How cities are taking on reparations after decades of federal gridlock

“Our hands are bloody. Reparations are the key to getting healed, and if we don’t get it America is never going to move past this.”

Ken Gray, American Descendants of Slavery Foundation

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Reparations policies that will come from Detroit’s task force may not look like what voters envisioned when they supported a 2021 ballot proposal.

Leaders of Detroit’s reparations task force are developing policy recommendations to address discrimination caused specifically by the city. Locally-led “municipal reparations” efforts are viewed as a potentially more effective route to reparations without relying on Congress. But the direction has frustrated some residents who voted for reparations thinking it would address America’s history of slavery, and question whether Detroit can deliver cash payments.

More on this series:

• Detroit has a big opportunity for reparations. Can it deliver?
• Reparations: A movement made in Detroit

Detroit is among a growing list of cities that were inspired to start reparations commissions after Evanston, Illinois created a $10 million reparations fund in 2019. Evanston, which is roughly a tenth of the size of Detroit’s population, used marijuana taxes to create cash housing grants for Black residents affected by discriminatory zoning policies from 1919 to 1969.

“President Barack Obama said that while he was in office, reparations was a political non-starter, but now cities, institutions and even states can look to (Evanston) and say, ‘yes, it is

attainable,’” said Evanston Reparations Committee Chair Robin Rue Simmons. “There is a path forward for reparations on a local level – here’s a city that has passed a resolution, established a committee and funded it.”

Detroit’s Task Force Co-Chair Keith Williams is proud to say Detroiters passed the first successful reparations ballot initiative in the country. The proposal sought recommendations for housing and economic development programs that address discrimination against Black Detroiters.

“It was about jobs, not having access to capital and being restricted to living in certain communities,” Williams said. “That’s where all the harm accumulated.”

Public meetings have revealed some residents aren’t aware of the distinction between municipal and federal reprations efforts.

“The city of Detroit did not vote on municipal reparations,” Porscha Edwards said during a March task force meeting. “We need to study the harm from slavery. This is a lifetime opportunity from local up to the federal government.”

Edwards is co-chair of the Detroit Grassroots Coalition, a vocal group of residents advocating for cash payments for descendents of slaves.

Williams, who also leads the Michigan Democratic Party Black Caucus, responded during the meeting that the ballot language needed to be “broad enough that it will pass the city of Detroit voting population.”

Task Force Co-Chair Cidney Calloway said the group is still educating residents about the differences between municipal and federal reparations. She’s optimistic that the local effort provides more opportunity for meaningful policies.

“When you think of reparations on a federal level, you go to slavery and cash payments,” Calloway said. “We can do whatever we want. We’re thinking bigger than this. We’re thinking about the systems have impacted us, land, the wealth gap.”

How to pay for reparations policies is a major unanswered question for Detroit’s task force. Documents establishing the task force don’t guarantee funding for the recommendations. The advisory group is unique compared to other City Council task forces. Members were appointed by the City Council, but no council members serve on the task force.

“It’s a lot of conversations that need to happen with legal minds and economic minds to create some solutions, because I don’t think there’s anything right now to support what we’re trying to do,” Calloway said. “We have to be creative. We’re literally starting with a blank page.”

Where does the money come from?

Evanston used a local option tax on recreational marijuana sales to fund its reparations program. That’s not possible for Detroit since Michigan law does not allow cities to impose their own local sales taxes.

“​Actually setting aside a budget and then dispersing reparations is where most of these initiatives are stuck,” Simmons said. “Where do you get the funding in municipalities that already have budget challenges?”

A portion of Michigan’s sales tax on marijuana, which brought in $266 million last year, is distributed to local communities. Detroit received just under $2 million, most of which goes into the city’s General Fund.

The U.S. Constitution prevents federal funds from being allocated to a specific race, which also rules out pandemic relief funding as a source. Council Member Mary Waters said the city is “limited” in its ability to pay for reparations policies that come from the task force.

“I’m one of those people who believes that true reparations must come from the federal government,” Waters said during a council committee meeting in March.

Council President Mary Sheffield, who introduced documents creating the task force and picked its executive committee, said Detroit can’t fund reparations policies on its own.

“Any type of reparations is going to, of course, not just be locally funded, it would be state and federal,” she said.

Williams leads a subcommittee responsible for studying potential revenue sources, Early ideas hinge around new taxes, which would require the Michigan Legislature to act, or seeking private foundation support.

Williams said he’s lobbied Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to create a state commission to identify the debt it owes to Black residents. Williams said he didn’t receive a response to messages he sent the governor last year.

There are mixed messages in city documents and public statements about the scope of historic injustice being addressed by the task force.

A City Council resolution that established the task force opens with references slavery and Jim Crow laws before diving into Detroit’s history of discrimination. It states that City Council “strongly supports reparations for centuries of human enslavement,” among other things.

