{"id":107,"date":"2021-10-05T04:20:33","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T04:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/?p=107"},"modified":"2021-10-05T04:20:33","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T04:20:33","slug":"evanston-is-the-first-u-s-city-to-issue-slavery-reparations-experts-say-its-a-noble-start-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/?p=107","title":{"rendered":"Evanston is the first U.S. city to issue slavery reparations. Experts say it's a noble start. – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The historic plan by Evanston, Illinois, to make reparations <\/a>to its Black residents \u2014 including housing grants for a fraction of the city\u2019s families \u2014 has prompted questions about whether funding such programs, as opposed to direct payments, can be considered reparations for slavery and racial discrimination at all.
The first phase involves giving 16 residents $25,000 each, for home repairs or property costs. This plan, however, is far from the direct payments that have come to characterize reparations \u2014 redress for slavery and the subsequent racial discrimination in the United States. But experts say Evanston’s plan is a noble start to a complicated process.
\u201cI certainly would like for money to go directly in the hands of individuals. But I don\u2019t think, in this regard, that should prevent an initiative like this from starting,\u201d Andre Perry, author and scholar-in-residence at American University, said. \u201cYou know that saying, \u2018perfection is the enemy of the good.\u2019 That somewhat applies to this. You would like to see direct payments in some form to enable those who qualify to spend as they would like. But when you\u2019re talking about historic discrimination, housing subsidies was a significant part of that. Discrimination occurred at many different levels, it was not just the federal government. So municipalities have a moral obligation.\u201d
The housing program is the first initiative in a historic plan to distribute $10 million in reparations to Black residents of Evanston, according to the resolution<\/a>. The effort is to directly acknowledge and address the \u201chistorical harm\u201d done to Evanston residents through \u201cdiscriminatory housing policies and practices and inaction by the City.\u201d The effort would prioritize descendants of Evanston residents who lived in the city between 1919 and 1969 or suffered housing discrimination after 1969.
A historical report<\/a> on the city’s policies identified housing as the “strongest case for reparations” by the city, finding “sufficient evidence” of housing discrimination in Evanston as a result of city zoning ordinances in place between 1919 and 1969, according to city officials<\/a>.
Alderman Cicely Fleming called the resolution<\/a> \u201ca housing plan dressed up as reparations,\u201d and said \u201ctrue reparations\u201d would be defined and dictated by the people rather than city leaders. Critics have even noted that simply funding homeownership does not adequately address the systemic racism<\/a> that makes it difficult for Black people to build wealth through the practice.
Meanwhile, Sebastian Nalls, a college student who unsuccessfully ran for Evanston mayor, told The New York Times<\/a> that \u201cGiving $400,000 to 16 Black people in a town of 12,000 Black residents is not reparation.\u201d
The columnist Dahleen Glantondescribed the resolution in the Chicago Tribune<\/a> as “mostly a symbolic gesture with little of the substance the reparations movement hoped for,” adding that “African Americans won\u2019t get a dime in their pockets.”
“It will have little, if any, impact on the lives of the other approximately 12,000 Black Evanston residents,” Glanton’s column reads. “It probably won\u2019t even make a dent in addressing the economic disparities resulting from decades of neglect.”
Fleming tweeted about the column<\/a>.
Evanston officials have said<\/a> they aren\u2019t able to give direct payments to residents without subjecting them to a tax burden. In the resolution, officials said the city decided to prioritize housing first as a result of community feedback. The $10 million project is funded by donations and revenue from the city’s sales tax on recreational marijuana. The City Council established its reparations fund in 2019 and will administer funds for the housing grants.
\u201cWe should honor what happened in Evanston as historic,\u201d Dreisen Heath, a racial justice researcher with Human Rights Watch, said. \u201cThe city of Evanston\u2019s remedy plan was always centered around the localized harm that Black residents in Evanston faced. That means looking at the local policies, laws, practices that were anti-Black and discriminatory and how they impacted the Black residents there. These reparative housing measures were specific to harms that happened between 1919 and 1969 in Evanston, Illinois, and therefore specific harms require specific remedies. That\u2019s why this first phase of the program seems to be designed to address that directly. We need local governments to assume their culpability in creating these harms so that we have a more holistic response to the level of pain and suffering that continues to impact Black people on all economic and social corners.\u201d
Similar efforts elsewhere have drawn the same criticism. In Asheville, North Carolina, leaders have vowed to give reparations by funding<\/a> housing, business and career programs for Black people. Religious education institutions such as the Virginia Theological Seminary<\/a> and Princeton Theological Seminary<\/a> promised to atone for their historic ties to slavery by setting up scholarships.
The author and sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom highlighted the issue in a 2014 Washington Post<\/a> Op-Ed, in which she unpacked claims that better access to higher education is adequate redress for inequality. \u201cReparations can do what education cannot do,\u201d she wrote then, adding that such access \u201cis an opportunity vehicle that works best when coupled with justice and not confused for justice.\u201d
Reparations have gone in and out of headlines<\/a> in recent years, and the summer\u2019s protests following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor have only thrust the topic into the spotlight again. As government leadersdeeply consider reparations, Perry said \u201cdifferent programs will do different things. And we need to make room for that.\u201d
\u201cI think a lot of the criticisms of the program are a bit premature,\u201d Perry said of the Evanston initiative. \u201cIt\u2019s a good sign that a municipality recognizes its role in the racism that has robbed millions of Black Americans of trillions of dollars collectively over time. Once we get locked into one form of reparations, we miss how multifaceted discrimination actually is. There should be cash payments, housing grants, scholarships and there should be other forms created at multiple levels because that\u2019s how discrimination occurred.\u201d
He added that he believes this initiative won\u2019t hinder or distract from the larger reparations movement, but will \u201cmotivate\u201d it instead. \u201cThis should be seen as encouragement, not as a consolation prize,\u201d he said.
National leaders are talking about reparations too. Earlier this year, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, reintroduced bill H.R. 40, which would create a commission to examine reparations for the African American descendants of slavery. President Joe Biden\u2019s administration has expressed his support<\/a> for studying reparations.
Follow NBCBLK<\/a> on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em>
Char Adams is a reporter for NBC BLK who writes about race.
© 2021 NBC UNIVERSAL<\/p>\n

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