WEBVTT - A Reparations Experiment 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:06.840 One of the first Americans to lead a movement for 0:00:06.880 --> 0:00:11.080 slave reparations was a woman named Callie House. She was 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:15.360 born into slavery, freed after the Civil War, married at two, 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:19.880 and widowed in her thirties. By the late eighteen nineties, 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:22.880 she was raising five children and working as a seamstress. 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:26.759 She was also helping to start an association for former 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:33.280 slaves that did things like pay for medical care her burials. Importantly, 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:38.080 it also demanded pensions from the federal government as compensation 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:42.280 for slavery. Callie traveled all over the South recruiting for 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:48.040 the association. Eventually she signed up some three thousand dues 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:53.239 paying members, and she sent petitions to Washington asking for reparations. 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:57.560 She also encouraged her members to do the same. They 0:00:57.640 --> 0:00:59.960 proposed a system modeled on money that had been award 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:04.440 it to disabled Civil War soldiers. All ex slaves would 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:08.200 get a monthly pension starting at about four dollars a month. 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:12.880 That's around a hundred twenty five dollars in today's money. 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:17.839 Had it Washington respond the Post Office issued a fraud 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:21.800 order against Callie and members of the association. They said 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:24.559 she was using the mail to encourage people to ask 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:28.679 her something they'd never get. When Kelly got the letter 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:31.520 forbidding her from using the postal service for her campaign, 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:37.080 she was shocked. Then she got mad. The historian Mary 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:40.959 Francis Barry tells the story in a book called My 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:44.880 Face Is Black Is True Callie House and a Struggle 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:51.400 for ex slave reparations. Here she reads Callie's scathing reply 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:56.320 to the Post Office, and she said the Association acted 0:01:56.400 --> 0:01:59.600 on behalf of quote four and a half million slaves 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:04.080 who would turn loose, ignorant, barefooted and naked, without a 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:06.920 dollar in their pockets, without a shelter to go under 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:10.079 out of the falling rain, but was forced to look 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:12.480 the man in the face was something to eat. Who 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:14.720 once had the power to whip them to death, but 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:17.400 now I have the power to stop them the death. 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:21.079 We the actually feel that if the government had a 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.160 right to free us, she had a right to make 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:26.400 some provision for us. As she did not make it 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:30.520 soon after our emancipation, she ought to make it now unquote. 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:37.240 For the next fifteen years, calling the Association continued to 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:42.680 petition the government. For its part, the Post Office kept 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:46.639 marking their mail fraudulent. He either returned it to senders 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:52.240 or destroyed it. In nineteen sixteen, Kelly was arrested and 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:55.880 then indicted on charges of mail fraud and all White 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:58.720 jury found her guilty and she went to prison for 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:02.280 one year. And when got out of prison, she kept 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:04.720 the movement up and then she got sick and she 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:11.240 eventually passed away without adequate medical treatment. At that time, 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:14.160 the idea of reparations was so preposterous and threatening to 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:18.480 the power structure in Washington, it labeled the entire effort fraudulent. 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:23.480 But the idea of reparations never went away. A hundred 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:27.840 years later, we're still debating what, when, and how to 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:33.239 talk about it. On the campaign trail, when asked about reparations, 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:36.800 Joe Biden said he was willing to consider what the U. 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:42.440 S Might owe African Americans. Reparations means making up for 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:46.560 things that happened in the past. Number One, there is 0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:50.760 a study being suggested by a former presidential candidate and 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:52.720 the guy as a friend of mine from New Jersey 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:56.040 saying we should study reparations and make a judgment whether 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:58.480 or not what they should be, what they should do. 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:02.360 There's certain things we already know. I support that study. 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:06.760 Let's see ritatious. It was an unusually blunt statement for 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:11.360 an American presidential candidate to make about reparations. But in 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:16.360 some parts of the US politicians and policymakers are moving 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:34.000 from words to action. There there are a couple of things, 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:35.440 in a couple of ways to look at the whole 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:40.120 question of reparations. How exactly are you going to repay 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:44.839 the debt of slavery? And who is going to repay? Slavery? 