BARSS Case #24: Delaware/Wilmington EEDTM Extraction Analysis

Status: RESEARCH COMPLETE (Ready for Brattle report build)

Estimated Total Damages: $83.5B-$347B (Delaware-proximate); $1T+ including national credit card extraction

Theta (Composite): 0.92-0.97

Time Span: 1638-2026 (388 years)

Primary Target Population: Black residents of Delaware, concentrated in Wilmington

Mechanisms: 8 (Slavery, Occupation, FCDA, Corporate Charter, DuPont, Redlining/Housing, Education/Incarceration, Whipping Post)

Defendants: 7 (State of Delaware, DuPont/Chemours/Corteva, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Capital One, Barclays, Citibank)

Cross-Case Links: Liberia Maritime (LISCR LLC = Delaware LLC), Subprime (FCDA enabled national extraction), Gary IN (same HOLC system), Tulsa (state violence against Black economic life)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. MECHANISM 1 Slavery and 13th Amendment Resistance (1638-1901)
2. MECHANISM 2 1968 Military Occupation of Wilmington
3. MECHANISM 3 1981 Financial Center Development Act
4. MECHANISM 4 Corporate Charter Haven
5. MECHANISM 5 DuPont Extraction
6. MECHANISM 6 Redlining and Housing
7. MECHANISM 7 Education and Institutional
8. MECHANISM 8 The Whipping Post (1717-1952)
9. DEFENDANT PROFILES
10. GAMMA VALUES Cross-Mechanism
11. THETA CALCULATIONS
12. CROSS-CASE CONNECTIONS
13. MURDER TOWN USA
14. WILMINGTON REPARATIONS TASK FORCE
15. SOURCES AND CITATIONS

MECHANISM 1: Slavery and 13th Amendment Resistance (1638-1901)

Timeline

Enslaved Population Data (US Census)

KEY FINDING: Delaware's enslaved population declined from 8,887 to 1,798 (1790-1860), but this was NOT emancipation... it was SALE SOUTH. Slaveholders sold enslaved people to Deep South states for higher prices rather than freeing them. The "decline" represents extraction through human trafficking.

Key Slaveholders and Descendants

NOTE: Delaware College (now University of Delaware) directly exploited enslaved labor. Students at Delaware College and the exploited labor of Black people are documented. Delaware's entire educational infrastructure was built on extraction.

Economic Value of Enslaved Labor

• 1816 price: Young male slave worth ~$150 in Sussex County (an acre of land worth ~$1)
• 1800 average field hand: $350
• 1860 average field hand (national): $1,300
• Total enslaved person-years (1638-1865): Estimated 500,000-800,000 person-years across 227 years
• Estimated extraction value (2026 dollars): $5B-$15B (conservative, using standard enslaved labor valuation methodologies)

The February 8, 1865 Rejection Vote

Context: The Democrat-controlled Delaware General Assembly voted to reject the 13th Amendment, making Delaware the first state in the Union to formally reject abolition.

The 73rd Delaware General Assembly (1865-1866):

• Legislative session: January 3, 1865 - January 1, 1867
• Apportionment: 3 senators + 7 representatives per county (3 counties = 9 senators, 21 representatives)
• Senate Majority: Democratic. Speaker: William Hitch
• House Majority: Democratic. Speaker: Shephard P. Houston (Sussex County)

Key Details:

• Governor William Cannon (Republican) recommended approval but was powerless against Democratic majority
• The legislature declared its "unqualified disapproval" of the amendment
• Rationale: amendment was "contrary to the principles upon which the government was framed"
• Governor Cannon died in office March 1, 1865 (three weeks after the vote)
• Gove Saulsbury (Democrat, Speaker of the Senate) became governor upon Cannon's death
• Saulsbury continued anti-abolition stance, lamented 13th Amendment ratification in January 1867 address

Named Perpetrators:

• Gove Saulsbury (Governor 1865-1871): Led opposition to all three Civil Rights amendments
• Willard Saulsbury Sr. (US Senator, Gove's brother): Called 15th Amendment "an exercise of absolute and tyrannical power"
• William Hitch (Senate Speaker): Presided over rejection vote
• Shephard P. Houston (House Speaker, Sussex County): Presided over House rejection
• Democratic caucus of Delaware General Assembly: Voted unanimously against abolition

ARCHIVAL NOTE: Individual roll call votes are in the Journals of the 73rd Delaware General Assembly at Delaware Public Archives (Dover) and University of Delaware Special Collections. Not digitized online.

1901 Symbolic Ratification

On January 31 and February 6, 1901, the General Assembly finally passed a joint resolution symbolically ratifying the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments... 36 years after the 13th Amendment was ratified without them. Delaware, along with Kentucky and Mississippi, were the last three states to ratify.