“The members of this task force will be researching the harm done to Detroiters through slavery, through the systemic racism practices of the past and present,” Sheffield said at the first press conference announcing the task force in 2023.

Former Democratic state Rep. Cynthia Johnson, D-Detroit, introduced a reparations bill package in 2022. It called for creating a $1.5 billion reparations fund within the state’s treasury used for grants and other economic assistance programs.

The bills were supported by several Black lawmakers – including Detroit Reps. Tyrone Carter and Karen Whitsett and now-Judge Tenisha Yancey – but did not receive a vote.

Reparations is considered too politically risky for Michigan Democrats to fully embrace, Williams said, despite its popularity among Detroiters.

“It’s election time – they don’t want anything controversial on their plate,” Williams said.

What have other cities done?

Evanston’s reparations approach prioritized housing discrimination, taking the form of grants for down payments, home repairs or mortgage assistance. Last year, the city expanded the program to allow no-strings-attached cash payments.

“We were celebrating diversity, equity and inclusion, but we have widening racial gaps and a decline in every area of livability for Black folks – we weren’t addressing the crisis in the Black community,” said Simmons. “Instead of a moral argument, I introduced it based on an action plan. It is really the only legislative response appropriate for the racial gaps we have.”

Williams and Simmons have kept in communication over the last year as she’s become a national advisor for cities pursuing reparations policies. Williams said Evanston’s effort is the model for Detroit.

Simmons said Evanston started with a series of public listening sessions to collect feedback on key questions: What forms of reparations are most important? Who should be eligible? How should it be funded?

Then came the creation of a harm report, less than a year after establishing its reparations committee. Evanston collaborated with local researchers to identify anti-Black housing policies, which became the first category to address reparations policies.

“Understand that it’s taken us over 400 years to get to this place of disparity, and it will take generations for us to get out of it.”

Robin Rue Simmons, Evanston Reparations Committee Chair

Detroit is taking a similar approach on a similar schedule. It partnered with University of Michigan researchers last year to study the role played by the city government and its regional partners to perpetuate and enforce discriminatory policies. Williams said the harm report, due in September, is the first step.

“If you look at housing redress initiatives in isolation, it’s insufficient, but you have to look at this work as intergenerational,” Simmons said. “If Detroit lands on education first, it doesn’t mean the work wont evolve to some type of economic opportunity as well. Don’t look at the early stages of this work as a settlement. Understand that it’s taken us over 400 years to get to this place of disparity, and it will take generations for us to get out of it.”

The results will inform priorities for reparations policies, he said. The task force was given 18 months provide recommendations to the City Council, though it might ask for more time. Other cities purusing reparations initiatives have worked along comparable time frames, taking several years to release and implement recommendations.

Detroit officials also cited Asheville, North Carolina as an early inspiration. The city developed reparations policies responding to urban renewal programs that mirrors Detorit’s history. Asheville’s reparations journey started in 2020, and recommendations were released in 2023.

Asheville started a reparations fund with sales from city-owned property acquired during its own urban renewal program in the 1970s. Officials didn’t commit to direct payments, arguing it’s better to make investments to address disparities.

The first draft of 108 recommendations focused on housing, economic development, criminal justice, education and health. The group had a March deadline to finalize its recommendations but was given a time extension.

San Francisco is another major city trying to pursue reparations, but the California metropolis is struggling to find funding.

Its task force was formed in 2020 and issued more than 100 recommendations in 2023. Possible reparations included a wide array of financial resources, including a one-time, lump-sum payment of $5 million to each eligible Black resident.

A new reparations office would have implemented the recommendations, but the plan hit a major snag when $4 million set aside to establish the office was slashed amid larger budget cuts.

San Francisco also issued an apology in February to Black residents “for systemic and structural discrimination, targeted acts of violence, and atrocities.” The resolution acknowledges its history of redlining, the destruction of Black-owned business in the name of urban renewal and underinvestment in Black neighborhoods.

A handful of other cities approved their own versions of reparations while many more are studying them. Some cities are beginning to distribute resources after finding ways to fund direct payments, targeted programs and other initiatives.

Don’t give up on the feds

Reparations advocates in Detroit say the local effort shouldn’t substitute pressure on the state or federal government. Especially since there’s more potential funding to give descendents of slaves who were robbed of opportunities even generations later.

Evanston’s success was a spark of hope for Detroit reparations advocates growing frustrated with gridlock on federal efforts spearheaded by former Congressman John Conyers Jr. since 1989. He had sought to establish a reparations commission to study the impact of slavery and discrimination dating back to the arrival of enslaved Africans in the Virginia colony in 1619.

The shift in focus to cities was a response to being ignored in Congress, but advocates say it can also build momentum at the federal level.

President Joe Biden signaled support for creating a federal reparations commission early in his first term but since ignored calls to do so by executive order. In 2021, Biden reportedly told a group of Democrats including former Detroit Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence that reparations ranked low on his list of priorities. His press secretary said last year that Biden “wants to see a study of reparations.”

