How do you measure the impact of a wound so deep and gaping that it still reverberates today?
A wound of that magnitude denotes harm.
The Fulton County Reparations Task Force drew on an abundance of documents and data to “quantify harm” against Black people during slavery and the Jim Crow era. The result: a loss of trillions of dollars to descendants, Fulton County Commissioner Marvin S. Arrington Jr. said.
Arrington joined task force leaders — Dr. Karcheik Sims-Alvarado and Dr. Amanda Meng — in presenting the “Fulton County Reparations Task Force Harm Report” during a panel discussion on Thursday at the Auburn Avenue Research Library. The findings have been published in a 615-page hardcover book.
The panel was moderated by Ann Hill Bond, a research committee member. Marcus Coleman, vice chair of the task force, was also in attendance.
“They’ve documented over $1 trillion worth of harm by Fulton County,” Arrington said.
Last month, the United Nations approved a resolution recognizing the enslavement of Africans as crimes against humanity and urging reparations. While 52 countries abstained, the United States, Argentina and Israel voted against the resolution.
The Harm Report states that Fulton County “stole over $8.9 million in labor from over 4,200 enslaved Black individuals between 1854 and 1864.”
The Fulton County Commission established the task force in 2021 and approved a $250,000 budget in 2023 for the first phase of research. A team of more than 20 researchers conducted investigations, analyzed data and reviewed findings, including work with Georgia Tech’s DataWorks.
Sims-Alvarado, chair of the task force and an assistant professor of Africana Studies at Morehouse College, said she consulted external experts, including a friend who worked at NASA, to review a formula developed to measure harm.
“… This is what the government took from the value of black lives — what was taken from Black people in order to build the county, the infrastructure, ” Karcheik Sims-Alvarado said, explaining parts of the formula. “[And] what is the wealth collected by individuals who resided in Fulton County. This is where we begin to look at the profiteers of slavery.”
The report also examines disparities in taxation during the post-Civil War period. It found that free Black people were required to pay a $5 poll tax, compared to 25 cents for White residents.
“The poll tax was actually a head count for being in the county. It’s not for voting,” Sims-Alvarado said.
The report says that the exploitation of Black labor during slavery and the economic structures of Jim Crow helped build generational wealth for white landowners while systematically denying that same opportunity to Black residents.
One example cited in the report is the dismantling of Bagley Park, also known as Macedonia Park, a once-thriving Black community in Buckhead that the task force says illustrates the exertion of social, political and economic control.
According to the report, Black residents began settling there after the Civil War. William Bagley and his wife resettled there in 1912 after fleeing racial violence in Forsyth County.
Bagley had owned 60 acres of land in Forsyth, the report states. He later acquired six of his 10 lots in Buckhead for $2,100.
In Buckhead’s Bagley Park, Black residents operated grocery stores, restaurants, a barbershop and other businesses. But in the 1930s, the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, along with civic groups and the Ku Klux Klan, moved to dismantle the community, citing unsanitary and rundown conditions, according to the report.
“On Friday nights and Saturday afternoons in the 1930s and 40s, the Ku Klux Klan would hold parades to clear Blacks from the Buckhead business district,” the report states. “In full robes, they paraded from their sheet factory on Roswell Road through the business district and back.”
The parcel that comprises Bagley Park, now owned by the city of Atlanta, had an assessed value of nearly $60 million in 2025, the report shows.
“That’s just 40 percent of the retail value,” Sims-Alvarado said.
Bagley’s granddaughter, Elon Butts Osby, is a member of the task force and was in the audience for the panel discussion.
“… If the community had not been displaced, the value of her family’s land would be $15 million today,” Sims-Alvarado added.
The task force has until December 31, 2027 to present its final recommendations to the Fulton County Board of Commissioners.
In the meantime, Arrington said the group plans to broaden the conversation around the Harm Report and potentially share its findings with the United Nations.
“We have to take this conversation national and international,” Arrington said. “We do have to make this conversation larger and bigger than life, because this moment is larger and bigger than life… Acknowledgment is the first step in reparations.”
this is a farce, taxing non-slaveowners to pay non-slaves for slavery. zero racism.
Reparations train: Civil Rights Advocates and labor consultants; lets really look at Reparations from a non-political, non – educated, non- status point of view. I believe that the existence of this modern condition of the harm, Not being greatest extend of HARM! I see the direction this is going. Foundational! Counselored by Well educated, Well Status, Well Religious Members who was commissioned 250,000 to task Reparations. Less be Careful! That were not doing Harm by omitting this present day condition directly connected to Reparations deficiency. I dint find this result to be in tune with attaining Reparations for especially the lowly Descendants of this Crime! I look forward to participate in modern day solution.
Reparations train: Civil Rights Advocates and labor consultants; lets really look at Reparations from a non-political, non – educated, non- status point of view. I believe that the existence of this modern condition of the harm, Not being greatest extend of HARM! I see the direction this is going. Foundational! Counselored by Well educated, Well Status, Well Religious Members who was commissioned 250,000 to task Reparations. Less be Careful! That were not doing Harm by omitting this present day condition directly connected to Reparations deficiency. I dint find this result to be in tune with attaining Reparations for especially the lowly Descendants of this Crime! I look forward to participate in modern day solution. And noticing the supporters listed it shouldn’t be hard to Attain.