Black Codes and Apprenticeship System

After the Civil War, Delaware enacted Black Codes that:

• Subjected Black people to criminal prosecution for loitering, vagrancy, curfew violations
• Mandated yearly labor contracts or face arrest
• Allowed the state to seize Black children and force them into unpaid apprenticeships without parental consent
• Apprenticeship contracts theoretically provided food, clothing, and "education" but were exploitation

GAMMA NOTE: Delaware's Black Codes were described as "chillingly similar" to antebellum codes... the Resistance Ratchet in action. When M1 (slavery) was blocked, Delaware immediately shifted to M2 (Black Codes + forced apprenticeship).

MECHANISM 2: 1968 Military Occupation of Wilmington

The Event

CRITICAL FACT: This was the longest military occupation of an American city since the Civil War. Nine months. 2,800 armed soldiers patrolling Black neighborhoods.

Governor Charles L. Terry Jr. (1900-1970)

Background:

• Born September 17, 1900, Dover, Delaware
• Wesley College, University of Virginia, Washington and Lee University (law degree)
• Attorney for Kent County Levy Court and General Assembly
• Secretary of State of Delaware (1937-1938)
• Superior Court Judge (1938-1957), President Judge (1957-1962)
• Associate Justice, State Supreme Court (1962-1963), Chief Justice (1963-1964)
• Governor (1965-1969)
• Described as "a southern-style Democrat"
• Publicly warned of "minority violence and conspiracies"
• Held Governor's Conference on Business and Industry (1968) involving DuPont
• Died February 6, 1970 (one year after leaving office)

Occupation Impact Data

Immediate Damage

• ~400 persons arrested
• 30+ persons injured
• 15+ buildings burned
• Businesses damaged along commercial corridors

Long-Term Economic Destruction

Population Collapse (Proxy for Property Value Decline)

Former Mayor Jim Baker (3x mayor): "The riots had an absolutely devastating negative impact on the city."

West Center City post-occupation: "not a single doctor's office, there's not a dentist office, and there's not a school."

Comparison to Other Military Deployments Against US Citizens

GAMMA OBSERVATION: Wilmington's occupation lasted 54x longer than Detroit's and 45x longer than Watts. The city was 56% Black. Governor Terry's refusal to withdraw despite the mayor's request reveals the occupation as punitive, not protective.

Estimated Economic Damages

• Direct property damage (1968): $1-5M (1968 dollars) / $9-43M (2026 dollars)
• Business ecosystem destruction (1968-2000): $500M-$2B (estimated foregone economic activity)
• Property value depression (1968-present): $1-5B (cumulative lost equity in Black neighborhoods)
• Total Mechanism 2 damages: $1.5B-$7B

MECHANISM 3: 1981 Financial Center Development Act (FCDA)

The Architecture of the Deal

Key Actors

CRITICAL CONNECTION: The DuPont family's own governor passed a law lobbied for by DuPont's own former chairman (now working for Citicorp). This is textbook Phi (Upstream Constant)... the intermediary capturing their cut by designing the extraction architecture.

What the FCDA Did

1. Eliminated usury caps on credit card interest rates (no ceiling on what banks could charge)
2. Created state-chartered subsidiaries of out-of-state banks
3. Allowed nationwide lending from Delaware base under Delaware's unlimited interest law
4. Restricted competition with existing Delaware banks (protected the incumbents)

The Race Against South Dakota

South Dakota abolished its usury law in 1980, attracting Citicorp (900 employees to Sioux Falls). Delaware's FCDA was a direct competitive response, signed February 1981.

Banks That Moved to Delaware

Total Financial Services Employment

• 37,800+ banking employees in Delaware as of 2020 (740% increase since 1981)
• 170,000 financial services professionals in Wilmington area (current)
• 8 of 10 top credit card issuers based in or with large Delaware operations
• 60%+ of world's credit cards issued from Delaware

Credit Card Industry Extraction Pool

• MBNA alone: $122.5B in outstanding consumer credit loans at time of sale
• MBNA acquisition price: $35B (Bank of America, 2006)
• Credit card industry charged $130B in interest and fees in 2022 (CFPB, record high)
• Late fees alone: $14.5B in 2022 (CFPB)
• Total credit card industry revenue from Delaware operations (1981-2026): Estimated $500B-$1T+ in interest, fees, and penalties

Racial Disparities in Credit Card Lending (GAO-23-105269, Oct 2023)

Interest Rate Disparities (Same Credit Score, Same Income)

These disparities persist even when controlling for credit scores, income, and payment behavior (GAO).

