Bittker examined closely, but in the end dismissed as unpromising, the idea of filing lawsuits over blacks’ past maltreatment. For Bittker, it made sense to pursue reparations not through litigation but through legislation funded from government revenues. And in the years that followed, the U.S. did just that, in a way by vastly increasing spending on social welfare, education, housing and urban programs, aimed primarily at relieving black poverty, as well as taking explicitly compensatory and race-based steps in the schools and workplace- though these were no specifically designates as reparations (Olson