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:50.400 Is the original sin? Slavery has never received an apology. 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:53.800 Primes have been committed, sins have been committed. There is 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:56.960 a blood debt. I don't think reparations for something that 0:04:57.000 --> 0:04:59.240 happened a hundred fifty years ago, for whom none of 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:01.880 us currently of them are responsible. There's a good idea 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:08.000 or think brillion dollars in reparation is an appropriate statement. 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:11.479 It's not real reparations unless you give the descendence of 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:15.800 slavery actual money and let them choose how they want 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:30.680 to spend it as if they were adults. Welcome back 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:34.640 to the paycheck. I'm Jackie Simmons and I'm Rebecca Greenfield. 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:38.159 We've gone through the stats about the racial wealth gap, 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:42.039 and as we start to talk about reparations. What's important 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:45.560 to remember is that life in America has improved for 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:49.920 black people, but no wonder how much better it gets. 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:55.279 The gap has never closed. Not only that, but roundabout 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:58.640 efforts to close it, like creating more equal opportunities for 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:00.960 black families to build health and pass it on to 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:07.080 their children, haven't done enough. Either. Reparations suggest a bigger, 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:10.719 more direct kind of action, an admission of wrongdoing, for one, 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:14.320 that the US harmed its black citizens, and then money 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:17.920 redress in one form or another at a scale that's 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:23.240 commensurate with the harm done. Historically, as a country, we've 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:26.960 been reluctant to consider any of this. Thirty years ago, 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:32.760 John Conyers Jr. A Congressman from Michigan, introduced Legislation HR 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:37.600 forty to establish a commission to study and develop reparations proposals. 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:41.760 It didn't ask for reparations, It asked for commission to 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:47.880 study the issue. That went nowhere in Conyers introduced it 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:51.239 in the next Congress, and the next, and in every 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:55.680 session for more than two decades. After he resigned, Sheila 0:06:55.800 --> 0:07:03.920 Jackson Lee, a black congresswoman from Texas, took up the chart. 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:07.480 Tanahasy Coats published a sixteen thousand word article in The 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:12.000 Atlantic magazine called the Case for Reparations. The cover of 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.160 the issue was black with white text that read two 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:19.600 fifty years of slavery, ninety years of Jim Crow, sixty 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.760 years of separate but equal thirty five years of state 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:26.440 sanction d readlining. Until we reckon with the compounding moral 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:30.760 debts of our ancestors, America will never be whole coats. 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:36.280 This article became the argument for reparations. Ron Daniels is 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:40.280 a leader of the National African American Reparations Commission, an 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:44.320 independent group that's fighting for reparations. He says, the piece 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:48.200 restarted the public dialogue, and now the idea is getting 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:51.480 more attention than it ever has, so you really have 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:58.680 had a almost seismic shift and support of reparations. This 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:02.520 is a monum mental moment in the history of these 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:06.360 United States of America. As we were finishing this episode, 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:10.520 House Committee was debating HR forty, and for the first time, 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:14.600 legislators were considering bringing the discussion to the full House. 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:19.080 Maybe this time it will pass, and that commission will 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:23.160 study how reparations could work and most importantly, how much 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:27.600 they would cost. Maybe after some time, we'll have some answers. 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:32.520 In the meantime, academics have been coming up with answers 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:36.320 of their own, trying to calculate just how much is owed. 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:40.120 Susan Burfield, a reporter at Bloomberg, is going to help 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:48.680 us break down the map. So First, advocates argue that 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:52.960 reparations must ultimately be paid by the federal government. It's 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:56.160 the government that's responsible for the laws that kept African 0:08:56.160 --> 0:09:01.360 Americans enslaved. It's the government that allowed and perpetuated discrimination 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:05.640 that benefited white Americans. Afterward, it's the government that can 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:08.880 afford to pay the debt in full when it comes 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.800 to the amount that's due. Most believed that reparations should 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:15.280 at least close the racial wealth gap. That's the minimum, 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:19.600 and there's different ways to get there. Sandy Darity