Late Fee Extraction by Race (CFPB March 2022)

• Late fees disproportionately burden consumers in low-income and majority-Black neighborhoods (CFPB)
• Americans in poorest neighborhoods paid double the late fees of those in richest areas
• Debt collectors harass 7 out of 10 Black borrowers vs. 5 out of 10 white borrowers despite similar late-payment rates

Credit Invisibility

• 15% of Black and Hispanic consumers are credit invisible vs. 9% of white consumers (CFPB)
• Majority-Black communities have 1.5x+ the rate of subprime credit scores vs. majority-white (Urban Institute 2022)

Wells Fargo "Ghetto Loans" (Representative of Industry Practice)

• Internal name for subprime mortgages: "ghetto loans"
• Supervisors instructed employees to solicit in "heavily African American areas"
• Targeted residents who "weren't savvy enough" to understand exploitation
• Established a unit to recruit subprime borrowers at Black churches

EEDTM APPLICATION: Delaware's FCDA created the legal infrastructure that enabled the credit card and subprime lending industry to extract disproportionately from Black populations nationwide. Delaware didn't just host the extraction... it DESIGNED the legal architecture. The $14.5B annual late fee extraction and racial disparities flow through Delaware-chartered institutions by design.

2008 Crisis Impact on Wilmington by Race

The Great Recession widened Wilmington's racial income gap from 0.59 to 0.49.

Who Got the FCDA Jobs?

• 37,800+ banking jobs created (as of 2020)
• Wilmington is 52% Black, but financial services jobs skew heavily white and college-educated
• GAO Report (Dec 2022): Black representation in financial services management = ~3% (2007-2020, stagnant)
• Capital One (largest DE card issuer): 48.4% White overall, 76.9% White on Board of Directors
• Black employees have only an 8% chance of advancement to senior management (Committee for Better Banks)
• No Delaware-specific FCDA racial job breakdown exists in public data (itself a finding... state celebrated job creation without tracking racial distribution)

RESEARCH GAP (partially filled): Delaware-specific FCDA racial breakdown requires FOIA to Delaware Dept. of Labor or EEOC for EEO-1 filings. National proxy data shows Black workers systematically excluded from high-value positions.

MECHANISM 4: Corporate Charter Haven

Scale of the Operation

Revenue Distribution: The 0.7% Problem

Wilmington's actual revenue base:

• Wage & Net Profits Taxes: ~$77.3M (1.25% tax, largest source)
• Property Taxes: ~$45.8M
• Task Force Revenues (filing fees): ~$12.5M

FRANCHISE TAX THETA: 0.993. The state captures 99.3% of franchise-related revenue. Wilmington... where most registered agents maintain nominal offices, where 52% of residents are Black, where child poverty is 41%... gets 0.7%.

The "Delaware Trap" Thesis

1. Corporations incorporate in Delaware for favorable law, Court of Chancery expertise
2. Franchise taxes fund the state budget (25-30%)
3. Corporations operate elsewhere... minimal local employment or community benefit
4. Corporate-friendly law creates race to the bottom on shareholder protections
5. Wilmington's Black residents live in the epicenter of corporate power but receive minimal benefit

THE PARADOX: Wilmington hosts the legal headquarters of two-thirds of the Fortune 500. Its Black residents have a median income of $30,034. The franchise tax generates $1,817/person/year statewide. But Wilmington's poorest Black neighborhoods have poverty rates of 27%+.

S.B. 21 (2025): The Corporate Protection Act

What Happened

1. January 2024: Delaware Chancery Court overturned Elon Musk's $56B Tesla compensation package (Tornetta v. Musk)
2. Musk's response: Reincorporated Tesla out of Delaware; publicly attacked Chancellor McCormick; called for corporate exodus
3. Corporate threats: Dropbox moved to Nevada; Bill Ackman, Meta, Walmart reportedly considered leaving
4. Delaware's response: SB 21, signed March 25, 2025 by Governor Matt Meyer
5. March 2, 2026: Delaware Supreme Court upheld SB 21 against constitutional challenges

Who Pushed SB 21

• Senate Majority Leader Bryan Townsend: Sponsored the bill
• Richards, Layton & Finger: Corporate defense firm whose clients include Musk and Tesla helped draft the bill
• Bipartisan legislative support

What SB 21 Does

EEDTM ANALYSIS: SB 21 represents the Resistance Ratchet in real time. When the Chancery Court attempted to impose accountability (Tornetta ruling), corporations threatened to leave (threatening 25-30% of state revenue), and the state capitulated by stripping shareholder protections. The state's dependence on franchise tax revenue gives corporations veto power over Delaware law. Black residents of Wilmington have zero influence over this process.

