investment returns and intergenerational wealth, the Center for American Progress reports.

• Housing Equity: Lower homeownership rates and lower home values in Black neighborhoods mean fewer resources are passed down to children, contributing to a cycle of inequality, according to the Treasury Department.

• Proposed Solutions: Research from RAND suggests it would take a massive, targeted investment—potentially $1.6 trillion in wealth transfers to close the median wealth gap.

ATWATER'S GOAL AND STRATEGIES:

(1) Erect the State of Tennessee Commission on Reparations Recovery and Reform (T-CORRR), which will set the foundation for the TENNESSEE R.O.O.T.S. (Reparations Outreach Opportunities to Survivors).

(2) I will work closely with Tennessee state lawmakers to introduce a slate of reparations bills, including a proposal to restore property taken by “race-based” cases of eminent domain and a potentially unconstitutional measure to provide state funding for “specific groups.”

(3) The R.O.O.T.S. plan will be uniquely designed to investigate and address a location-specific historical harm. The shape of this plan is also affected by the political context of its locality. Ultimately, the fact that this R.O.O.T.S. plan is being actively developed and considered, even in the face of mounting pressure and opposition at the federal level, is a testament to the architects’ commitment to equity and perseverance. 

(4) This innovative R.O.O.T.S. package will mark a first-in-the-south effort to give restitution to Black Americans who have been harmed by centuries of racist policies and practices. Tennessee’s legislative push will be the culmination of years of research and debate throughout the Mid-South, including 250-pages of recommendations issued by a task force, authorities, and scholars on reparations, former judges, politicians, and historians.

(5) As the potential next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I will create the first state-level task force in 2027, releasing a 585-page report detailing systemic racism. In 2028, lawmakers will be presented with a package of the Governor's proposals aiming to implement recommendations, including restitution for property and farm takings, and addressing health disparities. Emotional trauma, police brutality, and judicial misconduct will also be addressed.

(6) As the next potential Governor of the State of Tennessee, I will commission reparations studies or task forces, which will be the first to attempt to turn these ideas into law.

(7) Working with the Legislative Black Caucus, measures will be introduced by the Legislative Black Caucus that touch on education, civil rights, and criminal justice, including reviving a years-old effort to restrict solitary confinement in jails and prisons across the State of Tennessee. There will be various types of financial compensation to descendants of Black slaves. While many only associate direct cash payments with reparations, the true meaning of the word, to repair, involves much more. We need a comprehensive approach to dismantling the legacy of slavery and systemic racism.

(8) The R.O.O.T.S. package does have a provision that would give some monetary relief, but also deals with “property takings. It would restore property taken during race-based uses of eminent domain to its original owners or provide another effective remedy where appropriate, such as restitution or compensation.

(9) The R.O.O.T.S. package would also address the loss of billions of acres of farmland from African Americans in the State of Tennessee.

(10) Implementing a reparations plan in 2028, focusing on housing grants up to ($35,000) for Black residents to address historical redlining, gentrification, and forced displacement.

(11) There must be copious actions and documentations collected to verify actions for R.O.O.T.S. The activities undertaken include reports, policy recommendations (e.g., community development, asset restoration, addressing systemic gaps, etc.), and, in some cases, disbursement of funds. These plans have not all met the necessary criteria to be considered truly reparative in the context of injustices committed against Black Americans, but they are nevertheless indicative of some movement toward providing redress for past harm.

(12) While the prospects for reparations at the federal level seem bleaker than ever under a second Trump administration, this work will take place at the state and local levels. State and local reparations efforts can never substitute for a full-fledged federal reparations program, especially as it relates to redress for chattel slavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration at the federal level. However, state and local reparations plans that acknowledge and apologize for harm done and provide material redress for that harm can arguably still be reparative if they meet the following additional criteria: 

• They specify correctly what harms are being addressed and who should benefit; 

• They stay within their capacity to provide redress for the identified harm while avoiding absolving the federal government from its own responsibility. 

• They make a commitment to structural change designed to prevent future racial injustice. 

Shelby County Reparations Study Overview

As the next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I am committed to following up on the Shelby County Reparations Study to collaborate and build upon this Tennessee R.O.O.T.S. Plan.

In February 2023, the Shelby County Commission, which includes Memphis, approved a $5 million resolution to study reparations for descendants of enslaved people, marking one of the greatest such efforts in Tennessee. The funding was intended to address systemic inequities and generate “actionable items” in five key areas:

• Affordable housing and homeownership

• Health care parity

• Criminal justice reform

• Enhanced career opportunities

• Financial literacy and generational wealth

Anti-equity sentiment in the courts and challenges to reparations initiatives 

(a) Hostility toward equity initiatives has been bubbling up in the courts for years, particularly with respect to the anti-affirmative action cases filed against prominent private and public universities, culminating in the 2023 Supreme Court ruling that effectively ended the practice nationwide. Affirmative action policies were implemented to address the biases against underrepresented groups across institutions. The result of removing affirmative action policies from universities has invariably been the shrinking number of otherwise qualified Black and brown students attending these institutions. Scholars have noted that the absence of affirmative action does not result in a system of pure meritocracy, as is so often claimed. Rather, it reverts the U.S. to a system that unjustly privileges white (especially male) mediocrity.

