EVANSTON, Illinois. – Evanston, Illinois, on Monday became the first US city to make reparations available to its black residents for past discrimination and the lingering effects of slavery.
The Chicago Suburban City Council voted 8-1 to distribute $ 400,000 to eligible black families. Each eligible family would receive $ 25,000 for home repairs or property advances.
The program is being financed through donations and proceeds from a 3% tax on the sale of recreational marijuana. The city has pledged to distribute $ 10 million over 10 years.
Qualified residents must have lived or be the direct descendants of a black person who lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969 and suffered discrimination in housing because of municipal laws, policies or practices.
Councilor Rue Simmons, who proposed the program that was adopted in 2019, said that reparations groups offered free legal assistance if the program is challenged in court.
“This is reserved for a wounded community that turns out to be black, which has been hurt by the city of Evanston for anti-black housing policies,” said Simmons.
The City Council acted after dozens of citizens addressed the body and the plan was rejected by several.
Councilwoman Cicely Fleming, the only vote against the plan, said she supports the repairs, but what the City Council was debating is a housing plan that is being called repairs. She said the people should dictate the terms of how their complaints will be repaired. Fleming described the program as patronizing and assumes that blacks cannot manage their own money.
Hundreds of communities and organizations across the country are considering providing compensation to blacks. They range from the state of California to cities like Amherst, Massachusetts, Providence, Rhode Island, Asheville, North Carolina and Iowa City, Iowa; religious denominations like the Episcopal Church; and prominent colleges like Georgetown University in Washington.
The efforts, some of which have been ongoing for years, gained momentum following the assassination of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police last May. President Joe Biden even expressed support for the creation of a federal commission to study reparations for blacks, a proposal that has been languishing in Congress for decades.