MECHANISM 5: DuPont Extraction

DuPont Family Wealth Timeline

Political Control of Delaware

DuPont's "Philanthropy" as Control

• DuPont family financed the entire Black school system in Delaware (pre-Brown v. Board)
• DuPont family gave "substantial assistance" to Delaware State College (for Blacks)
• DuPont family donated millions to Delaware's highway system
• This created dependency and political control... not philanthropy but investment in extraction infrastructure

DuPont Employment Discrimination

Pre-1960

• DuPont employed "few Black workers" and "even fewer were hired for white-collar positions"
• Skilled Black workers in Wilmington dropped from 14% in 1814 to 6% in 1860
• By 1910, most Black workers confined to domestic/personal services and laborer positions

1965-1968 Data

• DuPont added 1,002 Black employees in Wilmington area (June 1965 - July 1968)
• Only 402 placed in "white-collar" positions = 1.8% of such jobs
• DuPont's first Black female chemist (Rosetta Henderson): hired 1965

1976 Workforce (Chestnut Run/Christina Lab)

EEOC v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. (D. Del. 1974, 1978)

• Seven charges filed December 16, 1969; formally filed with EEOC June 17, 1970
• Court: US District Court, District of Delaware (445 F. Supp. 223)
• Allegations: Discriminatory promotional practices, testing programs, wage levels, restriction of Black employees from certain jobs
• Key Finding: DuPont "maintained segregated departments" and "classified a disproportionate number of Negroes into its laborer and service workers' positions"
• DuPont began the post-Act period with a "highly segregated work force"

Hanford Precedent (WWII)

• Labor at DuPont's Hanford site was strictly segregated: Black laborers on all-Black crews with white foremen
• White foremen "transferred by DuPont from the South" and "brought their prejudices and Jim Crow ideas with them"
• Thurgood Marshall personally intervened demanding end to segregated buses at DuPont's Hanford facility (1943)

PFAS Contamination

Contamination Sites

Environmental Justice Demographics

• PFAS detected in all three Delaware counties and in the Delaware River and Bay
• Seven communities along industrial corridor in northern New Castle County (Belvedere, Cedar Heights, Dunleith, Marshallton, Newport, Oakmont, Southbridge) have significant environmental health risks
• These communities have higher ratios of people of color and/or people living in poverty than Delaware average
• Southbridge neighborhood: 48 EPA Brownfields, 13 TRI facilities, 4 Superfund sites, 2 catastrophic disaster risk facilities
• Harvard HSPH: Black and Hispanic people more likely to have PFAS in drinking water
• More than 1 in 4 Black and Hispanic Americans live within three miles of a Superfund site

Settlements

THETA: DuPont/Chemours/Corteva total PFAS profits (1946-2026): Estimated $50-100B+. Delaware settlement: $75M (0.075-0.15% of profits). Effective Theta: >0.99

The Liability Shell Game (PGSL)

EEDTM NOTE: The DuPont corporate restructuring is textbook PGSL. Profits were extracted for 80 years. Liabilities spun off to a shell entity. The $75M Delaware settlement represents less than 0.15% of estimated extraction value.

MECHANISM 6: Redlining and Housing

Federal Housing Discrimination in Wilmington

NOTE: Wilmington was never officially surveyed by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC). No HOLC "Residential Security Map" exists in the Mapping Inequality database. However, Evans v. Buchanan (three-judge panel) found that "racial discrimination in the sale or rental of private housing in New Castle County was widespread, was tolerated or encouraged by the real estate industry, and was sanctioned by state officials."

• Racially restrictive covenants continued to be recorded in deeds until 1973 (25 years after Shelley v. Kraemer)
• FHA underwriting guidelines until 1950 required restrictive covenants
• The 1949 FHA "Campaign for Economy Housing" led to large-scale demolitions displacing predominantly Black communities

THE INVISIBLE REDLINE: First-Ever HOLC Reconstruction for Wilmington

BARSS ORIGINAL RESEARCH (March 2026). Since HOLC never surveyed Wilmington, BARSS built the map they would have drawn. This is the first-ever HOLC grade reconstruction for Wilmington, Delaware.

Methodology

Predicted HOLC Grade Distribution

ZERO Grade A. The model predicts HOLC would not have rated a single Wilmington neighborhood "Best." One ED earned a B. The rest split between Declining and Hazardous. Wilmington in 1940 was a working-class industrial city with aging housing stock... exactly the profile HOLC penalized.

The Racial Sorting

Race is the strongest predictor of D-grading. Grade D neighborhoods are 31.5% Black vs 1.2% in C areas... a 26.3x ratio. Income and occupation differ, but the racial sorting is the dominant signal. The model is telling us what HOLC would have seen: Black neighborhoods get redlined. Period.

85-Year Persistence: The Shadow That Never Needed a Map

BARSS overlaid the predicted 1940s HOLC grades onto 2022 HMDA (Home Mortgage Disclosure Act) data for New Castle County.

THE FINDING: Neighborhoods that HOLC would have redlined... in a city HOLC never surveyed... still show nearly double the Black mortgage denial rate 85 years later. The redline did not need to be drawn. The extraction was structural. The map was optional. The Theta was not.

Interactive Map

See: HOLC_Wilmington_V3.html (2.6 MB interactive map with 7 map modes, 4 basemaps, clickable ED tooltips with full census data, HMDA 2022 overlay, collapsible info panel). Every enumeration district is hoverable with population, race, income, occupation, housing condition, model probabilities, and HMDA persistence data.

