Reparations In Evanston And Across America

City leaders in Evanston will soon vote on a $10 million plan to use marijuana tax money for a reparations program intended to make amends for past racist housing practices. If the bill passes, Evanston would become the first U.S. city to use marijuana revenues to fund reparations for Black residents.

As Evanston city council officials prepare to vote on this bill, some residents are voicing objections to the plan and are saying that it doesn’t go far enough.

To talk more about the plan for reparations in Evanston, The 21st was joined by a co-sponsor of the bill and the alderman of Evanston’s 5th Ward, the director of the Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy at Northwestern University and a historian who wrote a 70-page report documenting racist & discriminatory practices in Evanston dating to the late 1800s.

Guests:

Alderman Robin Rue Simmons, Evanston’s 5th Ward

Dino Robinson, Historian & Founder of Shorefront Legacy

Alvin Bernard Tillery, Director of the Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy and associate professor of political science, Northwestern University

Prepared for web by Zainab Qureshi

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