Big Payback, The (2023)

[bunniefuu]

[soft dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[indistinct chatter]

- We need to get in a single file line,

or no one's getting in.

- The House Committee on the Judiciary

is holding a hearing today on a bill which proposes

to establish a commission

to study and develop reparations proposals

for African Americans.

- Black power. all: Black power!

- H.R. , the bill introduced by

the late Congressman John Conyers,

has languished in committee for more than years.

Since his passing, Texas congresswoman

Sheila Jackson Lee has taken up the fight

to try to move it through the House

and eventually to the Senate,

where she'll need a miracle to get it passed.

- H.R. is, in fact, the response

of the United States of America long overdue.

My people in America are the descendants

of Africans kidnapped and transported

to the United States.

It is only this group that can singularly,

singularly claim

to have been sl*ves under the auspices,

the institution and leadership

of the United States government.

sl*very is the original sin.

sl*very has never received an apology.

- By the time the enslaved were emancipated,

they comprised the largest single asset in America.

billion in dollars,

more than all the other assets in the country combined.

- I picked the cotton.

I built the railroad under someone else's whip

for nothing.

For nothing.

- Reconstruction failed after years.

And after reconstruction, a reign of terror

that had never been seen.

The hanging fruit, the lynching.

- State-sponsored terrorism.

- We kick the living hell out of the n*gg*r*s.

back to their own hometowns where they ought to have been.

- Yesterday when asked about reparations,

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

offered a familiar reply.

- Yeah, I don't think reparations

for something that happened years ago

for whom none of us currently living are responsible

is a good idea.

- This rebuttal proffers a strange theory of governance,

that American accounts are somehow bound

by the lifetime of its generations.

[dramatic music]

- What the bill says is that this is a proposal

for reparations for the institution of sl*very.

- Yes.

- The institution of sl*very has never gone away.

♪ ♪

- Convict leasing.

- The oppression of voting.

- Poll taxes and r*cist G.I. bills.

- Many of the bedrock policies, in fact, that ushered

generations of Americans into the middle class

were designed to exclude African Americans.

- We fought in every one of your damn lousy wars, baby.

And you give us nothing.

- Thousands and thousands of Black veterans

were denied their G.I. Bill benefits.

- Federal Housing programs also discriminated

against African Americans by redlining.

- There's no question that redlining is happening.

It's happening in almost every major city in America.

- The typical Black family in this country

has / the wealth of the typical white family.

- % of Black children live in poverty,

compared to % of white children.

And we know the criminal justice system.

- Somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend.

- Oh, my God.

[protestors shouting]

all: No peace!

- The question facing

every person who lives in this nation

is not so much who k*lled those young men,

but what k*lled them.

- I'm gonna tell them there's an African American man

threatening my life.

- The matter of reparations

is one of making amends,

indirect redress,

but it is also a question of citizenship.

- If you won't listen to me

when I make an appeal for the Negroes,

because you have no concern for the n*gro...

- Let's go.

Move it on back.

♪ ♪

- Listen to me when I make an appeal for America!

♪ ♪

- Let us work together,

and let's get this done.

It is long overdue.

It is deserving,

and it is the right thing to do.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

♪ ♪

- We have yet to hear when the bill

will have a full House vote.

Keep in mind that's still another hurdle

that this legislation has to move past.

[upbeat music]

- ♪ Ha ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Ooh ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Hey ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Ha ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Huh ♪

♪ ♪

- Good afternoon.

This is the professor, Dr. Ron Daniels,

president of the Institute of the Black World st Century

and distinguished lecturer.

Good afternoon. You're on Vantage Point.

- Hey, how you doing, brother? - Good.

- I just wanted to get your opinion on H.R. .

There hasn't been much talk or thought

about, you know, reparations.

So I was just wondering if you could speak on that.

- Oh, I certainly can.

I mean, H.R. is--

we're pushing very hard.

There's been a lot of debate and discussion

about the--the bill.

And it's unfortunately-- unfortunately,

it's playing out between the political parties,

to some degree.

I must say that we have

great disappointment at this level.

But Sheila Jackson Lee

has been absolutely visionary,

courageous, and tenacious

in helping to spearhead this.

- African Americans are still feeling the brunt of sl*very.

But we're trying to get our friends

who are making statements, "You were not a sl*ve,"

to understand that you are a descendant,

a descendant, a descendant,

but you are faced by that status of sl*very

and racism that puts you in this position today.

[indistinct radio chatter]

- We did not initially start talking about

building local reparations initiatives

until I get this call from a dear friend,

longtime activist.

- How are you? - I'm fantastic.

How are you? - I'm doing great.

I'm doing great. Yeah. - Yeah. I'm doing just fine.

- Good. - You know I'm, like,

in warrior mode, right? - That's fine. That's fine.

- He said, "Man, you know, we got a bad system

"in Evanston, and she's pushing

the reparations question strong."

- We're gonna market it and tell everybody about it.

You're doing wonderful. We love it.

- Thank you. - Oh, yeah.

- Congratulations. - Thank you.

[indistinct chatter]

- Good evening, everyone.

all: Good evening.

- We're going to prepare our hearts and minds

to begin this most historic town meeting

to celebrate the Evanston reparations.

Would you clap your hands for...

[cheers and applause]

- There's something in the air.

The whole nation is watching this city

and, indeed, perhaps over the world.

And so it was Alderman Simmons who brings us here,

in many respects.

You have become the visible face

and the driving force

of the Evanston reparation initiative.

Why did you do this?

- Evanston...

We are leaders.

And as I work through my responsibilities

as Fifth Ward Alderman, I saw how hard we were working.

My colleagues on city council, community organizations,

residents, parents, were working really hard

to bring equity and inclusion,

and we were not moving the needle.

We still maintain a wealth disparity of $,

between Blacks and whites in Evanston.

We continued a life expectancy gap

of years.

Our Black homeownership rate is at its lowest point

since the s,

and we needed to move our efforts

beyond apology and ceremony,

and we needed to bring action.

It was time to do something as radical

as the oppression and discrimination,

as the impact from the Jim Crow law

and the redlining.

Something as radical as reparations.

[cheers and applause]

There was nothing more to do.

[cheers and applause]

[upbeat music]

- All right, folks,

we'll be talking about H.R. ,

the commission to study reparations.

H.R. has been stalled in Congress

for more than years,

but there's new light in the debate

coming out of Evanston, Illinois.

Robin Rue Simmons was an alderwoman there.

She got passed

the first reparations bill in American history.

- The city of Evanston now has pledged

to pay out $ million over the next years.

- This is the first attempt at a publicly funded

reparations program in U.S. history.

- So now it's up to Evanston to decide

how and to whom the money will be distributed.

♪ ♪

- It's been nonstop.

More calls and emails in the last few days

than I probably had in the last couple years, really.

[laughs]

- You'll be hearing from me shortly

on the few emails and texts,

and then I'll see you at :.

