Journalist
If you’ve ever been to an American plantation, it doesn’t take long to see the obvious and painful duality of manicured gardens and opulent architecture, alongside crudely built and coarsely bare dwellings that housed the people enslaved there. One can hardly not compare these to visits with ones you might take to a Polish or German concentration camp.
In June, California Gov. Gavin Newsom received the final report and recommendations from the state’s Reparations Task Force, for his review. In August the City of Evanston, Illinois’s Reparations Committee announced that it had disbursed just over $1 million in reparations through the Local Reparations Restorative Housing Program.
For most Black Americans, the very concept of reparations or financial compensation repaid for enslavement feels like a Sisyphean exercise. But, surprisingly, the national reparations movement is making some headway — through local governments and commissions.