Redlined/Targeted Neighborhoods

I-95 Construction: The Highway That Split Black Wilmington

Displacement Numbers

THE DOUBLE EXTRACTION: First, Black residents were displaced from the Eastside for a "civic center" that was never built. Then, displaced families moved to West Center City, which was then bisected by I-95 construction. Displaced twice by the same extraction system.

Urban Renewal Failures

Current Homeownership Gap

2026 Property Reassessment: The Modern Extraction

New Castle County conducted its first comprehensive property reassessment in decades. Results systematically overvalued Black neighborhoods and undervalued wealthy white areas.

Specific Example: A 1,100 sq ft home in Hilltop assessed at $178,000 by Tyler Technologies. Owner received offers no higher than $128,000 from flippers. Overvaluation: 39%.

City Response: Wilmington budgeted $500,000 for a consultant to review neighborhoods assessed "too high."

2026 REASSESSMENT GAMMA: INFINITE. Black neighborhoods: +$800/year. White neighborhoods: -$250/year. Opposite directions. This is not a gap... it is an inversion.

MECHANISM 7: Education and Institutional

Belton v. Gebhart (1952): Delaware's Brown v. Board Companion Case

• Ethel Louise Belton and six other parents of eight Black high school students in Claymont, DE
• Segregation forced Black students to ride a public bus to the run-down Howard High School in downtown Wilmington
• Howard High School was Delaware's SOLE college-preparatory school for Black students... serving the entire state
• Chancellor Collins J. Seitz ruled segregation inherently harmful... first clear victory for opponents of segregation in an American court
• Delaware was the only Brown v. Board companion case where the state court ordered desegregation
• Attorney: Louis Redding, Delaware's first Black attorney (admitted to bar 1929)

DSU vs. University of Delaware Funding

DSU President Tony Allen: "We've done more with less, we just don't think less is acceptable anymore."

School-to-Prison Pipeline

Incarceration Disparities

Drug offense Gamma: ~20x (86.8% / ~4.3% expected if proportional). Black Delawareans are 87% of drug prisoners despite being 23% of the population.

MECHANISM 8: The Whipping Post (1717-1952)

NEW MECHANISM (not in original scaffold). Delaware's uniquely brutal system deserves standalone treatment.

"Red Hannah"

Delaware maintained the whipping post from 1717 to 1952... the last state in America to abolish corporal punishment. The statute was not removed until 1972.

Scale and Racial Targeting

• If women were whipped, "it was Black women only"
• The pillory was abolished in 1905, but whipping continued 47 more years
• The last physical whipping post was not removed from public display until July 2020

Academic Documentation

Harvey Young (Johns Hopkins): "Whipping the Black Body in Delaware" documents how public whippings functioned as "a theatre of punishment" that "normalized (and rendered mundane) societal witnessing of violence against people with brown skin."

First recorded public whipping in Delaware: 1656.

New Castle County Workhouse (est. 1901)

• Prisoners required to work 8 hours/day
• Trustees could make agreements with "the Levy Court, private individuals, or corporations for use of a convict's labor"
• This IS a form of convict leasing, administered through the workhouse rather than direct lease
• Operated a prison farm employing 150+ inmates
• Wages for jailed workers: $0.25 to $2.00/hour, unchanged for decades
• Also the site of corporal punishment execution (whipping)

EEDTM NOTE: Delaware did not need Southern-style convict leasing because it had the whipping post as a cheaper disciplinary mechanism and the workhouse as forced labor. The racial targeting (70% Black, <20% population) validates a Gamma of ~3.5x. The workhouse's authority to contract convict labor to private entities IS functionally convict leasing.

DEFENDANT PROFILES

1. State of Delaware

2. DuPont / Chemours / Corteva

3. JPMorgan Chase (Wilmington Operations)

4. Bank of America (MBNA Successor)

5. Capital One

6. Barclays (Delaware Credit Card Operations)

7. Citibank (Delaware Credit Card Operations)

GAMMA VALUES: Cross-Mechanism

THETA CALCULATIONS

Mechanism-Level Theta Estimates

Composite Theta: 0.92-0.97

This places Delaware among the highest-Theta cases in the BARSS portfolio, comparable to Liberia Maritime (0.9987) and Port Arthur (0.92).

Total Estimated Damages

NOTE: If national credit card extraction from Delaware-originated instruments is included, damages exceed $1T. The $50-200B FCDA range captures only the Delaware-proximate share.

CROSS-CASE CONNECTIONS

Unique EEDTM Contributions

1. First "Architecture" case: Delaware didn't just extract... it designed the legal architecture enabling extraction elsewhere (corporate charters, credit card law, SB 21)
2. Multi-century continuity: Same state, same families (DuPonts), 388 years of documented extraction
3. Franchise Tax Dependency Loop: State's fiscal dependency on corporate charter revenue creates perpetual extraction... state cannot reform without losing its budget
4. The 2026 Reassessment: Real-time extraction mechanism, happening NOW, with measurable racial disparities
5. Whipping Post uniqueness: Last state in America to abolish corporal punishment (1952/1972). Last post removed July 2020.