- Okay, thank you.

- Awesome. No problem.

- Learning that local government

is most responsive

and we're more nimble

and we can make impact

quicker than the federal government,

and thinking this is a local matter.

And I pushed it relentlessly.

I was very, very stern

in wanting it to happen in this calendar year,

being the th year of Black resilience.

That was important to me.

So I was not willing to compromise

on any other format to get to this victory.

Time is of the essence.

So with that said,

let's just do the work at this point.

Solutions only. Hashtags.

How are we gonna--

I hear we have seats instead of .

[laughs]

Hi. How are you?

[indistinct chatter]

- Sheila, go ahead, sit here.

- Thank you for accepting the invitation.

- Sheila, sit here.

- All right, does everybody have a seat?

I will not hold anybody liable

for any injuries that might occur in this.

- All right. So noted.

[laughter] Right.

- Welcome, everyone.

Can I have your attention?

I'm trying to paint a picture of how Evanston

has changed over the course of , years.

Evanston was established in .

Right here was the Evanston Sanitarium.

Evanston segregated hospital.

Up and down here, a lot of mom-and-pop shops,

eateries, barbers, beauticians.

This location here was the original location

of Ebenezer AME Church, Evanston's oldest Black church,

established in .

And the Emerson Street branch YMCA that was located

at this section right here,

it was opened in to service the Black community

in Evanston, Illinois.

- Everything that happened in Evanston

was happening in this building.

Churches started there. Clubs started there.

Decades of history and memory in one building.

And that kind of epitomized the strength of a community

at that time.

Shorefront is an organization that documents

the African American experience

in Chicago's suburban North Shore.

And usually the storyline is,

we're domestics and servants, and we have no history.

And I'm kind of, like, saying this--

this is BS.

This is American history,

and you cannot edit out a dialogue

to create a new narrative.

You're not telling a complete story,

and you're telling an inaccurate story.

[indistinct chatter]

- Evanston had a significant part to do with it.

- Yeah. Yeah, we did.

- Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you all for being here.

We are here today because we have a lot of work to do.

We've done something really historic,

and we have an opportunity to actually make

tremendous impact in our community,

and be looked to as a model of what's possible

in localities across the nation.

Via Evanston's budget,

there is a reparation fund line item.

That's really exciting.

[applause]

Yeah.

- The question is, what makes reparations

reparations?

Certainly, the whole issue of enslavement

is what people tend to think about,

but it is also for Jim Crow policies

and racially exclusionary policies,

policies that provided benefits for white people

that we didn't get.

That in fact, helped to develop white communities

to the underdevelopment of Black communities.

- I want us to forever remember

that there is no amount of money

that they can pay us

for what our people have endured.

The notion that comes out of our committee,

ancestral wisdom about justice.

Not charity.

And that's the distinction we're looking for

in terms of public policy

and what we're talking about

when we talk about reparatory justice.

- When you use the term reparations in this context,

a whole slew of categories--

redlining, apartheid,

which was Jim Crow segregation, sl*very--

these were what were considered crimes against humanity.

And how do you return the dignity back

to a people whose dignity was eroded

as a result of the crimes that were committed?

- Mm-hmm.

- When we come to ,

General Sherman's Field Order ,

that was the moment when the nation attempted

to redress the crimes of enslavement

and all of the things that went on

through that cruel period.

- [garbled speech]

As the Union swept towards victory

over the slaveholding Southern states,

General William T. Sherman issued a military order

redistributing , acres of Confederate lands

to the recently emancipated sl*ves.

The order specified that the land be divided equally

into -acre parcels and governed by

an autonomous, all-Black government.

This order, Special Order Field ,

became known as " acres and a mule."

[tense music]

- General Sherman's Field Order ,

that was the first of many times

where this country had an opportunity

to do the right thing, and it never did.

♪ ♪

If they had, then we wouldn't be

in the situation we're in now.

Less than three months after General Sherman's order,

Lincoln was assassinated,

and the new president rescinded it.

That kind of ended reparations for , years.

That's when Sister Callie House

comes into that.

A lot of ex-sl*ves were too old to work.

♪ ♪

She had set up a massive movement

trying to get government pensions for ex-sl*ves.

She was stopped by being arrested and imprisoned

because the government said

she was actually defrauding her members,

that she should have known

America was never gonna pay.

Callie House was a threat to white America

and to the government

because she inspired a movement

to see this issue

as a collective struggle of a people,

but the question is, do you see yourself

as part of the people of African descent,

or do you see yourself as American individuals

who happen to be Black?

♪ ♪

- This is the redline map that shows the area

that was redlined, all encompassing the Fifth Ward.

Redlining was a Federal Housing program

designating areas in cities

that had a potential real estate growth,

and assigning value to areas.

So if you're in the higher letters, A, B,

the green areas are the most desirable areas.

Those are areas where banks specifically

would lend money for housing and for development.

This whole blue area here is all lakefront property.

So highly desired.

Then when you get in yellow, it's kind of iffy, you know,

but a lot of times, this represents middle class,

working class, ethnic white.

If you're labeled D, that's the lowest.

Banks recommend no investment whatsoever.

Not in housing, not in business development.

% of the time, it is the Black population.

So Robin lives about right here,

right in the middle, where the D is.

- Okay, well, my Uber is here.

- Oh, daughter! - [laughs]

- Baby. - I'll see you Monday.

Or Tuesday. - Okay, bye, baby.

Have fun. - Bye-bye.

- Mm-hmm. - You got the door?

- Yeah.

Hey, Demetrius, how are you?

It's Robin.

I'm just touching base

after that call we had yesterday.

Did I have any action items?

My feelings are all over the place right now.

Some mornings I wake up and I feel like, wow,

I'm a part of history.

This is special.

And then it's intimidating at the same time,

because what if you don't get it right

and everyone's not comfortable with it?

You know, people have been extremely nasty to me,

and I'm careful to maintain my professionalism always

and, you know, use all my big words

and not yell.

And I just really want to get to the action.

Like, that's kind of how I lead.

I like to identify the problem, you know,

and get right to identifying a solution

and put some action behind that.

But we can't work so swiftly with this

because there are, you know,

generations and decades and layers of problems

and damages and responsible institutions

and practices and culture.

And the more I learn

and the more I get accomplished,

it seems like the more work there is to do.

[soft music]

♪ ♪

- I'm trying to find my husband,

who doesn't often get to come here.

And one of my swearing in.

Me and President Clinton.

We had an Oval Office picture.

That's a big deal,

when you have a one-on-one meeting

with the President of the United States.

I appreciate that.

We were talking about some serious issues.

There's Mandela.

Barbara.

That's my good friend Congressman John Conyers.

Fighting the good fight of H.R. reparations.

This was deeply personal

because I have lived the laws of the land

dividing us by sanctioning discrimination

and racism.

John Lewis is-- I have to get way up here.

John Lewis, just a wonderful man,

and he was a strong supporter of H.R. .