Reparations train: Civil Rights Advocates and labor consultants; lets really look at Reparations from a non-political, non – educated, non- status point of view. I believe that the existence of this modern condition of the harm, Not being greatest extend of HARM! I see the direction this is going. Foundational! Counselored by Well educated, Well Status, Well Religious Members who was commissioned 250,000 to task Reparations. Less be Careful! That were not doing Harm by omitting this present day condition directly connected to Reparations deficiency. I dont find this result to be in tune with attaining Reparations for especially the lowly Descendants of this Crime! I look forward to participate in modern day solution. And noticing the supporters listed it shouldn’t be hard to Attain. Business as USUAL! NO MENTION OF HOW All these bew developments are being built with 0 black workers, no on sites unskilled laborers, mostly without local workers, Permitted the local srate run agencies . Maynard Jackson would turn in hus Grave if he could see these current conditions, white crew building parks dedicated to Black pioneers. Theirs Reparations in modern compensations.
Reparations train: Civil Rights Advocates and labor consultants; lets really look at Reparations from a non-political, non – educated, non- status point of view. I believe that the existence of this modern condition of the harm, Not being greatest extend of HARM! I see the direction this is going. Foundational! Counselored by Well educated, Well Status, Well Religious Members who was commissioned 250,000 to task Reparations. Less be Careful! That were not doing Harm by omitting this present day condition directly connected to Reparations deficiency. I dont find this result to be in tune with attaining Reparations for especially the lowly Descendants of this Crime! I look forward to participate in modern day solution. And noticing the supporters listed it shouldn’t be hard to Attain. Business as USUAL! NO MENTION OF HOW All these bew developments are being built with 0 black workers, no on sites unskilled laborers, mostly without local workers, Permitted the local srate run agencies . Maynard Jackson would turn in hus Grave if he could see these current conditions, white crew building parks dedicated to Black pioneers. Theirs Reparations in modern compensations. Get on Board this Train. The Reparations train
Reparations train: Civil Rights Advocates and labor consultants; lets really look at Reparations from a non-political, non – educated, non- status point of view. I believe that the existence of this modern condition of the harm, Not being greatest extend of HARM! I see the direction this is going. Foundational! Counselored by Well educated, Well Status, Well Religious Members who was commissioned 250,000 to task Reparations. Less be Careful! That were not doing Harm by omitting this present day condition directly connected to Reparations deficiency. I dont find this result to be in tune with attaining Reparations for especially the lowly Descendants of this Crime! I look forward to participate in modern day solution. And noticing the supporters listed it shouldn’t be hard to Attain. Business as USUAL! NO MENTION OF HOW All these bew developments are being built with 0 black workers, no on sites unskilled laborers, mostly without local workers, Permitted the local srate run agencies . Maynard Jackson would turn in hus Grave if he could see these current conditions, white crew building parks dedicated to Black pioneers. Theirs Reparations in modern compensations. Get on Board this Train.
Reparations train: Civil Rights Advocates and labor consultants; let me set records straight, Ive been fighting for Reparations for quite some time. Seeing a foundational direction its going to benefit the rich and to set themselves over the poor with the notion that the people needs someone to oversee their potion of Reparations by set up foundations to speak on behalf of these descendents of former Slaves here in America. I stand fiorindividual Reparations for the people. As they were commissioned to study Reparations at the starting tune of a quarter million dollars to come up with a harm report is almost criminal in my estimation. Reports that the controllers committed the crimes which affords us the descendents of former slaves to Ask and expect Reparations. Absent from the report is current affairs. We need more information on the current effects on slavery crimes. Our current fight is against these so called leader who leads for personal gain and not us as a whole nation of descendents rightfully owed compensations, return of land, payment for countless murders, the indoctrinations., cruelty suffered by these descendents of former Slaves. Their words full of middlemen and Gatekeepers. Im very disappointed at this so called 250,000 Harm report and look forward to seeing the breakdown on how the money was spent! Is this a pay for play task force.? Finally is the task force getting paid for this study. And if that facts found along with evidence gathered cost 250,000, something that college students could have presented this level of information. I hope that this board would include members that truly wants Reparations for all deserving descendents of former slave
Reparations train: Civil Rights Advocates and labor consultants; let me set records straight, Ive been fighting for Reparations for quite some time. Seeing a foundational direction that its going in to benefit the rich and to set themselves over the poor with the notion that the people needs someone to oversee their potion of Reparations by setting up foundations to speak on behalf of these descendents of former Slaves here in America. I stand for individual Reparations for the people. As this board was commissioned to study Reparations at the starting tune of a quarter million dollars to come up with a harm report is almost criminal in my estimation. Reports that the controllers committed the crimes which affords us the descendents of former slaves to Ask and expect Reparations. Absent from the report is current affairs. We need more information on the current effects on slavery crimes. Our current fight is against these so called leader who leads for personal gain and not for us as a whole nation of descendents rightfully owed compensations, return of land, payment for countless murders, the indoctrinations., cruelty suffered by these descendents of former Slaves. Their words full of middlemen and Gatekeepers. Im very disappointed at this so called 250,000 Harm report and look forward to seeing the breakdown on how the money was spent! Is this a pay for play task force.? Finally is the task force getting paid for this study. And if that facts found along with evidence gathered cost 250,000, something that college students could have presented at this level of information. I hope that this board would include members that truly wants Reparations for all deserving descendents of former slave