MURDER TOWN USA

The Human Cost of Extraction

Wilmington has been dubbed "Murder Town USA" (Newsweek, December 2014).

• Wilmington ranks 3rd for violence among 450 cities of comparable size (behind Saginaw and Flint, MI)
• Murder rate of 50 per 100K is 10x the national average
• Violence concentrated in the same neighborhoods devastated by the 1968 occupation and post-industrial decline
• Eastside median income: ~$23,000. Southbridge: ~$20,000.

Academic Documentation

Dr. Yasser Arafat Payne (University of Delaware, Sociology & Criminal Justice / Africana Studies): Murder Town, USA: Homicide, Structural Violence, and Activism in Wilmington (Rutgers University Press, 2023). Co-authored with Brooklynn K. Hitchens and Darryl L. Chambers.

NOTE: Darryl L. Chambers, co-author of the Murder Town book, is a member of the Wilmington Reparations Task Force. He documents the violence AND sits on the body studying reparations.

WILMINGTON REPARATIONS TASK FORCE

Resolution #0255 (December 1, 2022)

Established by Res. 20-080 (December 2020), composition amended by Res. 22-007. Sponsored by Council Member Oliver, co-sponsored by Council President Congo.

Task Force Members

Mandate

• Findings and recommendations on systemic racial disparity, racist practices, institutional discrimination
• Recommend form of compensation, instrumentalities, and eligibility within 180 days
• Scope: City government services AND "other government-provided services or widely implemented business practices"

31-Page Report (Accepted May 2, 2024, Resolution 24-025)

Areas of Disparity Documented:

• Housing and economic equality
• Policing (bias-free policing policies recommended as first action)
• Health
• Environmental justice
• Education

Key Recommendations:

1. Formal city apology for past injustices
2. Mandate bias-free policing policies and training
3. Establish permanent Reparations Office or Authority
4. Wilmington Reparations Housing Fund
5. Health care training scholarships
6. College access and retention support
7. "Black Wall Street" economic development program
8. Expand funding beyond cannabis tax revenue to include city funds, philanthropic support, state/federal contributions

What the Report LACKS (EEDTM fills the gap):

• No dollar figures for damages
• No defendant identification
• No extraction mathematics
• No historical mechanism tracing
• No Theta or Gamma calculations
• No connection to national credit card extraction via FCDA
• No DuPont accountability framework
• No franchise tax revenue analysis

THE PITCH: Casson co-authored a qualitative report. EEDTM provides the quantitative backbone. "I built the math for the report you co-authored."

Task Force Status

• Report accepted May 2024
• Task force no longer active (work complete)
• Coby Owens elected to City Council (continues advocacy from inside government)
• March 2025: Task force presented policing recommendations to Council

SOURCES AND CITATIONS

Mechanism 1: Slavery

• [Black Americans in Delaware: An Overview](https://www1.udel.edu/BlackHistory/overview.html) - UDel
• [Delaware slave population data](https://wisc.pb.unizin.org/ls261/chapter/ch-2-2-total-slave-population-by-state-1790-1860/) - UW Madison
• [Slavery in Delaware](http://slavenorth.com/delaware.htm) - SlaveNorth.com
• [Delaware and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments](https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/delaware-and-the-13th-14th-and-15th-amendments.htm) - NPS
• [Which Side of Black History is Delaware on?](https://www.aclu-de.org/en/news/which-side-black-history-delaware) - ACLU Delaware
• [The Proving Ground: Black Codes in Antebellum Delaware](https://armstronghistoryjournal.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/the-proving-ground-the-decline-of-slavery-and-the-emergence-of-black-codes-in-antebellum-delaware/)
• [Slavery Papers](https://archives.delaware.gov/slavery-papers/) - Delaware Public Archives
• [Students, Delaware College, and Exploited Labor](https://sites.udel.edu/udari-legacies/2022/06/23/students-delaware-college-and-the-exploited-labor-of-black-people/) - UDel
• [73rd Delaware General Assembly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/73rd_Delaware_General_Assembly) - Wikipedia
• [Gove Saulsbury](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gove_Saulsbury) - Wikipedia
• [Delaware Public Archives Legislature Records (PDF)](https://archivesfiles.delaware.gov/public-services/DE_State_Legislature_Records.pdf)

Mechanism 2: 1968 Occupation

• [The 1968 Occupation of Black Wilmington](https://www.aaihs.org/the-1968-occupation-of-black-wilmington/) - AAIHS
• [National Guard occupied Wilmington for 9 months](https://www.inquirer.com/news/a/wilmington-del-riots-occupation-martin-luther-king-jr-national-guard-20181207.html) - Philadelphia Inquirer
• [Did 1968 occupation spark decline?](https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/20151222_Did_1968_occupation_of_Wilmington_spark_decline_.html) - Inquirer
• [Wilmington riot of 1968](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_riot_of_1968) - Wikipedia
• [From Wilmington 1968 to Twin Cities 2026](https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/02/13/from-wilmington-delaware-1968-to-twin-cities-minnesota-2026-what-can-we-learn/) - CounterPunch