I just miss him so much.

My grandparents were in Florida.

When I would go visit them,

I rode in the back of the train,

as a little girl, with my bag of food,

because I could not eat any place in that train.

I had to be relegated

to the train for colored people,

and you had to bring your own food.

And my mom and dad.

My father was a young, brilliant cartoonist.

This is the "Invisible Men:

The Trailblazing Black Artists of Comic Books."

♪ ♪

Ezra Clyde Jackson.

There he is.

He did it under a pseudonym 'cause there was a broker

who took the work that these Black men had

and then took it to Madison Avenue.

Because the color thing,

it had to be sort of camouflaged.

Oh, there. I'll turn the page.

This the kind of work that he did.

♪ ♪

And this is what they did.

They took their work

and then they put a pseudonym on it

and sold it to the comic books...

♪ ♪

So they wouldn't know that Black people,

Black men did it.

♪ ♪

And then when the white soldiers

came back from World w*r II,

it was just, "We don't need you anymore."

That stained us for his whole life

into my beginning of my life.

I'm still not prepared to join an insurrection.

I just want to understand, and I want you to understand

who I am and who we are.

- I didn't know if what you wanted

was relative to the agenda items.

So I was trying to make an effort

to touch base with you before.

Six generations of my family

have been Fifth Ward residents.

The work is personal for me.

I have a daughter,

and I have, you know, a son and a grandson.

They're Black children that are in a cruel world

with discrimination and unfair practices

that they have to navigate life with.

And if I can do anything to give them hope

that they can be whatever they want to be,

that's my responsibility.

[upbeat music]

♪ ♪

So I grew up right here in the Fifth Ward.

I was born and raised.

And from birth to , when I left

after graduating Evanston Township High School,

I lived in-- I should count them.

it may be somewhere between and different homes

in the Fifth Ward.

So this is my neighborhood.

Much of my childhood I actually lived with my grandparents,

so my mother was pursuing her highest and best life,

and I lived with my grandparents.

So this was my grandparents' home.

And so we lived on the first floor.

This was my home base.

I probably lived here some stretch of grade school,

most of junior high, all of high school.

I lived with my grandparents here in this house.

This is me in front of that house.

[laughs]

We didn't have a lot, but we had a ton of love,

and I didn't know that I didn't have a lot.

I mean, it wasn't until I moved out

and entered into adulting

that I realized that we were, you know,

working class poor.

I thought I was well-off.

[soft music]

It's my village.

Like these streets raised me,

and that community I'm just forever grateful for.

I could have very easily been something else.

I could have very easily had an addiction or, you know,

been in the criminal justice system.

And my community really helped me believe

that I could choose

to be however great I wanted to be.

And I believed them, and here I am today,

trying really, really hard to give back

in the way that I was receiving as a child.

♪ ♪

- We are here in Hecky Way.

Hi. How you doing?

- Sauce on the regular tips?

- Yes.

- We specialize in barbecue.

It's a homemade recipe received from my mother.

She got it from her grandmother.

♪ ♪

This is our smokers here.

Those are rib tips.

And Kendra's over here working pulled pork--

or she pretending like she's working the pulled pork.

[laughs]

We sell so much, I had to get a machine.

People don't have the work ethic.

That's what we're trying to teach like they used to.

I'm not liberal, okay?

I'm, like, in the middle.

I helped Robin on her campaign to be an alderperson.

You know, our council, in this community,

has got a little too liberal for me.

I mean, reparation, we don't need it.

When we talk about redlining, that wasn't good.

But then there was part of it that was good.

All the Black people live together.

We all was in the same neighborhood.

The poor, the middle class, and the rich.

My family's been here since .

My great-grandfather, now, he was born into sl*very.

His mother and three of the siblings

escaped from New Madrid, Missouri,

where they were picking cotton.

And my dad, who raised nine kids

doing domestic work on the North Shore.

You know, the man worked extremely hard,

and he saved his money.

And he built a house.

This is back during the time

when they were not giving

or considering giving Black men money for homes.

You know, we never was on any type of public aid

or assistance or any of those things.

He didn't believe in it.

And he wouldn't take it anyway.

He believed and taught us the work ethic.

And that all of us, you should work for what you want.

This one here is some key people

that played a great role in the community.

This guy here, he owned this company.

Golden Crown Juices.

He couldn't get into the big stores,

but he was smart.

He hired these two white guys to be his salesmen,

and they thought they were the owners.

So that's how he got--

that's how he got into those stores.

He knew how to think.

This guy is named Jack Moss.

He owned the grocery store that was down the street.

That's where every-- Black people shopped at,

was at his place.

No hand-me-outs.

No government funds.

And you know something?

If you didn't have enough money,

he had a little chart for you.

You'd pay him off weekly.

And that's my dad up there.

I put him close to heaven.

[chuckles]

[soft music]

♪ ♪

- I've lived in Evanston for years.

I thought I lived in a diverse community,

my kids went to a diverse school.

But all my friends were white.

I lived in a totally white neighborhood,

and I knew absolutely nothing about the Black community

or the history of the Black community.

And I think once you know that

and once you hear the stories,

you can't help but care.

You can't help but recognize the injustice,

the enormous length of time

that this injustice has been going on.

And so that's why I give a [...],

because there are people in my community--

it's my community.

Dear Evanston.

And so I started Dear Evanston.

It's an organization based on a Facebook page,

talking to white people about what's going on

in Evanston's Black community.

Because there's such a divide in our city.

And there's so many white people

who are probably pretty well-meaning

but just don't know what's going on.

Just don't know the history of Evanston.

And not because they don't want to know,

but no one's ever taught them.

And I was one of those people.

I grew up in South Africa,

and I left South Africa when I was almost .

And I think that growing up in South Africa

and being young

and growing up during apartheid,

there was nothing I could do.

There was nothing that I felt any power to do.

And I remember as a kid feeling very guilty

and uncomfortable and helpless.

I live in this beautiful house,

and the question is, how much do we owe?

And how much should we give?

I think every white person in Evanston

is gonna need to answer that question for themselves.

I can't even say for myself what it is that I'm "prepared"

or that my family is prepared to give,

because it's, like, an insurmountable amount

that is owed.

I don't know how we'll ever pay it.

I don't know how, as a family, we'd be able to pay it,

and how much we'll be willing to, to be very honest.

You know?

How much of--how much of our privilege and our money

are we gonna be willing to ultimately give to this?

Something we think-- I have to think about a lot.

♪ ♪

- This is the rough part of Evanston.

This is the part of town where you don't want to be out

on a nice summer night at : at night.

Kind of a classic story.

We always drove our kids to school.

I would just drive them and then go to work.

So we're driving by the high school,

with police line all over the place.

Someone got shot at the high school.

I don't know who did it.

It's just the nature of this neighborhood, or you know,

it's--it's a rough--

it's a rough part of town.

Just it's just-- just the way it is.

