By Robert D. Speed Jr
For over a century, America has accumulated receipts—proof of policies, decisions, and actions that have systematically oppressed Black and marginalized communities. From redlining to mass incarceration, voter suppression to environmental racism, the ledger is long and irrefutable. Yet, even in 2025, our nation remains reluctant to reckon with these injustices in any meaningful way. The 100 Years of Receipts campaign is not about simply remembering history; it is about demanding accountability and justice for the harm that continues to shape our present.
Consider this receipt: In 1934, the Federal Housing Administration established redlining practices that denied mortgages in Black neighborhoods. Nearly a century later, these same communities suffer from higher rates of asthma, heart disease, and maternal mortality due to environmental hazards, medical redlining, and lack of healthcare infrastructure. This is not ancient history; it is a public health crisis claiming lives today. The receipts connect these dots with undeniable clarity.
The Constitutional Crisis of Systemic Racism
America prides itself on being a nation governed by the rule of law, yet it consistently bends those laws to maintain racial hierarchies. The 14th Amendment guarantees equal protection under the law, but how equal is a legal system that disproportionately criminalizes Black and Brown bodies? The Voting Rights Act was meant to safeguard democracy, yet state legislatures manipulate district lines and impose restrictive ID laws to dilute the political power of communities of color. These contradictions reveal a constitutional crisis—one that the courts and lawmakers have largely failed to resolve. This failure of legal institutions directly enables the moral bankruptcy that follows.
Moral Ambiguity and America’s Selective Memory
The constitutional failures that allow systemic racism to persist are matched only by America’s remarkable ability to forget its own sins while demanding accountability from others. The same nation that condemns human rights abuses abroad remains silent on the forced sterilization of Black women in U.S. prisons, the poisoning of Black communities through environmental racism, and the violent displacement of families through predatory housing practices. This selective amnesia represents not just a failure of memory, but a deliberate strategy of evasion. 100 Years of Receipts forces the country to confront this moral ambiguity head-on, making it impossible to continue this pattern of convenient forgetting.
Family Separation: A Legacy, Not an Anomaly
The debate over immigration policies and family separation at the border often ignores a deeper truth: America has been separating families for centuries. Enslavement ripped children from their parents. Indigenous boarding schools forced assimilation by erasing culture and severing familial bonds. The foster care system disproportionately targets Black families, mirroring the same state-sanctioned disruption of kinship networks. Family separation is not a policy debate—it is a recurring pattern of racial violence that directly impacts physical and mental health across generations.
The Progress Myth: Beyond Symbolic Victories
Some will point to civil rights legislation, the election of Black officials, or the dismantling of Jim Crow laws as evidence that America has moved beyond its racist past. These hard-won victories deserve recognition. But meaningful progress requires more than symbolic wins or incremental reforms. Some point to health insurance expansion or diversity initiatives as evidence of progress. But these measures, while important, fail to address the root causes of health disparities. True progress requires acknowledging how racial capitalism has profited from Black pain—from pharmaceutical pricing that makes medications unaffordable to insurance models that exclude the most vulnerable. The economic cost of systemic racism amounts to billions in preventable healthcare spending and lost productivity, making this not just a moral imperative but an economic one.
The 100 Years of Receipts Campaign: A Blueprint for Justice
Defy Racism Collective’s 100 Years of Receipts campaign is not just a historical project—it is a call to action. By exposing the policies that have shaped systemic oppression, we aim to:
- Mobilize communities through education and advocacy.
- Push for policy reforms that address ongoing racial disparities in housing, healthcare, and criminal justice. We advocate for specific legislative recognition of systemic racism as a public health crisis, following the model of municipalities that have already made such declarations. These declarations must be backed by concrete investments in healthcare infrastructure in historically redlined neighborhoods, environmental remediation in communities disproportionately exposed to toxins, and maternal health initiatives to address the Black maternal mortality crisis.
- Hold institutions accountable by demanding reparative actions, from land restitution to economic investments in historically neglected communities.
We’re not just collecting receipts—we’re presenting the bill. Through these concrete actions, we make it impossible to ignore the constitutional and moral crisis of systemic racism. If America truly values justice, then it’s time to recognize systemic racism as the public health emergency it is—and finally pay what it owes.
This op-ed is part of the Defy Racism Collective’s ongoing campaign to expose, educate, and activate communities in the fight for racial justice.