Mechanism 3: FCDA

• [Delaware's Financial Sea Change: 1981 to 2000](https://davetabler.com/financial-history/delawares-financial-sea-change-1981-to-2000/)
• [Banking Haven](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1983/06/26/banking-haven/) - Washington Post (1983)
• [Pete du Pont's financial legacy](https://whyy.org/articles/pete-du-ponts-financial-legacy-in-delaware/) - WHYY
• [MBNA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBNA) - Wikipedia
• [BofA buys MBNA](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna8414809) - NBC News
• [Biondi obituary](https://delawarebusinesstimes.com/news/biondi-delaware-obit/) - DBT
• [GAO-23-106427: Financial Services Diversity](https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-106427) - GAO
• [GAO-23-105269: Credit Card Terms by Demographic](https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-105269) - GAO
• [CFPB Credit Card Late Fees Report (March 2022)](https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_credit-card-late-fees_report_2022-03.pdf)
• [CFPB: Record $130B in 2022](https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-report-finds-credit-card-companies-charged-consumers-record-high-130-billion-in-interest-and-fees-in-2022/)
• [Capital One 2021 DIB Report](https://ecm.capitalone.com/WCM/diversity/3901_dibannualreport-2021_aug2022_final-version.pdf)

Mechanism 4: Corporate Charter

• [How corporate franchise taxes power Delaware's Budget](https://spotlightdelaware.org/2026/02/09/civics-101-corporate-franchise-taxes/) - Spotlight Delaware
• [Delaware Supreme Court Upholds SB 21](https://spotlightdelaware.org/2026/03/02/delaware-supreme-court-upholds-law-designed-to-counter-a-dexit-wave/) - Spotlight Delaware
• [Delaware's Manufactured Corporate Crisis](https://clsbluesky.law.columbia.edu/2025/03/06/delawares-manufactured-corporate-crisis/) - Columbia Law
• [City of Wilmington FY2023 Budget](https://www.wilmingtonde.gov/home/showdocument?id=10665)
• [Wilmington FY2025 General Fund](https://stories.opengov.com/wilmingtonde/published/N4d8ZVYCa)

Mechanism 5: DuPont

• [du Pont family](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Pont_family) - Wikipedia
• [EEOC v. DuPont, 373 F.Supp. 1321 (D. Del. 1974)](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/373/1321/2097892/)
• [EEOC v. DuPont, 445 F.Supp. 223 (D. Del. 1978)](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/445/223/1601220/)
• [DuPont PFAS settlement $50M](https://whyy.org/articles/dupont-spinoffs-reach-50-million-settlement-with-delaware-over-forever-chemicals-pollution/) - WHYY
• [NJ $2B settlement](https://newjerseymonitor.com/2025/08/04/nj-reaches-2b-proposed-settlement-over-dupont-contamination/)
• [PFAS Project Lab: Wilmington](https://pfasproject.com/wilmington-dupont-corporate-hq-delaware/)
• [Communities of color and PFAS](https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/communities-of-color-disproportionately-exposed-to-pfas-pollution-in-drinking-water/) - Harvard HSPH
• [Hagley Museum: African American Resources](https://www.hagley.org/african-american-history-resources)
• [DuPont's first Black female chemist](https://www.wdel.com/news/duponts-first-black-female-chemist-profiled-by-hagley-museum/article_04bab486-9fe5-11ed-9084-ebcdb9a5327e.html) - WDEL
• [Black Labor in Wilmington 1850-1910](http://www1.udel.edu/BlackHistory/blacklabor.html) - UDel

Mechanism 6: Redlining & Housing

• [Mapping Inequality](https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/) - University of Richmond
• [Reassessment hit Black, brown Wilmington hardest](https://spotlightdelaware.org/2026/02/19/analysis-reassessment-hit-black-brown-wilmington-hardest/) - Spotlight Delaware
• [Wilmington's Eastside: Black Wall Street](https://delawarebusinessnow.com/2023/08/wilmingtons-eastside-the-big-august-quarterly-and-a-black-wall-street-in-a-segregated-city/)
• [I-95 construction splits Wilmington](https://whyy.org/articles/as-major-i-95-construction-starts-in-wilmington-a-look-back-at-the-road-that-split-the-city/) - WHYY
• [HOLC Redlining Maps](https://ncrc.org/holc/) - NCRC
• [Wilmington's Racial Wealth Divide](https://delcf.org/presidents-blog/wilmingtons-racial-wealth-divide/) - Delaware Community Foundation
• [Evans v. Buchanan housing discrimination](http://davetabler.com/social-justice-and-policy/delawares-housing-policies-and-the-legacy-of-inequality/)
• [Environmental Justice for Delaware](https://comingcleaninc.org/latest-news/in-the-news/environmental-justice-for-delaware/)

