Reparations effort for Black Washington, D.C., residents moves forward

The Washington, D.C., city council approved a budget for next year that includes funds for a reparations task force scheduled to study restitution and to develop proposals to address the harms of slavery.

The Washington, D.C., city council approved a budget for next year that includes funds for a reparations task force scheduled to study restitution and to develop proposals to address the harms of slavery. 

The allocation makes Washington the latest city to develop legislation aimed at rectifying historical wrongs against Black Americans and their impact on their descendants.

The funding makes up $1.5 million of the city’s $21 billion budget, which the D.C. Council approved Tuesday, according to The Washington Post. The 2025 budget includes a provision directing the chief financial officer to allocate money for the task force.

The legislation to create the task force is aimed at developing reparations for Black residents “directly wronged and traumatized by the ills of slavery, Jim Crow, and structural and institutional racism,” the bill reads. It also requires the commissioner of the Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking to create a slavery-era database of slaveholding records, including life insurance policies on enslaved persons.

The bill was introduced by council member Kenyan McDuffie early last year and discussed at public hearings for several months afterward. In a Racial Equity Impact Assessment, the council’s Office of Racial Equity conducted historical research and offered recommendations to understand the bill’s impact on Black residents. “We can never fully capture the horror that was inflicted on Black people by white enslavers or the governments that supported them,” the report reads.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/washington-dc-study-reparations-black-residents-rcna159034

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