Thirty-two years after H.R. 40 was introduced, a bill passed out of the House Judiciary Committee in April for consideration by the full House. But given the Senate filibuster and Republican hostility, an executive order is a more promising path to a reparations victory for Americans of African descent.
Waiting for Congress or the White House is not necessary. As we are showing here in Evanston, Ill., actual reparations, not just their study, can be enacted by cities nationwide. All it takes is determination, humility and an unwavering commitment to reparatory justice.
In 2017, when I ran for alderman in Evanston’s historically segregated 5th Ward, I little imagined that by the end of my term this spring, the City Council would have enacted the country’s first government-funded local reparations program for African Americans.
But I knew the idea had been introduced in Evanston nearly two decades ago, and I was happy to take up the cause. Last March, after three City Council votes and numerous community meetings where local residents could weigh in, the reparations law passed.
Given the 2020 legalization of recreational marijuana use in Illinois, our law allowed Evanston’s City Council to restrict cannabis tax revenue to fund the $10 million reparations initiative. The first $400,000 of that amount has been approved for a restorative housing program to fund home repairs, mortgage payments or other property costs. Initial benefits are on track to be disbursed by the end of the year.
Payments of $25,000 were earmarked for 16 Black residents (or their direct descendants) who lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969 — the period during which the local government caused them harm.
Yes, that amount is inadequate in the context of the massive intergenerational economic devastation inflicted by slavery, but it is real money and should be considered a down payment on what is rightfully owed to millions of African Americans. The recipients are already being called the “Evanston 16,” a reference to the “Little Rock Nine,” students who sparked the desegregation of the nation’s schools.
Though just about any city in the United States could make a similar claim, given slavery’s malignant role in American history, Evanston would be a fitting touchstone for the reparations movement.
Its persistent racial wealth gap mirrors that of a nation where White families have eight times the net worth of Black families, according to the Federal Reserve. Evanston’s Black residents, according to city documents, earn an average of $46,000 less in household income than White residents and have 13 years fewer in life expectancy.
Discriminatory housing policies play a central role in the economic disenfranchisement of African Americans. In Evanston, segregation was achieved by “redlining” mortgage practices, and the city government often condoned Whites-only housing covenants.
As an alderman, I also came to better understand how seemingly innocuous zoning ordinances have long ravaged Black neighborhoods, locking entire blocks in concentrated poverty.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Evanston you can find palatial lakefront estates with private beaches and whimsical gazebos.
Those areas might be separated by just a few blocks, but given the disparities in education, health and income stretching back more than a century and a half in Evanston, they might as well be in different universes.
Real estate is the No. 1 intergenerational wealth-building asset in America — even more so among the lowest-income households, where homeownership represents on average nearly 75 percent of total assets. Given that property in Black neighborhoods nationwide is undervalued by $48,000 per home on average, amounting to $156 billion in cumulative losses, it makes sense for reparations plans to begin with housing.
My term as 5th Ward alderman ended last spring, and I am now working, through a nonprofit I founded, to spread local reparations initiatives across the country. And I have joined with organizations, such as the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, or N’COBRA, to support passage of national legislation.
H.R. 40 faces long odds, but beyond the achievement of simply getting the bill out of committee, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.), its sponsor, can also point to remarkable progress in gaining support for the legislation. In May 2019, the federal bill had just 55 co-sponsors, but over the past two years, the congresswoman has gathered 193 co-sponsors to the cause.
The moral argument for reparations is gradually making inroads. But local governments don’t need to wait for a Washington tipping point.
Last year, the City Council of Asheville, N.C., voted unanimously to apologize for the city’s role in slavery and to launch a reparations program that, rather than making direct payments to individuals, mandates investment in areas where Black residents face disparities.
That’s another step toward justice. Repeated hundreds of times, in hundreds of cities, reparations would stretch from coast to coast.
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Opinion | Reparations can't wait for Congress. Try the local option. - The Washington Post
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