Mayor Brandon Johnson launches Repair Chicago reparations initiative

CHICAGO — Some Black Chicagoans are saying they’re all in on reparations, calling for the local and federal government to take action to redress slavery and other historical wrongs in one of the most hot-button topics of debate in modern America.

“Should be like the stimulus. Everybody sign up, and everybody get a deposit,” William, a Chicago resident, told Fox News Digital.

Fox News Digital hit the streets of Chicago last week to speak with advocates and residents as the city and the state are looking to potentially implement reparations in some form.

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“I think the federal government should do that. Because as a government, you know, with slavery and everything, that’s a whole government, not just a city thing,” William added.

Leonte Fraley, a native of the Englewood neighborhood in Chicago and a graduate of Kennedy King College, said that the money could help Blacks who were set back financially from past government policies.

“I can go take this money and I can buy this house that I couldn’t afford. I don’t have to live in a certain community just because I’m financially not in a place to afford it,” Fraley said.

“That’s the change for us,” he said.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has launched a community engagement effort called “Repair Chicago” to gather experiences of harm of Black Chicagoans as part of an effort to implement reparations.

Not too far from Chicago, Evanston, Illinois has issued $25K in reparations payments to some Black residents who were descendants of those affected by past housing discrimination. The city said that targeting housing discrimination was the best case for reparations.

An Evanston native and business owner of Cutting Edge Hair Gallery, Donna Walker, told Fox News Digital that the Black residents who received the money deserved it.

“So the people that received it deserved it. I mean our ancestors and our elders definitely went through it. So I feel that they deserve it,” Walker said.

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Ivan, a gym teacher at Chicago Public Schools, believes giving out cash is not a good idea.

“I truly feel, man, that reparations should just come in the form of opportunity. Giving people money has never proved to be just good for the cause, you know, but you give opportunity,” Ivan, a resident who just moved to the Windy City two years ago, said.

At Kennedy King College on Tuesday in Chicago, social science department chair Dr. Ted Williams III led a panel to address questions about reparations.

Williams, an Illinois African Descent-Citizens Reparations Commissioner (ADCRC), told Fox News Digital that the U.S. is capable of issuing reparations because the country has money for war, referencing the nation’s conflict with Iran.

“I think part of my work, not only as an educator but also as a commissioner, is to really go around the state and the country and to help people to understand the pressing need, the fierce urgency of now, if you will, around this question,” Williams said.

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At Kennedy King College’s event discussing reparations, ADCRC Chair Marvin Slaughter, Jr. said that “seven quadrillion dollars” were contributed to the U.S. by slave labor.

The “seven quadrillion” figure comes from missing wages for 24 hours a day for enslaved people since they “had no freedom of time,” Slaughter told Fox News Digital, citing a study he conducted in 2022.

The ADCRC in March released a report laying out what it called the state’s history of harms against Black Illinoans, described as its “first comprehensive, evidence-based” report examining “how slavery and its vestiges produce historical harms and continue to generate inequities for Black Illinoisans.”

Dr. Daniel Davis, a faculty member at Kennedy King College’s social science department who teaches African American studies, said cash is necessary, but reparations is bigger than that.

“So some people think we’re only asking for a big check. No, a cash component is necessary as part of the package, part of a compensation, along with maybe home loan help, down payment on homes, tax breaks, education breaks for funding,” Davis told Fox News Digital.

Davis was one of the four speakers on a panel to give reparations information to the crowd of students in attendance.

“But the cash part — liquidity is necessary,” he said.

“Cash is king, right?” he continued. “So while we can have institutions and other things developed in the name of reparations, having cash to make moves and help make up for some of this harm and some of these inequities in these gaps.”