and 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:23.079 Kirsten Mullen, who co wrote a book about reparations, begin 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:27.160 with the loss of land promised after emancipation, that forty 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.920 acres and the mule. They end up with about twelve 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:36.120 trillion dollars. One of their colleagues, Thomas Kramer, starts with 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:40.760 another loss, the unpaid wages African Americans could have earned 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:44.280 for their forced labor from American independence to the start 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:48.280 of the Civil War. Kramer's German. His family was close 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:51.959 to a Holocaust survivor who received reparations from the government 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:55.880 for Nazi atrocities. He says the money is important, of course, 0:09:56.280 --> 0:09:59.360 but it's much more than that. It's the moral reckoning. 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:05.800 Mount paid is basically a symbolic gesture that the apology 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:10.720 is meant seriously, and that that the perpetrating side makes 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.640 a promise never to repeat what was done. Now he's 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:18.000 an associate professor at the University of Connecticut looking at 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:21.960 reparations in America and what they would mean. He's done 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:26.480 some calculations the number of enslaved people times all the 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:29.959 hours they could have worked each year, times the wages 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:33.240 they should have been paid. Then he took those lump 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:36.840 sums and applied to three interest rate to figure out 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:39.960 how much those earnings would have grown from seventeen seventy 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:44.360 six to today. He estimates that the descendants of the 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:50.200 enslaved are owed about twenty trillion dollars. It's an astounding amount. 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:53.400 It's nearly as much as the United States gross domestic 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:57.200 product last year. Kramer also says it's on the low 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:02.000 end because I'm ignoring colonial slavery, and in this calculation, 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:06.960 I'm also ignoring racial discrimination after slavery, and both of 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:12.520 those injustices, of course, had impact on the ability to 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:16.880 accumulate wealth among black families. So this is a very 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:20.880 conservative calculation. He says he wanted to figure the least 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:24.440 amount of money that could be considered fair. Assuming that 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:27.280 they're about forty two million descendants of slavery in the 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:32.000 US today and accounting for taxes already paid, Kramer says 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:35.480 each is due four hundred and twenty six thousand dollars. 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:40.559 Derrity and mullan slightly lower number. That twelve trillion would 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:43.280 work out to about three hundred thousand dollars per person, 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:46.960 give or take whatever the amount. The money could be 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:52.040 repaid through a national trust, community development programs, free college, 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:59.920 no interest loans, baby bonds, a guaranteed income, or cash. 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:03.600 No one is handing out checks anytime soon, but it's 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:08.280 an intriguing idea for most people. Three dollars isn't never 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:12.440 work again money, but it would be life changing. We 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:14.920 asked you to tell us what that kind of money 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:19.600 might change. What would I do if I were given 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:24.000 three hundred thousand dollars UM a lot. I think securing 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:26.400 a house, being able to pay the mortgage for a 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:29.800 while receiving reparations would give me the peace of mind 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:32.640 to do things like starting a family and making a 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:35.200 career change. The first thing I would probably do is 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:38.280 to pay off any outstanding debt UM. I would pay 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:40.880 off the house I bought a year ago, things that 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:44.160 my peers who have the safety net of generational wealth 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:46.840 behind them can do right now. After paying off my 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:49.720 student moment it, I would be able to actually afford 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:53.080 a home for my family. It would be actually very helpful, 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:56.880 as my other African American co founders of a startuple 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:00.920 working on have been in fund rate mode for quite 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:03.880 a while. I would allocate a hundred thousands of that 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:08.120 towards return any and all that I may have invest 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:13.920 in UM retirement fund and low costs UM index funds 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:22.000 actually get into the stock market low fee uh Crypto 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:27.000 used remaining one hundred thousand to allocate towards any business 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:31.880 or entrepreneur aspirations for one on all of my three children, 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:37.280 so as to continue the generational support and the a 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:42.240 forward movement of moneys through African Americans generations and through 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:45.679 our family. If I could find a multifamily home, maybe 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:48.480 a triplex or a duplex, with three hundred thousand, that 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:52.000 would be the thing that would provide me with some 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:58.640 some legacy for my children. So what would you do 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:02.600 with three hundred thousand dollars? Precisely the things that build wealth, 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:05.960 that fulfilled promise, and in just the way is long 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:09.680 denied to African Americans. That brings us back to the 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:13.120 other question, where would the US get that kind of money? 