“Black Americans don’t need another study that sits on a shelf,” said St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones, the city’s first Black female mayor and a member of the group. “We need decisive action to address the racial wealth gap holding communities back across our country.”
The effort comes as Juneteenth, which marks the end of slavery in the United States, has become a federal holiday. President Joe Biden signed a bill Thursday that was passed by Congress to set aside Juneteenth, or June 19, as a holiday.
Slavery officially ended in the United States in 1865 with the adoption of the 13th amendment to U.S. Constitution. But its effects have lingered far beyond that, contributing to disparities in wealth and health between white and Black populations.
Since 1989, lawmakers in Congress introduced a bill that would form a commission to study and develop reparations proposals in the United States. But it has never passed. Last year, California became the first state to set up its own reparations commission. That group held its first meeting earlier this month.
Friday’s announcement marks the largest city-led effort at paying reparations to date, but it isn’t the first. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted in March to appoint a 15-member African American Reparations Advisory Committee. That same month, the City Council of Evanston, Illinois, voted to pay $400,000 to eligible Black households, part of a pledge to spend $10 million over the next 10 years. Qualifying households would get $25,000 to use for things like home repair or putting a down payment on property.
Last year, the City Council in Asheville, North Carolina, voted to approve reparations in the form of investments in areas of disparity for Black residents.
This group of mayors, dubbed Mayors Organized for Reparations and Equity (MORE), is led by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Denver Mayor Michael Hancock. Their stated goal is for these reparations programs to “serve as high-profile demonstrations for how the country can more quickly move from conversation to action on reparations for Black Americans,” according to the group’s website.
“Let me be clear: Cities will never have the funds to pay for reparations on our own,” Garcetti said during a news conference on Friday to announce the group. “When we have the laboratories of cities show that there is much more to embrace than to fear, we know that we can inspire national action as well.”