If you were to look at some of these mailboxes,

you'll see that there are lots of people,

probably seven or eight names just listed on the mailbox.

It's not right or wrong.

It's just this is, you know--

this is how they get through life's journey, as well.

Just...

That's their world.

Come on, Wolf. Come on.

Robin, as to why reparations are needed,

she's mentioned that, you know,

people are being priced out of Evanston.

And you know, thank God for the U.S. Census.

I mean, in , Evanston was % white.

It's now % white.

It's okay.

In , it was % Black.

It's now % Black.

Again, I don't have a problem with that.

That's just people come and go, and people move.

In the meantime, Evanston has gone

from % Asian to % Asian.

I--so I just don't see this issue that, you know,

the part of the reparations fund

is gonna be used to keep Black families

in the community.

I don't know why they would be given

more status than any other group of people.

There's a lot of people who are afraid to speak up.

You're afraid that you--

and speak to a contrary position,

you're actually afraid to actually speak your mind,

because someone's gonna sit there

and say, "You are a--" whatever.

And--or your car is going to get keyed, or you're--

you know, again, I don't know that there's any incidences

of someone who said something that didn't agree

with the masses getting their car keyed,

but that's the inner feeling.

That saying something controversial

is gonna end up, you know, causing harm

to myself and my family.

I mean, if you think about reparations,

reparations conceptually,

it's for those that were victimized by sl*very.

So if there was gonna be a time to make the reparations

for the harm of sl*very, I would argue

that that should have been done, you know,

in the late th century.

We're now in the st century.

I think what it'll end up doing

is making us look like a bunch of bloody fools.

- All that makes somebody Black or somebody white--

what we're talking about is just skin color.

[indistinct chatter]

In my family, it's all mixed.

You want a bag? You sure?

- Not gonna last that long.

- All right. Thanks, man.

I did a DNA on myself.

I'm all mixed up.

This is just a human body.

My spirit, I love.

That has no color.

We all in this country are nothing but a bunch of mutts.

[laughs]

We all are mutts.

So I came out with a package called The Mutt.

These, hot links.

Open up. [laughs]

This here, chicken wings.

See, this here is the Black people.

This is-- the red is the Indians.

Okay?

And then you take--and you put your white bread on top.

Okay?

And there it is.

That's The Mutt.

Very special.

I mean, that council's really liberal.

Nice people.

But they're liberal,

and they're scared to be called r*cist.

And they're gonna let it go through.

But will anything get done?

That's what we've got to see.

We're gonna see where this goes.

I don't think it's gonna go too far for anyone.

[cheers and applause]

- We, the leaders

of the effort for reparations now,

reparations not in the next century,

not in ,

not years from now,

but reparations when?

Reparations when? Reparations when?

- The reparations movement during the th century

took many forms and faced many obstacles.

♪ ♪

Early in the century, there was Marcus Garvey

and his reparations and repatriation movement.

He was followed by Queen Mother Moore,

who in gathered

over a million signatures on a petition for reparations

which she presented to the United Nations.

And in the s and 's, the Black Panthers

had a -point program for liberation,

which included a demand for payment of the reparations

promised in Special Field Order No. .

But when we think about

the modern reparations movement,

it was really Congressman John Conyers

who got the ball rolling

on the government reparations policy.

Spurred on by reparation's Ray Jenkins,

Conyers crafted the first version of H.R. in

and unsuccessfully petitioned

the House Judiciary Committee

to take the bill up for the next years.

♪ ♪

The work is now being carried forward

by representative Sheila Jackson Lee in Washington.

- You're here to--

- I'm here to meet with the Congresswoman, yes.

- Okay. Sign in. Just go ahead.

And she should be here momentarily.

So... - Okay.

[reporter on TV speaking indistinctly]

- Secretary Alex Azar from earlier today.

- We don't know exactly how many...

- Councilwoman?

- We're so excited to see you.

- Very happy to be here. - Thank you so very much.

Thank you. Come on over here.

- Okay. All right. - Thank you.

I'm delighted to welcome you and to congratulate you.

We were so excited when we saw the legislation.

In fact, we have used it in presentations that we've made.

- Wow.

- I use your outstanding construct.

You've been, councilmember, a real hero--shero--to me.

- Thank you. Thank you.

Being a member of National League of Cities,

you know, we learn that all government starts locally,

and the thought was, why not do what we can do here

at a local level while H.R. is working through its process,

through your leadership?

We could have layers of repair and layers of remedy,

because, as we know, those damages,

yes, were rooted in sl*very.

But you know, it looked like discrimination

even still today because the color of our dark skin.

So excited to share anything that we've done in Evanston

and then learn more about your goals for H.R.

and how we can even support that

and make sure that it gets passed.

- Well, I think the good news is that you are proactive.

So I am very grateful for that laboratory

that you've given us.

And I think it will be very effective,

being utilized and shared with members of Congress.

And what you have done just adds

to the really important story of what reparations can be.

So thank you.

Glad you're here for the National League of Cities.

And glad we were able to have this moment.

- Thank you. I know.

I wish this wasn't happening,

'cause my first thing was to get a big hug.

- Same here. - But next time.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- I need a moment.

[laughs] - Yeah.

[soft music]

♪ ♪

- China has identified the cause

of the mysterious pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan City.

- In the past two weeks, the number of cases

of COVID- outside China has increased -fold.

- The great shutdown of is underway.

We know the hospital surge is coming.

- I am officially declaring a national emergency.

Two very big words.

- It is lights out for tens of thousands

of bars and restaurants across the city,

and even more across the state.

- To avoid loss of potentially tens of thousands of lives,

we must enact an immediate stay-at-home order

for the state of Illinois.

So that is the action that I'm announcing today.

- We were in DC,

and as we were in DC, the coronavirus pandemic

was becoming a concern.

We returned home

to pretty much full-blown pandemic.

Due to COVID, we have a legit budget concern.

The recommendation was that we consider

postponing reparation work until .

Why in the world would we postpone reparation

for a community that was also

disproportionately impacted by the COVID virus?

So we're moving forward with our deadlines as of right now.

Good evening, and thank you all for joining us

for our second Town Hall for reparations in Evanston.

I'm very excited to introduce our next guest.

We have Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee

here with us tonight, and we are behind her--

I am, I'll speak for myself--

as you lead our nation towards having H.R. pass.

- Alderman Simmons, I am delighted to be here,

and I was very privileged to work with the honorable

John Conyers, late John Conyers,

on many issues, including criminal justice reform

and, of course, H.R. .

The time is now for our nation to study

and acknowledge the effects and impact

of sl*very in America.

The time is now to shed light on our shared truth

to enable healing to a national reckoning,

and to embrace and uplift our shared humanity.

And what you have done in Evanston

is a step forward for people to see

the value that will come out of recognizing

the idea of reparations.

So in H.R. , we have cosponsors.

We've never had that many cosponsors

in the decades that it's been found.

members away from .