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:19.600 Kramer says that when the Haitian and British governments paid 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:24.120 reparations to slave owners, they borrowed the money, lots of 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:28.480 it over many decades. Ron Daniels points to a moment 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:31.640 where the US government had no trouble conjuring up a 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:34.840 couple of trillion dollars in a matter of months. The 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:38.960 COVID pandemic has also shown us something else. They're quite frankly, 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:41.840 there is no limit to the amount of money that 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:46.560 the federal government can spend. Woof is trillionaire to trillionaire. 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:51.320 So money is not the object. The thing is. For 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:55.160 a lot of people, money is exactly the problem. It's 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:58.440 one reason full reparations are probably a long ways off, 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.040 but for now, cities across the US and the state 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:04.960 of California are beginning to study whether there's a case 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:09.120 for local reparations and what that might look like. One 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:11.920 city has been working on this for the past few years. 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:16.360 It's asked the hard questions and answered them. Soon it 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:19.520 will begin paying what it's calling reparations to some of 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:30.880 its black residents. Evanston, Illinois, just north of Chicago, with 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:34.080 some seventy five thousand people living in eight square miles, 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:39.160 calls itself progressive. About six of the city's residents are black. 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:41.680 Some of their families have lived there for more than 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:47.120 a hundred years. There's also a legacy of housing discrimination. Evanston, 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:50.600 like almost every American city, made it difficult for black 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:53.040 people to buy their own homes and to keep the 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:56.360 homes they could buy. It deprived them of potential wealth, 0:15:56.760 --> 0:16:01.120 of generational wealth. And it's that injustice, not slavery, that 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:06.240 Evanston is first attempting to repair. We were lifting up 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:12.080 the name of the black community and making affirmations and 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:16.480 commitments and ceremonial resolutions and proclamations. We were doing that 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:20.960 very very well. Um in Evanston, and yet we still 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:26.880 maintained a ratio divide. Robin Ruce Simmons was born and 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:30.640 raised in Evanston, fourth generation. She's been a real estate 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:34.560 broker and a bookstore owner. She started a construction firm. 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:38.400 She owns and manages affordable housing and commercial property in Evanston. 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:42.600 She was also representing the city's fifth ward on the council, 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:46.320 one of nine aldermen as they're called, and she's the 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:51.360 one who first proposed that Evanston consider reparations. She says 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:54.320 that there's an average household income difference of forty six 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:58.120 thousand dollars between black and white Evanston, a thirteen year 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:02.600 difference in life expectancy, education gaps and opportunity gaps, and 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:08.120 information divides. In February twenty nineteen, Robin was about midway 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:10.600 through her first term on the city Council when she 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:15.159 wrote an email to Evanston's Equity and Empowerment Commission. The 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:20.320 subject line read Black Equality Policy. You opened it and 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:24.119 it said because reparations makes people uncomfortable. She thanked them 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:27.040 again for their efforts, but said it was time to 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:30.360 do more. I realized that not one policy or one 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:34.119 proclamation can repair the damage done to black families. But 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:37.680 in this four hundredth year of African American resilience, I'd 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:41.000 like to pursue policy and actions as radical as a 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:45.040 racial policies and actions that got us to this point. Later, 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:49.280 she would be more explicit that she believed reparations were 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:51.720 the only way to address the harm in the black 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:56.080 community in Evanston and beyond. Yes, it is reparations. Let's 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:58.520 not call it anything else to make you feel better 