“That should have been the first thing (Biden) did when he became president,” said Janis Hazel, a Detroit task force member who worked for Conyers in Washington. “Off the strength of the Black vote in places like Detroit, Atlanta, Chicago, he was elected president.”

Reparations is posing a potential test of Biden’s commitment to Black communities as his 2024 election campaign prepares to swing through Michigan. Polling of Detroiters in 2022 suggested Black voters would be more likely to vote for candidates who support reparations, particularly voters under 35.

Prominent Democrats like Wayne County Executive Warren Evans are warning that Biden can’t take Black votes for granted as he runs for reelection. Sheffield said Biden should pay attention to Black supporters who want him to support reparations.

“There are other cities leading the way,” Sheffield said. “Politically, there is an ear to address the needs of the urban community. It can be used as leverage in this political environment. I think (the Biden campaign) needs to support the urban agenda, and reparations has always been a topic.

Ken Gray, a Detroit resident and advocate with American Descendants of Slavery Foundation, said there’s no doubt that the federal government can afford reparations for slavery. He noted how quickly Washington mobilized to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on pandemic funds, then again to direct military aid to Ukraine and Israel.

“Both (political) parties are complicit in this. They don’t want to see us get reparations, they have no intention of doing anything,” Gray said. “Conyers couldn’t do anything with it, he tried. Claude Anderson couldn’t do anything. You’ve got a younger group of people, millennials and Gen Xers, and even some Boomers, like myself, who realized it’s in our grasp if we keep pushing and fighting for it.

“Our hands are bloody. Reparations are the key to getting healed, and if we don’t get it America is never going to move past this.”

Finding momentum

Trevor Smith is co-founder and executive director of the BLIS Collective, which seeks to create narrative alignment between progressive social movements. He said Biden’s actions show he isn’t interested in reparations.

“There is a campaign putting pressure on Biden to say if you want the Black vote, a good way to do that is by establishing a commission on reparations through executive order,” Smith said. “In his 2020 victory speech, he said to the Black community ‘y’all have always had my back, I’m gonna have your back.’ I think a number of Black people, and especially reparations advocates would say ‘well, that hasn’t been the case.’”

“It is a city of Detroit conversation that can turn into a state of Michigan conversation that will hopefully turn into a United States of America conversation. It starts with us on a micro scale.”

Cidney Calloway, Detroit Reparations Task Force Co-Chair

Smith writes an online newsletter tracking local reparations efforts across the country. He sees a parallel to other social movements that started in the states, like marriage equality or abolishing the death penalty. There’s more political will in Detroit than at the state or federal level, but advocates hope that will change as momentum builds.

“It is a city of Detroit conversation that can turn into a state of Michigan conversation that will hopefully turn into a United States of America conversation,” Calloway said. “It starts with us on a micro scale.”

Ann Smith remembers attending National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America meetings as a young girl with her uncle. Smith is the granddaughter of Erma Henderson, the first Black woman on Detroit’s City Council and a longtime council president.

“Some of this old-school, Pan-African, kufi-in-hand waiting for certain Caucasians to say they’re going to do something is not my cup of tea,” Smith said. “I’m from a different mindset. There should be no dissertations, no 500-page documents. They gave away hundreds of billions with COVID checks. It rolled out faster than I’ve ever seen it. Wake up, old-head reparations people.”

Alvin Gray-El has been attending Detroit’s reparations meetings over the last year. He prepared a document making the argument for federal reparations. It traces a legacy of human trafficking “for the sake of profit” followed by Jim Crow laws, housing discrimination and other “episodes of inhumanity.”

Gray-El argues the task force should expose the truth about America’s transgressions and make the victims whole.

He’s particularly focused on vagrancy laws that gave police discretion to arrest Black Americans for a wide range of activities. It essentially criminalized people who were unemployed, he said, and pushed them into a new form of slavery created after the Civil War.

“After they abolished slavery you had millions of people let loose and then vagrancy laws were created,” Gray-El said. “Then they created convict leasing laws. You don’t have a job, they lock you up and private companies would lease those convicts to work for them.”

Others argue direct payments don’t build enough power in marginalized communities without structural support.

“That’s not the bottom line, that’s not all we deserve,” Calloway said. “Our ancestors built the country and were not paid for that labor, that’s a simple transaction. The magnitude of that impact on communities is something we have to be cognizant of. Cash is where to start, but there’s so much more that comes along with it.”

Michael Imhotep, a political commentator and founder of The African History Network Show, said “municipal reparations” is a relatively new term. It’s important for Detroiters to understand how local efforts differ from federal reparations as the work progresses, he said.

“If you can’t clearly define what you’re talking about, it leaves open the opportunity for people to make it into whatever they want,” Imhotep said. “If you can’t define what it is you’re trying to achieve, it will be harder to bring it to fruition.”