And I have no doubt that we're gonna work

to pass this legislation

out of the United States House and the Senate.

Thank you for having me.

- Thank you very much.

We appreciate you being here.

And we have to close out this meeting.

So thank you-- - Can I say something?

Can I say something? - Please. Please.

- I think most people know by now,

but Hecky Powell is very ill,

and we should all pray for him tonight.

- Yes.

- He is in intensive care with COVID.

Thank you.

- Thank you for making that point.

[somber music]

♪ ♪

- Data collected by state and local agencies

suggests Blacks are being

disproportionately impacted by COVID-.

- Black people in the U.S. are nearly three times

as likely to become infected with the virus

as their white neighbors,

and nearly twice as likely to die from it.

- So you are talking about years of racism

as a national model in this country,

and we are surprised at why Black people

are the most vulnerable to any public health issue?

♪ ♪

- Hecky is somebody who was the first

that I talked to about running for Alderman.

His passing was a great loss

for everybody in the community.

I think everybody felt like

they had a special relationship with Hecky.

♪ ♪

I know that I did.

♪ ♪

[upbeat music]

♪ ♪

- The greatest hurdle

is the political will to make it happen.

And Alderman Simmons made it happen.

♪ ♪

Before I took the job, I knew that Evanston

was working on a reparations program,

and I wanted the opportunity to work with the committee.

My background as an attorney is primarily litigation.

The number one question that I get asked

as the legal counsel is,

how do you deal with it being a race-based program?

How do you get over that hurdle?

With respect to reparations or any sort of equity work

in this country, ironically, you battle the th Amendment.

The th Amendment guarantees equal protection

under the laws of all citizens in the United States.

Although the Amendment was passed

to try and benefit freed sl*ves

and African Americans in the country,

it's actually been used to deny opportunities

to those same groups.

If someone sues, they say, "This isn't right.

This is reverse discrimination."

This is one of my favorite terms.

This is reverse discrimination.

And ironically,

discrimination is one of the hardest things to prove.

You can always say in the area of housing,

"This person was denied

"because of their income.

"They were denied because of their credit.

"They were denied because of a laundry list

of things that had nothing to do with their race."

But we didn't have the resources internally

to find that evidence.

And Dino Robinson was instrumental in gathering

a lot of evidence, specifically implicating

actions of the city

with respect to discrimination.

- You know, what we're trying to anticipate is,

what if somebody comes and says,

"Well, this wasn't a law

"in the law books in the city of Evanston.

So how can you say it happened?"

Well, since we did not have any written laws,

we had to look for the underlying evidence

in, you know, procedures and thought processes,

and maybe just the way the city of Evanston

conducted themselves with the Black community.

So we found this recently.

"Negroes unable to secure homes here."

This came out January , .

Nearly colored families living in cramped homes

of friends and relatives are unable to rent

any other hundreds of empty houses.

And it goes on to say, like, landlords will not rent

to Negroes, and how can land owners

and realtors selling homes to Negroes,

how can we prevent that from happening?

And can we move the Black community

to unincorporated Niles?

So that is played out over and over again.

We know it happens,

but to find documentation of some sort,

you know, it's an eye-opener.

Yes, beautiful Evanston has its roots in Jim Crow.

[birds chirping]

- There's a reason why a lot of the Blacks

are not here anymore.

I think my mom is the last original owner on this block.

- That's what I've been told.

I don't know for sure.

- This is a first-step initiative

to try to re-compensate for the losses

that we've taken over the years.

- It would help for now.

- Well, I think that it's more like repairing the dignity.

You know, people looking at you

based on the color of your skin

and being discriminated against

just solely because of how you look, you know,

it really can have a traumatic effect on you overall.

In looking back at what my dad had to go through

back in the South during Jim Crow,

and you could literally be beaten and k*lled

for standing up for yourself.

So it took me a long time to understand

that my dad was protecting me by shuffling his feet

and skinning and grinning in front of the white man.

And it took me at least years

to understand why he did that.

So yeah, I think that these type of programs

restore dignity and faith that, you know,

the system is changing and working in a way

towards bringing better equality

and bringing different racestogether

in more understanding.

- Good afternoon. You're on the air.

- I got friends and family talking about,

they're gonna give us reparations now.

Come on. [laughs]

I bet you a million dollars

they give us Juneteenth

before they give us reparations.

- Surprise!

- ♪ Happy birthday to me - ♪ Happy birthday to you

- ♪ Happy birthday to me - ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

all: ♪ Happy birthday, dear Carlis ♪

- ♪ Happy birthday to me - ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

- ♪ And many more

- Yay! Whoo!

- You didn't tell me about

these fine young ladies down here.

[laughter]

- Bless the hands up in spirit

and bless the people who will receive it.

Please let all of the blessings continue

for our health and our wealth,

and thank you for fellowship and friendship.

Amen. Amen. Amen. - Amen.

- Good bread, good meat, good Lord, let's eat.

[laughter]

- Carlis... - Hmm?

- Tell us the story about your parents' house,

that they were--

they actually what-- they moved the street or...

- Yeah.

They tore the street off the map.

It's no longer on the map.

They were building those very expensive homes

up and down Central Park.

For some reason or another, they didn't want--

they couldn't get the value of their homes

if Black people were living near them.

So the developers moved all the Blacks out.

- Same as what's happening right now.

- Right, and I think

that's one reason why my grandfather

turned to alcohol,

because he could not hold his head up

in front of his own family.

You cannot pay my grandfather back.

He's dead.

But we descendants,

we survived without any assistance

from the city of Evanston.

No banks, nothing.

Now give us what we're due.

- We need a cash payment.

Alderman Ruth Simmons said that that's what

she was gonna give us from the beginning.

- She knows.

She knows from firsthand what happened.

And yet and still she does nothing about it.

- So we have a reparations bill,

and I thank her for that, okay?

But we are ready now to go to the next step.

We're all in this same boat together.

But every time we grab an oar, you want to row against us.

Let's row together in this community.

Let's build this country as it was intended to be,

the city on the hill

that is a light for the entire world.

- For the purpose of moving this meeting forward,

do we have consensus on $,

for purchase of a new home as the number up to?

- Yeah. - I vote yes.

- Okay, so with that said, I'm making a motion

that we extend the program budget for housing to $,

for a total program budget.

- Mother? - Alderman Braithwaite?

- [speaking indistinctly] - Okay.

So with that said, staff, we want to move forward

with a program budget of K

for purchase benefit up to ,.

- I vote yes. - Okay.

And with that, do we have anyone

signed up for public comment?

- John, are you ready to go next?

- I'm always ready.

$, is not a lot of money.

$, is not gonna go too far.

But all the conversations that I've been hearing,

it's not indicative of reparation.

It's indicative of programs that were already

previously in place in other places.

If you're gonna do reparations,

do reparations.

If you're gonna give people money for reparations,

then you get them money

to repair the damage that's done.

