Doing The Work: Robin Rue Simmons on Implementing the Nation’s First Government-Funded Reparations Program

Robin Rue Simmons is the Founder and Executive Director of First Repair, a nonprofit organization that provides expertise, technical assistance, and advocacy for local reparations nationwide. As the 5th Ward Alderwoman in Evanston, Illinois from 2017-2021, Ms. Rue Simmons choreographed the establishment of the United States’ first municipally-funded reparations legislation. Since leaving office, Ms. Rue Simmons serves as the chairwoman of the City of Evanston Reparations Committee.

Nico Johnson, Staff Writer and Director of Learning and Development at the Chicago Policy Review, spoke with Ms. Rue Simmons during her Fellowship at the Institute of Politics about the latitude of reparations in the U.S. and the impact of the Evanston reparations program. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

CPR: It wasn’t until I attended your talks at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics that I gained a comprehensive understanding of the reparations movement. Can you explain how reparations are more than a cash payment and why it’s important that Americans develop a robust understanding of reparations?

RRS: When we hear about reparations, we usually hear about a check as a form of repair because of other models that have prioritized some type of a cash benefit. But most of us really look at the international standard for reparations, which takes a comprehensive look at reparations and is more of what Black communities are calling for: cessation and guarantee of non-repetition of the anti-Black, racist policies that have harmed the Black community. Restitution in the form of a check, grant or tangible benefit is of course the most advocated touchstone of reparations. Satisfaction—a standard we’re gradually satisfying—focuses on restoring the dignity of a people, acknowledging them, and helping create a sense of place again. Lastly, rehabilitation is an area that we’re seeing more and more of a call for: our overall wellness, mental health, and trauma infused care. Repairing the whole person, the whole Black community, in ways beyond compensation. A check alone without policy changes to fair lending, zoning laws, and representation is not going to be enough.

CPR: You reference a “comprehensive form of reparations.” Is that because reparations aren’t just for the original crime of slavery but for the systemic racist policies that followed post-emancipation?

RRS: That’s exactly right. When we make the case for reparations, it’s not only the crimes of the transatlantic slave trade, but also its legacies. We’re looking at the terror of slavery and theft of labor that was slavery, but moving forward through history, we’re seeking repair for the Jim Crow Era, redlining, police violence and terror, mass incarceration, predatory lending, and zoning inequities. That long list of harms and crimes against the Black community is what we’re looking to repair.

CPR: As the 5th Ward Alderwoman in Evanston, Illinois from 2017 to 2021, you were responsible for crafting the nation’s first municipally-funded reparations program. Can you paint the big picture of what reparations in Evanston is about?

RRS: In 2019, I was a couple of years into my four-year term as Alderwoman in Evanston and I wasn’t really thinking about reparations in the formal sense, like HR 40, but was supportive of HR 40¹. I realized our values of diversity and inclusion were not aligned with the racial gaps in wealth, education, homeownership, and policing. Then I had learned more about the possibilities of being a Home Rule municipality², with our form of government, and what authority and power we had to govern within our values as a city. Building on the work of many before me—a reparations resolution in 2002 that supported HR 40 and various diversity and inclusion programs—I called the question for reparations. With Resolution 126-R-19, we established a reparations fund with an initial $10 million from cannabis tax. Informed through a community process, we prioritized housing, economic development, and educational initiatives. We then established a committee to do the work. Right now, we’ve made a commitment to repair past harm specifically to Evanston. We are not interested nor able to implement the federal law and budget for the crimes of slavery. We, of course, still stand on HR 40 as an expectation for slavery remedy. But we are focused on how the city of Evanston has harmed its Black community. Reparations are an ongoing and complex process and we’re in the early stages of it.

CPR: You touched briefly on the reparations fund coming from the cannabis tax in Evanston. Can you expand on this funding and the eligibility criteria for a person to receive reparations?

