No course of black conduct could have secured post-emancipation economic freedom

Evidence

What I learned was that there was nothing that black people could have done to forge a safe path to economic freedom and self-sufficiency. There was nothing they could have done to fulfill Reverend Frazier’s dream of sustaining themselves with a little something extra to spare. Everything they did would eventually put a target on their backs. There would be no underground railroad to aid their escape this time around—because there was no escape. They were largely on their own. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 246

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The strongest possible objection to reparations — that blacks could have individually succeeded — is preemptively dismantled with the claim that every path carried a target. This is the load-bearing counterargument removal for the whole case.
• XREF: connects to: Black self-help alone could not fund the massive costs of black education. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 423