You don't give them money and then demand

and tell them what they can do with it.

Call a spade a spade.

And don't let them twist it into something

that is other than what it's represented to be,

because then the backlash

is gonna be on you later on.

- Thank you all for coming.

And with that said, Alderman Rainey,

if you don't have any final comment,

you could move adjournment.

- I move adjournment.

- I second. Thank you all.

- Bye.

- I'm good.

Are you dressed and ready to go to graduation?

Do you have a graduation outfit on now?

It's a special day, baby.

It's always tough to end with a, you know,

"This isn't reparation."

Because it is.

Any direct benefit to address the damages

to a targeted community is repair.

And that's what it is on a local level.

But I also feel the frustrations

of a resident that says this isn't reparations.

It's not enough.

You know, I appreciate your effort.

I--I respect and understand their frustrations,

and for me that's frustrating, because I want to do more.

Are you ready? - Look.

- Perfect.

[laughs]

Yay, Bailee!

- [laughs]

- All right, get it on.

Turn it on.

- Okay.

- I'll tell you right now, I'm just excited.

My daughter is graduating from Northwestern.

She's going to Yale.

And I'm just going to leave my work for a little while

and go celebrate Bailee.

- So you know this is just gonna be

the president and the mayor.

- That's fine.

I don't care.

It is Bailee Rue graduation.

Okay, go out there and walk in here.

- Oh, my God, seriously? - Go on. Yeah, seriously.

[chuckling]

- Oh, my God.

- Go around the corner.

["Pomp and Circumstance" playing]

Okay, Bailee.

- Mother.

- Yay, Bailee! - Yay!

Yay! [laughs]

- Yay! - Yay!

Have a seat.

- Now I sit.

- Now you sit.

♪ ♪

And this just plays until it starts,

'cause that's what you would be doing.

- Yeah, we'd be walking in.

- See?

- I'm a bit underwhelmed right now.

- [laughs]

♪ ♪

[mellow music]

[laughter]

♪ ♪

- Where you trying to go on this little bike?

♪ ♪

- Tonight, video has surfaced of an African American man

being chased down and k*lled in a Georgia community.

His family says he was just out jogging.

- Breonna Taylor, the -year-old

Louisville first responder,

shot eight times and k*lled by police.

- This is -year-old George Floyd.

He is the man who died in police custody on Monday.

- Over the last several hours, the situation here

has really deteriorated.

Police started pushing and clearing out the street.

[tense music]

- Black Lives Matter!

all: Black Lives Matter!

- I am not okay.

We're experiencing the trauma of racial terror

and Black public execution.

And people hurting and dying

and grief.

all: Hey, hey, h*, h*,

these r*cist cops have got to go!

Hey, hey, h*, h*,

these r*cist cops have got to go!

Hey, hey, h*, h*,

these r*cist cops have got to go!

Hey, hey, h*, h*,

these r*cist cops have got to go!

Hey, hey, h*, h*!

- Let me tell you, justice is just the minimum.

We have had chattel enslavement,

Jim Crow redlining,

police terror now we're dealing with today.

It is genocide is what is happening

to our Black people in this nation.

The ally community, thank you for being here,

being bold, but it's not enough

that you come to these places and you stand here.

You must go to your own places, and you must raise your voice

in the same manner, with the same energy

in your private spaces!

Do the right thing!

[cheers and applause]

- The ground shifted.

There was COVID, just shutting everything down,

and suddenly, there was Ahmaud Arbery.

And then there was Breonna Taylor.

Then there was George Floyd.

There was so much going on

to do with race in this country

that it has left me spinning.

Being white, being a woman, and being middle aged,

I don't trust my voice to be a legitimate advocate.

I mean, I hope I am.

Now people want to know more,

and I don't know that I am qualified.

Being white, it is so easy to put up a yard sign

and not really even understand the issues

or understand what that really means.

That can really lead to complacency

and that you think you've done your job.

You can't abdicate responsibility.

We white people are the people who have to write the check.

You know, my heart supports it.

- Now in Evanston, a battle

over the city's reparations plan.

- Lots in the community are questioning why the money

goes directly to the banks,

why people can't have a cash payment.

- Claiming that is was nothing more

than a housing program.

- The Evanston city council is set to vote Monday

on a bill to give reparations to Black residents,

but some residents are saying, "Not so fast."

- Good morning, everyone.

My name is Sebastian Nalls,

and I'm one of the organizers

with Evanston Rejects r*cist Reparations.

This program, as it is, is incomplete,

and it makes no sense to go forward with it.

- How divisive this Evanston reparations bill is becoming.

We ask that everyone just wait.

Go back to the drawing board.

We implore the Evanston public to join us

in resisting this initiative.

- Reparations are meant to close the racial wealth gap.

The program that the city of Evanston is offering

does not do that at all.

We want a real program.

We don't want a program that's a fraud.

This is important.

They say in America

that only one in six white people

support reparations.

The fact that so many white people in Evanston

support this... - [laughs]

- That should tell you it's not reparations.

- That's the warning.

- Just based--I'm just talking about the data.

You know, what is happening now

is we're gonna recycle programming

that we've already done for decades

and decades that hasn't helped

to close the racial wealth gap.

- Now, when you're incepting something

that you're trying to bring out,

it has to be near perfect.

And this is just a bunch of sloppy crap

that they have put together.

They're literally throwing it against the wall

to see what will stick and what will not stick.

- There are possible legal ramifications

where the whole program in and of itself

could get thrown out.

And that itself could shut down

the reparations movement as a whole.

- Whatever the vote tomorrow, it's not over.

It's just beginning.

And we are going to follow them

and this process in Evanston.

- My hope is, is that some of these aldermen

will finally recognize, okay,

maybe this isn't the right thing to do.

- I think what they're offering us is an insult,

and we decided elderly homeowners

should get the first reparations.

That's gonna be spread over a -year period.

And now the city of Evanston is balking on that.

- The proposal, as from what I understand it,

is they're trying to vote for the first $,

to go for a housing program.

Not happening.

It should not be.

- Now's the time for you to stand up

and show what you're about.

We hear what they say, okay, we read what they put in paper.

But then I'll wait to the vote, okay,

before I make any kind of decision about the consistency

of Evanston with saying one thing,

and then doing totally the opposite

when it comes to application.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- I had been really obsessed with defending the case

for reparations on a local level.

And it was just nonstop.

- Calling the meeting to order.

Alderman Simmons? - Aye.

It was sleepless nights.

It was always doing more research.

And I did that while managing the rest of my life

being the alderman of the Fifth Ward.

Technically, it's part time.

I can't work , hours a week

for $, a year.

I can't do it.

My first responsibility is to my children,

and I have sacrificed a lot being the alderman.

And it's been uncomfortable for my family.

My daughter has not been able

to even walk the dog in peace sometimes.

People have intimidated her.

It's been a lot of stress on my mother

to see her only child treated so cruelly.