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:03.320 about your role in it or our inability to address 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:09.720 it before. Now, let's call it what it is. Segregation 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:12.760 began in Evanston in the years before World War One, 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:17.840 as black Southerners migrated north. By nine eighteen, a local 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:21.680 paper reported on a plan to quote unquote freeze out 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:25.560 black residents from all parts of Evanston except for the 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:30.119 fifth ward. The city began by targeting black residents in 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:34.720 other parts of town. The housing codes could change to say, 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:39.720 require indoor plumbing or electricity or other home improvements. A 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:43.119 black family might not have the cash for that, and 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:45.120 then wouldn't be able to get a loan to pay 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:49.600 for it either. Then they'd be forced to sell, sometimes 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:53.120 for less than what their home was worth. Afterward, real 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:58.160 estate agents would steer them to the fifth ward. Banks 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:01.200 if they gave mortgages, would do so only for homes 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:05.680 in the fifth ward. Redlining officially began in the nineteen thirties, 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:09.879 so did a long period of under investment by the city, 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:16.000 predatory loans and contract buying. That's when black residents who 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:18.520 couldn't get a mortgage had to put down a lot 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:22.280 of money for a house, then pay monthly installments at 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:25.760 high interest rates. But they didn't get the title until 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:29.800 the house was completely paid for. They never got equity, 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:32.840 and they could be evicted any time they missed a payment. 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:39.359 Morris Robinson Jr. Is the founder of Evanston's Shorefront Legacy Center. 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:43.880 His hundreds of documents showing how all this unfolded, including 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:48.359 a report written in nineteen forty by the Homeowners Loan Corporation, 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:53.600 a government agency. That agency was created to insure loans, 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:57.400 which allowed more people to purchase homes and eventually would 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:01.040 help develop the suburbs. It was a great deal if 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:05.119 you were white. It was in fact explicitly intended to 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:10.280 maintain segregated neighborhoods. He read to me. The agency's evaluation 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:13.919 of Black Evanson. Here lives the servants for many of 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:17.119 the families. All along the north Shore. There's not a 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:21.359 vacant house in a territory, and occupancy moreover is about 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:26.480 one for most houses have more than one family living 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:30.280 in them. This concentration on Negroes and Evanson is quite 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:33.119 a serious problem for the town, as they seem to 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:38.320 be growing steadily and encroaching into adjoining neighborhoods. When Robin 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:41.360 brought up the idea of reparations in twenty nine, one 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:44.280 of the first things the Equity Commission agreed to was 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:47.760 to host community meetings to ask what residents wanted from 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:51.720 a reparations program. Out of dozens and dozens and sences 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:56.840 of recommendations, housing continue to be an area of concern 0:20:56.960 --> 0:21:00.679 and a recommendation of repair. That focus was key for 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:03.840 Robin and her colleagues. They knew more or less what 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:07.840 they were paying reparations for, at least initially. Now they 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:10.880 needed the money to pay for it. This is where 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:15.600 the broad conversation about reparations comes up hard against reality. 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:19.280 Where is the money going to come from? In this respect, 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:23.560 Evanston got a little lucky. It was exactly at the 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:28.960 time where we started doing a doal cannabis. Anne Rainey 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:32.240 was representing the eighth ward, the one closest to Chicago. 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:36.360 She pointed out the years of prohibition had a disproportionate 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:40.760 impact on black people. That is why the adult cannabis 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:45.919 legislation was passed to begin with, to make reparations in 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:48.439 that area. So that's where we're going to take the 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:51.840 money to support this program. It was a tax, first 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:54.520 of all, we had never realized before, so we weren't 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:57.200 going to be taking it from anything. The city council 0:21:57.400 --> 0:22:00.600 estimated that the three percent sales tax on legal would 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:03.520 bring in about a million dollars a year. They'd set 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:07.159 aside the first ten million, so ten million dollars for 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:11.760 reparations over ten years, not all for housing. How should 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:14.600 the city use all that money? What other harm did 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:18.720 the community suffer? What other depths did Evanston Oh, that 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:22.440 first resolution didn't say they'd work out the details later. 