RRS: We saw that there was a 71% arrest rate in the Black community for marijuana-related crimes while we were only 15% of the population. So, it was an easy consensus to use a cannabis sales tax to fund reparations. Since then, we’ve added some additional taxes as well. We then determined that an individual was eligible for reparations if they were a Black resident of Evanston directly harmed by—or a direct descendant of someone who was harmed by—racist housing practices and zoning laws during a 50-year period between 1919 and 1969. As we’ve begun dispersing reparations, our elders that were directly harmed between 1919 and 1969 have been the first to receive their disbursements.

CPR: Can you expand on the context of harm? Who was doing the harming, and where did you find the data that allowed you to identify it?

RRS: I’m so glad you asked that question. The City of Evanston was doing harm with its laws, its policies, and its practices. The Shorefront Legacy Center, led and directed by Dino Robinson, uncovered the harm in a report on the negative impacts of zoning laws on wealth, opportunity, and access for Black residents. A section of the community disinvested in, stripped of a neighborhood school, and stripped of a hospital. Still today, it has no access to a neighborhood school. The school district has since pledged to return one school, but even still, there is no healthy food in the area, and there are air quality issues, deteriorating housing stock, fewer community amenities, business amenities, and civic amenities, less green space, less environmental assets and more.

CPR: You touched briefly on the disbursement order to Black residents, which began January 2022. How were those initial disbursements given and for what purpose?

RRS: Right now, the initial program that we’ve crafted is a $25,000 restorative housing direct reparation benefit to build wealth through home equity. It can be applied towards a down payment, to reduce mortgage balance principle, to make home improvements, or it can be passed down to a direct descendant. We have residents who have made substantial home improvements on deferred maintenance or aesthetic things they just desire to have. It’s their choice to do as they see fit. We also have residents who have given their benefit to their child. In one case, the child paid down their mortgage balance and won’t have a mortgage payment for three to four years, providing a little bit of relief. And we just expanded our program to include the option to take a cash benefit if you aren’t eligible for any of these uses.

CPR: Can you discuss how pivotal engaging the interfaith community was in garnering support for reparations in Evanston?

RRS: Men and women like Rabbi Andrea London of Beth EMET synagogue and Reverend Dr. Michael C.R. Nabors of Second Baptist Church, who also happens to be our branch NAACP president, have been leading our communities through public education and understanding of reparations. The Jewish community has been preparing white papers on reparations based on their scripture, as have our Catholic and Protestant churches. The infrastructure of the interfaith community has created a safe space for people to learn and stretch themselves. Although I was the initiator of the reparations program, I could not have taken the next steps without our interfaith community. In just a few months, our interfaith community of about 18 churches raised nearly a million dollars in support of the municipal work that’s happening for reparations in Evanston.

CPR: Can you discuss the nature of the opposition that you faced in your work for reparations?

RRS: While in office, you’re already dealing with opposition because that’s part of politics. And then when you work on a policy pursuit that some consider radical and others consider to be justice, you layer on more opposition. What I did expect was the racially insensitive opposition: name calling, social media terror, violence, and being called out of my name. What I didn’t expect was such an organized nucleus of inner community debate around forms of reparations and what direction we should take, which is also political. For me, that is quite frustrating because we have an enemy to fight together—white supremacy—and to be distracted with fighting one another over political position is a distraction. Although I’ve retired from the office so that I could do this work full time, I still face political opposition. There are some reparation supporters that only believe in a cash benefit as a form of reparations. The argument is really a false debate because it’s not a question of “either/or,” it’s a question of how do we get to all of these forms of repair? And we have to do it one step at a time. Especially when we’ve had no progress for municipally-funded or federally-funded reparations for Black America.

CPR: How are you continuing your work on reparations now that you’re no longer an Evanston Alderwoman?