And then just the time.

Because of the way that I serve,

I don't know how to say,

"I can't help you right now, homeless family."

You know?

"Find another way."

I only know how to find a solution for them.

I only know how to do everything

that I can to help them.

- And while the whole nation is watching,

there are people that are waiting for this to fail.

- Because I'm not able to balance it,

I'm not able to turn the service off,

so I have just committed to the balance of this term.

And then after that, I'll have to heal

and repair damages that have been done to my life

and to my family.

- But for our Black residents, I just ask for your patience.

♪ ♪

- Good evening, everyone.

I am Mayor Hagerty,

mayor of the city of Evanston.

It is Monday, March , ,

and I call this public hearing to order.

I'm now gonna open it,

and we'll start with Alderperson Simmons.

- Thank you all for establishing this path forward

to reparations in Evanston.

The reparations subcommittee recommends city council

adopt Resolution -R- to authorize the implementation

of the local reparation restorative housing program,

and the initial program budget of $,.

I move approval. - Second.

- We are now gonna move to public comment.

Illinois--

- Did you see who's in the meeting?

- Dr. Sandy Darity first.

- Oh, he's--he's anti.

- The Evanston plan does very little

about the equity gap produced by segregation and redlining.

- It perpetuated the systemic racism

and added age discrimination.

- We want cash payments.

Robin promised us that.

- And the push forward appears to be more oriented

towards photo ops and marketing

something that simply isn't true.

- First, I want to support the passage.

I also think we should have on the agenda cash payments.

- [laughs]

I can't tell if he was for or against it.

- Don't slam the door on something

that can be positive for our community.

- That's right, Miss Adams.

- Yes, it's small, but it's a start,

and we must start somewhere.

It is a sign that Evanston cares about families

that look like mine.

- If you vote no tonight,

you will be on the wrong side of history.

- If we do not step forward now,

all of these other reparations programs in the United States

will probably suffer as well.

- But most of all, we in Evanston

are leading the way to heal a nation.

- I love her.

- Thank you to Alderman Rue Simmons.

Not only did you push us forward,

but you made us believe we could do it.

I think this step is gonna pull all of America forward.

- City clerk, could you please take the roll

on this historic vote tonight?

- Alderman Fisk. - Aye.

- Alderman Braithwaite. - Aye.

- Alderman Wynne. - Aye.

- Alderman Wilson. - Aye.

- Alderman Simmons. - Aye.

- Alderman Suffredin. - Aye.

- Alderman Revelle. - Aye.

- Alderman Rainey. - Aye.

- And Alderman Fleming.

- No.

- All right, so on a -to- vote,

the Evanston city council approved adoption

of resolution -R- authorizing

the implementation of the Evanston

local reparations program.

- Good job.

- [applauding]

- Thank you. Good night.

- Good night. - Good night.

- Good night.

- Nice job.

- Congratulations to you.

- We did it.

It's happening.

- [crying] That's my baby.

- You okay, mother?

- That made me so happy.

- Yeah.

I wish we didn't have those negative comments, though.

- You did a great job.

Congratulations to you. - Mm-hmm.

- Congratulations to you.

- I'm so very proud.

She's been amazing all her life.

This is just one more amazing something from my daughter.

Yeah.

[soft music]

♪ ♪

- This week, Evanston, Illinois, made history.

- The nation's first government-backed reparations

initiative for Black Americans was approved

this week in Evanston, Illinois.

- In a near unanimous vote, Evanston city council

voted to approve the first installment of $,

to be distributed among eligible Black households.

- The money can be used for down payments,

mortgage payments, repairs, or home improvements.

- Many hope the historic program

will pave the way for more reparations in other cities.

♪ ♪

- This is the international headquarters.

But really it is the headquarters.

It's just--it's just myself, and most recently,

we have an employee, Shawn.

I have launched a nonprofit called First Repair.

"First" because we are the first in the nation

to have a funded reparation plan

with tangible steps and measurable outcomes.

So this is the reception area.

It's Shawn's office, and it's our conference room.

And here's our break room.

[laughs]

And then here's my office.

There's really nothing to it.

This is where I do my work every day.

It's what I do full time now.

I retired this year as alderman,

and now I'm able to singularly focus

on reparations in Evanston and beyond.

There has been great interest in advancing reparations

beyond Evanston.

That passing vote has set a precedent,

and it's shown a possibility that others

are now looking to as a reference, as,

"Okay, they did this in Evanston.

We can do this here."

♪ ♪

- Good morning.

Good morning. Good morning.

Good morning. Good morning.

Thank you all for your sponsorship on H.R. .

We're so excited. - I'm so excited.

- Thank you.

Thank you.

This idea of H.R.

was to finally have us in dignity,

and have the American people say,

"That's the right thing to do."

Good morning, Mr. Chairman. - How are you?

- I can't thank you enough for this markup.

- Today is going to be a long, contentious one.

- Well, I'm ready for this.

I feel a moment in history.

I'm excited.

Let's do this, Mr. Chairman.

All right. [laughs]

[gavel clacks]

- I now call up H.R. ,

the Commission to Study and Develop

Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act.

This legislation is long overdue.

- Mr. Chairman, I'm very pleased to be able to speak

in support of my legislation H.R. , which I introduced,

that establishes a commission to study

and develop reparation proposals

for African Americans.

It was historic.

The first time the bill ever got to the moment

of something that is so integral

to the process of governance,

which is called a markup,

which means the bill is on its way

to a possible vote on the floor and to become law.

And here we are today, marking up for the first time

in the history of the United States of America

any legislation that deals directly

with the years and centuries of sl*very.

- Look, everyone knows how evil sl*very was.

Wrong as wrong could be.

But this is not--this--

this is not-- not what we want to be passing.

- Reparation is divisive.

It speaks to the fact that we are a hapless, hopeless race

that never did anything but wait for white people

to show up and help us.

And it's a falsehood.

- I would offer that I think

this is the wrong path for the future of our nation.

And I think that is the problem here.

And I think this is not the direction we want

to carry our country forward.

- The opposition was,

"That happened then. This is now."

A very weak argument.

Shallow argument.

A total refusal to really see sl*very for what it was.

It was a crime.

But no one paid the price.

H.R. is a concentrated effort

to right a wrong, and to do it with dignity

and study and respect.

I can't imagine why any one of us

would not vote for H.R. ,

the Commission to Study

and Develop Reparation Proposals,

and I ask my colleagues to vote yes on this bill.

- Reporting quorum being present,

the question is on the motion to report the bill

H.R. as amended favorably to the House.

Those in favor, respond by saying aye.

- Aye. - Aye.

- Those no. - No.

- The ayes have it, and the bill

is ordered and reported favorably.

- Good job, Senate majority. - Thank you.

- Thank you.

I had a great weight on my shoulders

that was lifted a little bit.

It was so emotional to see

that the journey had made a leap.