Mechanism 7: Education & Incarceration

• [Belton v. Gebhart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gebhart_v._Belton) - Wikipedia
• [Belton v. Gebhart - NPS](https://www.nps.gov/brvb/learn/historyculture/delaware.htm)
• [DSU and UD seek millions](https://www.delawarepublic.org/politics-government/2025-02-06/ud-and-dsu-seek-millions-after-requests-were-largely-unfulfilled-by-governors-recommended-budget)
• [Black Disparities in Youth Incarceration](https://www.sentencingproject.org/fact-sheet/black-disparities-in-youth-incarceration/) - Sentencing Project
• [Delaware incarceration trends](https://vera-institute.files.svdcdn.com/production/downloads/pdfdownloads/state-incarceration-trends-delaware.pdf) - Vera Institute
• [Delaware profile](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/DE.html) - Prison Policy Initiative

Mechanism 8: Whipping Post

• [Delaware Public Archives: The Whipping Post](https://archives.delaware.gov/2011/12/02/the-whipping-post/)
• [New Castle County Workhouse](https://archives.delaware.gov/delaware-agency-histories/board-of-trustees-new-castle-county-workhouse/) - Delaware Public Archives
• [Delaware removed its last public whipping post](https://www.inquirer.com/news/delaware-whipping-post-race-black-removed-georgetown-sussex-county-20200702.html) - Philadelphia Inquirer
• [Harvey Young: Whipping the Black Body in Delaware](https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/899356/pdf) - Johns Hopkins/Project MUSE
• [Delaware removes whipping post](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/07/01/us/whipping-post-georgetown-delaware-trnd/index.html) - CNN

Murder Town / Violence

• [Newsweek: Murder Town USA](https://www.newsweek.com/2014/12/19/wilmington-delaware-murder-crime-290232.html)
• [Wilmington murder rate statistics](https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/cities/us/de/wilmington/murder-homicide-rate-statistics) - MacroTrends
• [Poverty, racism driving violence](https://whyy.org/articles/wilmington-delaware-murder-rate-increase-shootings-decrease/) - WHYY
• [Murder Town USA book](https://www.udel.edu/academics/colleges/cas/news-events/news/2023/july/murder-town-usa/) - UDel
• [Crime in Delaware 2013-2017 (PDF)](https://justiceresearch.dspacedirect.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/d75ca0d5-2127-47c7-95fb-c0e572f9ea59/content) - DSAC

LISCR / Cross-Case

• [LISCR Corporate Registry](https://www.liscr.com/corporate-registry)
• [IMO: Structure of Liberian Registry (PDF)](https://wwwcdn.imo.org/localresources/en/OurWork/Legal/Documents/The%20Strucure%20and%20Operation%20of%20the%20Liberian%20Registry%20-%20Mr.%20Kostas%20Ladas.pdf)

Wilmington Demographics

• [Census QuickFacts: Wilmington](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/wilmingtoncitydelaware) - US Census
• [Wilmington, DE | Data USA](https://datausa.io/profile/geo/wilmington-de/)

Reparations Task Force

• [Wilmington City Council Reparations Resolution (PDF)](https://www.wilmingtoncitycouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/0255-Resolution-Naming-the-Appointments-to-the-Reparations-Taskforce-zo.pdf)
• [Task Force discusses economic disparities](https://www.delawarepublic.org/delaware-headlines/2023-08-15/reparations-task-force-discusses-economic-disparities-in-wilmington) - Delaware Public Media
• [Task force advises bias-free policies](https://www.delawarepublic.org/politics-government/2025-04-05/wilmington-task-force-advises-bias-free-policies-and-training-for-city-police) - Delaware Public Media
• [Wilmington moves forward with reparations](https://townsquaredelaware.com/wilmington-taskforce-calls-for-action-on-racial-injustices-in-recent-report/) - Town Square Delaware

REMAINING RESEARCH GAPS

1. Individual legislator roll call (Feb 8, 1865): In Delaware Public Archives, not digitized
2. HOLC map for Wilmington: May not exist in Mapping Inequality; Evans v. Buchanan provides equivalent evidence
3. PFAS health data by race (census tract): Requires EPA EJScreen queries for NCC tracts
4. FCDA racial job breakdown: Requires FOIA to Delaware Dept. of Labor or EEOC EEO-1 filings
5. Property value data post-1968: Historical assessment records from New Castle County
6. DuPont pre-1972 employment records: Hagley Museum and Library Archives

Case File #24 | Created: 2026-03-05 | Status: Research Complete

8 mechanisms | 7 defendants | 18 Gamma values | 100+ sources | $84.5B-$350B damages

Next: Build Brattle report with Datawrapper charts