Evanston, Illinois, has become the first city in the country to fund reparations in an effort to compensate Black Americans for the loss of generational wealth due to inequality and systemically racist policies that emerged after the era of slavery.
The 158-year-old city, located in Chicagoland along the north shore of Lake Michigan, plans to distribute $10 million in tax dollars to the cause over the next decade, with $25,000 payments to eligible residents beginning this spring, according to ABC News.
The program is being funded by a 3% tax on newly legal recreational marijuana sales.
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The dispersals will be focused toward housing and will seek to remedy “a lack of affordability, lack of access to living wage careers here in the city, and a lack of sense of place,” said 5th Ward Alderman Robin Rue Simmons, who has spearheaded the reparations effort since 2019, when Evanston first approved a resolution on the matter.
“It’s the most appropriate use for that sales tax,” Simmons told ABC. “In our city, 70% of the marijuana arrests were in the Black community. And we are 16% of the community. All studies show that Blacks and white [people] consume cannabis at the same rate.”
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Simmons built a convincing case for reparations with the help of local historian Dino Robinson, who produced a 70-page report documenting racist and discriminatory practices dating to the late 1800s.
“We anticipate litigation to tie things up with the premise that ‘You cannot use tax money that’s from the public to benefit a particular group of people,’” Robinson said about opposition to the plan. But, “the entire Black community historically has paid taxes but were not guaranteed the same benefits,” he said.
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Robinson’s report highlighted how racial inequality came to thrive in the city through segregation and the federal practice of redlining, which deliberately sought to suppress wealth and lower property values in the Black community.
In Evanston, the practice — combined with Black codes and Jim Crow laws — relegated Black families to an area of the city that ultimately became the 5th Ward. For generations, the area had no access to basic public amenities and was choked off from economic opportunities that were generally afforded to white people.
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“Banks in Evanston would not loan to Black families for housing, [and] the real estate agencies would not show you anything other than the 5th Ward,” Robinson said.
White people who live in Evanston today make almost double the income and enjoy double the home value of their Black counterparts, according to U.S. Census data.
The wealth gap in Evanston reflects a consistent pattern that persists in nearly every city across the country.
Black Americans continue to possess less than 15% of the wealth that white Americans have, ABC reported, citing the Federal Reserve 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances.
Black residents who experienced redlining and their descendants are now eligible for reparations in Evanston.
The debate over reparations is one of the most divisive and controversial issues that has come up in Congress.
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The phrase “40 acres and a mule” has resonated for Black people since the first days of life post-slavery, but the concept, despite being posed as legislation multiple times for at least the last three decades, has failed to become a reality for Black Americans who have waited more than 155 years for such a repayment.
What began as a promise made to freed slaves in 1865 has become a centuries-long pursuit. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, wants to turn pursuit into promise with House Resolution 40, a 31-year-old bill, first proposed in 1989 by Rep. John Conyers, that aims to create a committee tasked with developing a national plan for reparations. Conyers resurfaced H.R. 40 every year until he resigned in 2017, and now Lee has taken up the cause.
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Last month, the House Judiciary Committee heard testimony for and against the formation of the committee, which invited commentary from conservative talk show host Larry Elder, former NFL player Herschel Walker, Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri), California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and several others.
“My religion teaches togetherness. Reparations teaches separation,” Walker said in his testimony. “Slavery ended over 130 years ago. How can a father ask his son to do prison time for a crime he committed?”
Republicans have opposed reparations for some time. Sen. Mitch McConnell said in 2019 “it would be pretty hard to figure out who to compensate,” and said “none of us currently living are responsible” for what happened 150 years ago.
Congressional Democrats stand alone in support of the plan, which has yet to advance out of committee.
Stephanie Toone of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution contributed to this report.
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