♪ ♪

What I want to see happen is that we move the bill

to the floor, and it's urgent that it gets passed.

And my commitment is, it must be passed.

There must be a commission.

I'm pinching myself to see

if this is really happening.

H.R. is the significant, singular affirmation

of us in our journey.

This place called America is as much a part of us

and we are a part of it.

♪ ♪

- The purpose of this meeting is to get you prepared

for when the release of the application

occurs on September .

The idea is that hopefully we can get funding

out the door disbursed by the end of November,

beginning of December.

- The kitchen. I need the kitchen--

those are the original cabinets,

and they're dry rotted.

They're just falling apart.

This is falling down in the bottom there.

The drawers is falling apart.

See the dry rot up there.

The cupboards is falling.

Disconnected up there.

The floor.

That's what--see the floor?

- Well, we're going to go down to Fleetwood-Jourdain,

and we're going to fill out an application

for the housing restoration program

for the first phase of reparations

for Blacks in Evanston

and hopefully get some compensation for my mom.

♪ ♪

- Miss Carmen will help you right over here.

- Oh. Hi. - Hi.

Do you have any documentation with you?

- Yeah, she got the closing and got the trust deed.

♪ ♪

- Do you have your driver's license with you?

- I do. - Or state ID?

Okay, I'll take anything.

- I have a obituary that has my mother's name listed in it.

So that was here , his Evanston senior year

in high school.

- Okay. - Yearbook, and there he is.

- Oh, nice.

- So it shows that he was a graduate

of Foster School and Evanston Township High School.

- Okay.

- And you are all set.

Good luck.

- Well, thank you much. You're a scholar and a saint.

- You're welcome. No problem.

- Submitting, submitting.

[cheers and applause]

- Good job. Awesome. - Excellent.

Wonderful. - Good job.

[laughter] - Thank you.

- That's great.

♪ ♪

- My understanding is that reparations

is an attempt to repair the harm

that it's cost us economically.

When I started looking,

no, this is not the answer to reparations

that we're approaching in Evanston.

But the longest journey begins with the first step.

Good morning.

Either you're part of the solution,

or you're part of the problem.

I don't want to be a part of the problem.

Northern Illinois.

If this is the way we have to start with it, let's start.

We have years.

But I want this to be the boilerplate.

I want this to be the initiative for cities

all over the United States

to accept that we're here to stay.

- Good morning. How are you?

I'm good.

Hi, Mr. Sutton. I'm good. How are you?

Is this one me?

- First, we're gonna have an introduction

of our new committee members, Carl Sutton.

- Being a third-generation Evanstonian and an active

member in the community, I've had a chance

to realize that Evanston now stands

at the brink of history.

We're in a very good position now to set the tone

which I hope the nation will pick up the ball and follow.

We are under the eyes now of the whole world.

[soft music]

♪ ♪

- So you know what we need, actually, is the labels.

The name tags. - Oh, okay.

- Okay, I got to prepare something to say.

We are ready to receive about leaders

that have been working on local reparation initiatives

in their communities.

Hey, Tina.

Has anyone showed up?

Oh, wow. Great.

- The value of Evanston

and the work of Robin Rue Simmons is,

it's one of those turning points.

Because there is this pent-up yearning

for a concrete example that it can be done.

- The extra folders are over there.

- Symbolically, Evanston woke up the world.

♪ ♪

So everyone, municipalities, university,

I mean, is looking to Evanston.

And the hope is that what we all end up doing

is creating a national network of groups.

- This conference will and should go down in history

as the Evanston Conference.

It is a distinct honor to be representing

the CARICOM Reparations Commission

at this historical event.

- I bring you greetings from New Orleans, Louisiana.

- I am with World One Development

in Tulsa, Oklahoma, home of Black Wall Street.

- I'm from Los Angeles.

- Amherst, Massachusetts.

- I'm from Philadelphia.

- Omaha, Nebraska.

- When I started this work, I simply was trying

to repair some of the injury

that had been done in my own community.

- City of Tulsa.

- I had no idea how big

this whole local reparations movement would get.

- I'm Mayor Michael B. Hancock of Denver, Colorado.

- From Atlanta, Georgia.

- I'm a founding member of The Kansas City

chapter of the National Black United Front.

- In , we talked about reparations,

but we didn't know how to go about doing it.

But one day, I was looking at TV,

and I saw this bad sister out of Evanston, Illinois.

[laughter]

She inspired me.

I said, "If they can do it in Evanston, Illinois,

why can't we do it in Detroit?"

We're % Black.

- For me, this is the most important thing

that we as a people should be focusing on

in this moment.

This is our shot to address

all the disparities, and in one--

you know, one container.

- This country says that it values

liberty and justice for all

and equity and inclusion and freedom.

- So San Francisco has a population of over...

- That's not been the reality of Black America.

- Less than % of the population

is African American.

- Recognizing the legal challenges

that we know are coming up,

we still need to be about the task of beginning

to create a new narrative and a new legal framework.

- I realize that now I'm a part of a movement,

a national movement,

one that has great momentum to finally grapple with

the injury inflicted by sl*very

and the deep-seated racism that we endure today.

We're here to represent and advocate

for H.R. , ladies.

We're here for H.R. .

We're all here for the things that empower our community.

Just want to make sure you had this flier.

- Thank you so much. - Thank you.

Thanks for being here. - Good luck to you today.

- Thank you.

Trauma in the Black community runs so deep.

The injury is so deep.

It's been passed down through generations.

And for us to move forward,

everyone in our community, all Americans,

need to commit to reconciling with that past.

[cheers and applause]

My name is Robin Rue Simmons,

and I am here in solidarity with each of you

as we fight for the issues we value.

Reparations for people of African descent in America

is long overdue.

We don't want a piece of freedom.

We want the whole package, and that's reparations.

H.R. now, reparations now.

[cheers and applause]

[hopeful music]

♪ ♪

There are thousands of communities

all across this nation that need repair.

♪ ♪

It is my life's work.

I feel truly assigned to do this work.

I wake up every morning with an assignment

on, what is my next action?

Who should I try to connect with?

Who am I gonna meet? What partnership?

What new idea?

[thunder rumbling]

♪ ♪

I will not be satisfied until I see

that quality of life for Black Americans

is truly on par with that of white Americans.

♪ ♪

We have made a start in Evanston,

but there is so much more work that needs to be done.

♪ ♪

[upbeat music]

♪ ♪

- Let's give it up, please,

for Representative Sheila Jackson Lee.

Please.

[cheers and applause]

♪ ♪

- I declare and proclaim

that America has just gotten a gift.

They have the ability now

to call themselves the supporters

of the Juneteenth national holiday.

[cheers and applause] This is America.

The numbers kept coming.

They kept coming. They kept coming.

We haven't seen these numbers.

men and women

of the United States Congress

voted for the Juneteenth holiday.

!

[cheers and applause]

Something about that word, Juneteenth.

[cheers and applause]