(b) Legal challenges have been targeted at state and local reparations initiatives as well. In 2024, Oklahoma’s Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit seeking reparations for the two survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. One of the few active local reparations plans in Evanston, IL, is also facing a lawsuit from a conservative group, claiming that the program’s focus on race in its implementation renders it unconstitutional. These lawsuits pose an existential threat to reparations initiatives nationwide. If they are going to be reparative, then they must explicitly consider race because this is what historically determined who experienced the harm for which redress is being sought.

Anti-equity sentiment in corporations: DEI rollbacks 

Several large private companies have rolled back their commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the months since Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election. These are some of the largest and most influential companies in the country, including Amazon, Boeing, Ford, McDonald’s, Meta, Wal-Mart, and more. In many cases, these policies are being rolled back well before they could have begun to have their intended effect of changing the makeup of the companies’ executive and senior leadership teams.

These large and influential companies walking back their previous commitments to advancing equity contribute to a chilling effect around equity initiatives, making it less likely that awareness and support for the pursuit of equity goals grow among the public. They also represent a transparent effort to curry favor among a resurgent “America First” white supremacist political movement. This pushes bold racial and economic justice strategies like reparations further outside the realm of feasibility for many.

Anti-equity sentiment in the federal government: Trump administration action and rhetoric 

The Trump administration has been explicitly hostile toward DEI within the federal government. Any consideration of race, ethnicity, sex, or sexual orientation in hiring or the impact of federal policies and programs has been condemned or completely removed from the federal government’s agenda. This assault on equity was telegraphed constantly throughout the Trump-Vance presidential campaign, and the administration acted on that promise immediately upon assuming office.

With any consideration of racial equity precluded in the federal government, the possibility for movement on federal reparations is essentially nil for the time being. Acknowledgement and apology, material redress, and commitment to structural change going forward are all non-starters for an administration that rejects the basic reality that racial disparities exist and require action to eliminate.

Reaching consensus on the importance of reparations would build solidarity and Black worker power 

Leaving our history of racial injustice unaddressed makes it difficult to build the cross-racial solidarity necessary to support a strong labor movement. A precondition for unifying groups from different backgrounds in a common struggle is mutual acknowledgment of their separate struggles as important and worthy of redress. This is why strategies such as the braided narrative have worked for raising awareness and support of both reparations for chattel slavery and land back movements for Black Americans and Indigenous Americans. Enthusiastically supporting the movement for racial justice, including reparations initiatives, is a clear way labor advocates can show solidarity and promote a multiracial progressive movement for labor rights and economic justice.

On a more concrete level, material redress for the history of economic exploitation and exclusion that Black families have faced in the U.S. could move more families away from the precarity that enables economic oppression. People are much easier to exploit when they are struggling to make ends meet. However, this has not stopped Black workers from often taking the lead in labor organizing when pushed by harsh or discriminatory conditions. Closing the racial wealth gap would strengthen the economic fallback position of more Black workers, allowing them to participate in bargaining on more even footing relative to their white counterparts, from a position of security rather than precarity. 

Reparations for chattel slavery at the federal level, aimed at addressing the history of economic exploitation and exclusion that Black families have faced in this country, is likely the only effective path for meaningfully closing the racial wealth gap in the United States. Given that movement at the federal level on reparations has stopped, the best way to continue to build the momentum necessary to achieve this is to support the state and local efforts happening across the country. 

We cannot afford to lose track of the progress we have made since 2020 

We have made significant progress in building public understanding and awareness of reparations initiatives nationwide, even if we are not yet at a place where most of the country approves of these plans. The major development since 2020 has been an advance from reparations being a mere pipe dream to initiatives and investigations into specific harm inflicted by state and local governments against their citizens being carried out.

This momentum took decades to build, and the spark of 2020’s protests to ignite. We can’t allow a hostile administration to snuff out this movement just as it has begun to glow.

Reparations are our blueprint for equity, providing a counterweight against a backslide into white supremacy 

The current political moment is one of growing uncertainty and fear, particularly for marginalized people. At the highest levels of government, decisions are being made that deprioritize the rights of people of color, along with women, LGBTQI+ people, and the materially disadvantaged of all races. Fixing our eyes on rectifying our greatest historical wrongs and committing to preventing those atrocities and injustices from ever happening again grounds us in hopeful possibility. The alternative is to succumb to despair in the face of reversed progress and encroaching bigotry.