Group joins state rep in advancing talks about reparations

[February 25, 2025]  By Jim Talamonti | The Center Square

(The Center Square) – A new report says economic stability and reparations are key priorities for Black residents of Illinois.

BlackRoots Alliance interviewed Black people across the state and found that compensation is only part of the package they hoped for with reparations. Respondents also cited financial literacy and generational wealth through vocational training and resources, along with economic stability through Black-owned businesses.

State Rep. Sonya Harper, D-Chicago, is a member of the State of Illinois African Descent-Citizens Reparations Commission. Harper said she is grateful for the work of BlackRoots Alliance.

“That’s a part of the work that we’re engaged in right now on the reparations commission. We’re doing hearings all across the state, hearing from communities, similar to what BlackRoots Alliance is doing in Chicago,” Harper said.

Harper said it is important to set future generations up for success.

“Because it was the future generations that were impacted the most from slavery, from being kidnapped and torn and taken away from a culture, from a language, from a way of knowing and being, and still having to grow up in this society where you never fully feel accepted and still continue to this day to experience those effects,” Harper told The Center Square.

Harper filed House Bill 1227 last month. The measure to create the Slavery Disclosure and Redress Ordinance would require corporations seeking to do business in Illinois to pay reparations if the company had any ties to slavery.

Harper said her bill is a small but integral part of the reparations process.

Illinois state Rep. Sonya Harper - BRS

“My sentiment on how we will pay for reparations is the same way that we pay for all the other things that this state deems is important,” Harper said.

Nineteen lawmakers have co-sponsored Harper’s bill, which was referred to the Illinois House Rules Committee on Jan. 28.

Harper said the state can do the work necessary to figure out how reparations are funded.

“We’re finding ourselves in new situations every couple of years where one minute we say, ‘We have no money, we’re in a deficit,’ but we find billions of dollars out of nowhere to fund different programs,” Harper said.

Last May, Judicial Watch filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of six individuals against Evanston, Illinois, over the Chicago suburb’s use of race as an eligibility requirement for a reparations program that makes $25,000 payments to Black residents and descendants of Black residents who lived in Evanston between the years 1919 and 1969.

Judicial Watch stated that the Evanston program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In 2021, Evanston became the first city in the United States known to make reparations payments to Black residents. City officials announced last year that they had paid out more than $5 million in reparations.

Kevin Bessler contributed to this story.

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