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:26.520 The loose terms bothered one alderman, Thomas suffered in and 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:30.800 in November he was the only person to vote no. 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:37.640 Alright Resolution nineteen establishing a City of Evanson funding source 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:45.240 about electoral local reparations passes on a eight to one vote. Congratulations, 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:48.200 all right for all the hard work to get there. 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:51.479 There'd be lots more to come, maybe more than anyone 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:55.240 on the council realized. But right then I remember just 0:22:55.880 --> 0:23:00.800 wanting to jump and scream and celebrate, and it was 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:03.720 business as usual. We went on with the agenda and 0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:06.600 I sitting looking like, okay, we're just We're just gonna 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:11.440 keep one. About two weeks later, actor and activist Danny 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:14.359 Glover came to Evanston and spoke in front of a 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:19.200 very big, very excited crowd. Here's Glover, and then you'll 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:22.520 hear Michael Neighbors, a pastor and president of the local 0:23:22.600 --> 0:23:25.440 and double a CP. It's the beginning of a process. 0:23:25.520 --> 0:23:30.080 This is the most a tense conversation I believe that 0:23:30.119 --> 0:23:34.520 we're going to have in the century right reparation. It 0:23:34.600 --> 0:23:38.480 was one of the most electrifying moments that I can 0:23:38.600 --> 0:23:41.400 ever remember having. And I've had a few of them. 0:23:41.400 --> 0:23:44.240 I've been around, you know, I've had I've had a 0:23:44.280 --> 0:23:48.880 few electrifying moments, but this one was electrifying in the 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:53.520 local sense. It was electrifying for the city of Evanston, 0:23:53.800 --> 0:23:59.720 and it was particularly electrifying for the black community, and 0:23:59.720 --> 0:24:02.760 then was back to work on all those details. When 0:24:02.760 --> 0:24:08.160 Evanson's only dispensary began selling recreational pot on January, there 0:24:08.200 --> 0:24:11.679 was a line down the street during the pandemic. The 0:24:11.760 --> 0:24:15.880 state deemed the dispensary's essential businesses, but the city wasn't 0:24:15.880 --> 0:24:20.040 allowed to collect taxes until July. The council decided to 0:24:20.080 --> 0:24:24.800 start its reparations program with four hundred thousand dollars. This 0:24:24.880 --> 0:24:30.280 is where the policy's ambitions collided with its particulars. Probably inevitably, 0:24:30.680 --> 0:24:33.639 people might agree that damage has been done. They might 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:37.320 agree that restitution should be made, But to whom and 0:24:37.359 --> 0:24:42.080 for how much? And who first? Even in a relatively 0:24:42.080 --> 0:24:46.160 small progressive town like Evanston, the answers to those questions 0:24:46.359 --> 0:24:53.160 were neither clear nor simple. First, who's eligible? The city 0:24:53.200 --> 0:24:56.879 council had a mandate to initially focus on housing, so 0:24:56.920 --> 0:25:00.840 it settled on grants to help qualified black resident buy homes, 0:25:01.080 --> 0:25:04.560 fix up their homes, or stay in their homes all 0:25:04.600 --> 0:25:08.840 black residents. Well. The priority is any black resident of 0:25:08.840 --> 0:25:13.280 Evanston from nineteen nineteen to nineteen sixty nine, then any 0:25:13.359 --> 0:25:16.879 of their direct descendants, and then anyone who moved to 0:25:16.920 --> 0:25:20.040 the city after that and can show that they've faced discrimination. 0:25:21.640 --> 0:25:25.439 And the big question how much the council decided on 0:25:25.520 --> 0:25:28.359 grants of twenty five thousand dollars not a lot of 0:25:28.400 --> 0:25:31.399 money in Evanston, where the average home sells for twelve 0:25:31.440 --> 0:25:35.840 times that, and no matter what, most black residents won't 0:25:35.840 --> 0:25:39.560 get anything in this first round. That four hundred thousand 0:25:39.600 --> 0:25:44.720 dollars covers awards for sixteen people to start with. That's 0:25:44.720 --> 0:25:50.320 a tough number. Another reality check, there's other restrictions. The 0:25:50.400 --> 0:25:53.680 residents won't get the cash directly that might require them 0:25:53.720 --> 0:25:56.439 to pay taxes on it. Instead, the money will go 0:25:56.560 --> 0:26:00.479 to the financial institution, closing agent, or contractor the resident 0:26:00.560 --> 0:26:04.160 is working with. Robin says she and her colleagues want 0:26:04.200 --> 0:26:06.520 residents to be able to work with local black owned 0:26:06.520 --> 0:26:09.320 businesses and banks that have a history of fair lending. 0:26:10.240 --> 0:26:12.720 The fifth word, she points out, doesn't have a bank, 0:26:13.320 --> 0:26:16.600 has never had a bank, and Black people have every 0:26:16.600 --> 0:26:20.240 reason to be skeptical of a financial system that's taken 0:26:20.280 --> 0:26:23.679 every advantage of them for centuries. If we do not 0:26:23.840 --> 0:26:26.639 give them an introduction to a bank that has fair 0:26:27.000 --> 0:26:32.600 banking products and other sort of consumer products, then we 0:26:32.640 --> 0:26:36.760 have not accomplished anything. And and furthermore, if we introduce 0:26:36.840 --> 0:26:40.080 them to a bank that has high fees and rates 0:26:40.160 --> 0:26:43.280 and it is expensive to bank with them, then we 0:26:43.320 --> 0:26:46.480 have not accomplished anything. In late March, the council took 0:26:46.480 --> 0:26:49.439 a second crucial vote, this time on whether or not 0:26:49.520 --> 0:26:53.280 to begin distributing the first allotment that four hundred thousand dollars. 0:26:54.400 --> 0:26:57.399 Just a few weeks before, a group emerged on Facebook. 0:26:58.040 --> 0:27:03.160 It's called Evanston rejects Racist Reparations. Up until then, there 0:27:03.160 --> 0:27:06.520 have been some questions, some concerns about the program, but 0:27:06.560 --> 0:27:10.600 no organized opposition. The founders of the group are black 0:27:10.640 --> 0:27:14.240 residents of Evanston. They wanted the council to delay the 0:27:14.280 --> 0:27:17.439 start of the program. They say it's too small, that 0:27:17.520 --> 0:27:21.119 it shouldn't focus only in housing, It shouldn't require recipients 0:27:21.160 --> 0:27:24.240 to work with banks and other financial institutions that have 0:27:24.320 --> 0:27:28.960 discriminated against the black community. It shouldn't even be called reparations. 0:27:32.680 --> 0:27:35.800 There are some admirable efforts made by municipalities to its 0:27:35.800 --> 0:27:38.120 tones of the damage is caused by their own race 0:27:38.200 --> 0:27:41.480 based policies. However, it is unfortunate when those acts of 0:27:41.520 --> 0:27:46.320