RRS: The north star for all of us is a federal bill. As much as we work and as hard as we work, and however much success we have at a local level, it will not satisfy the harm done to the Black community in America. We are ultimately fighting for HR 40 to be established and a commission to be seated and appointed. What I will do in the meantime is keep doing more of the same. Evanston didn’t have $10 million in 2019 and now we have $20 million. We didn’t have one city that had committed to repair in 2019, now there’s over 100. There were no reparations commitments from states, now California is doing monumental work. I’m committed to continuing this work alongside many others. Separately from my work at First Repair, which is a not-for-profit, I continue to work with the city of Evanston as the chairwoman of the reparations committee. We’re continuously working on improving and expanding the reparations initiative for the city of Evanston.

CPR: You’ve made clear that reparations are unapologetically targeted at repairing centuries of harm done to Black communities. How do reparations benefit an entire community?

RRS: There’s a 2018 report called The Cost of Segregation Report that was published by the Metropolitan Planning Council. It centers on how addressing segregation and various forms of discrimination could uplift all of Chicago. This report emboldened me to move forward knowing that the moral argument would not be enough; fiscal responsibility and legislative possibilities would also come up as concerns because there was no model to use as inspiration. But that report shows how reparations can increase the GDP of Chicago by billions of dollars and spur exponential growth for Black families by increasing their household income, improving their education and access to thriving wage jobs, and reducing neighborhood violence. It’s an incredible report with a long list of positive outcomes. I recommend everyone review it to understand how reparations are good for the entire community. It is a public benefit. Reparations actually improve every sector, every neighborhood. The improvement in overall wellness of a community can be achieved by repairing the Black community.

CPR: At the Harris School, we’re hyper-focused on measuring and evaluating the impact of public policy programs. How long do you think it will take to see the benefit of the Evanston reparations program on the community?

RRS: Owning your own home is a determinant for everything: wellness, education, mental health, and your overall quality of life. Having stable housing that is your own makes all the difference for families—and I can speak from experience. It’ll certainly be 10 years before we can really see the type of decrease in the household income gaps that we would like to see. There are many Black folks who believe that there is no dollar amount or program that can repair the harm of rape and murder and plunder. You can’t repair that, but you can acknowledge it and take a step forward. In terms of seeing our racial gaps reduced, it’ll be 10, 20, 30 years before we can measure the success of this. But we shouldn’t be looking just at that one measurement of our initial commitment of home ownership. We also need to be looking at income, education, and health, and we can do that because now we have other partners and allies that are supporting reparations. I believe we’ll see reparative actions happening even beyond the municipal level, which will add to the overall benefit and outcomes of our commitment.

CPR: This may not be something that you can see in the data yet, but have you seen an increase in civic participation amongst the Black community since the program began in 2019?

RRS: I’m so glad you asked. These are some of the other benefits that we didn’t even think to measure: more civic participation, more voice, more ownership from the Black community. We’re also seeing more Black residents hired in leadership positions, and elected and appointed to boards, committees, and commissions. We’re seeing more participation and inclusion of Black voices.

CPR: Are there any books or resources that you would recommend people read if they are interested in understanding the full scope and importance of the reparations movement in the United States?

RRS: There are so many. I would look at The Color of Law as a great book to understand the disparities of housing and zoning and plunder in Black communities. A quick read is going to be Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Case for Reparations. But there’s such a robust list beyond just these. I would recommend readers visit our website where we have a resource page that has a list of recommendations, readings, reports, and documentaries about how to implement reparations. They help explain that reparations are more than a check: that there is precedent, and cause for action.

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¹ “This bill establishes the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans. The commission shall examine slavery and discrimination in the colonies and the United States from 1619 to the present and recommend appropriate remedies. The commission shall identify (1) the role of the federal and state governments in supporting the institution of slavery, (2) forms of discrimination in the public and private sectors against freed slaves and their descendants, and (3) lingering negative effects of slavery on living African Americans and society.” “H.R.40 – Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act,” Congress, accessed July 1, 2023, https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/40.

² “The purpose of home rule is to allow for local solutions to local issues and problems. A municipality with home rule status can exercise any power and perform any function unless it is specifically prohibited from doing so by state law.” “Purpose of Home Rule,” Illinois Municipal League, accessed July 1, 2023, https://www.iml.org/homerule.