The East Side Freedom Library and the St. Paul Recovery Act Reading Group invite you to our monthly Reparations Reading & Discussion Group

Reparations in St. Paul: Which Way Forward?

Tuesday, January 10, 2023, 6:30 pm

Register here to join this event on Zoom.

KSTP-TV News recently reported:

“Minnesota’s Capitol City is joining a growing number of communities nationwide considering reparations for the descendants of slavery. A proposed ordinance in St. Paul would create a commission to reckon with the city’s history of racial discrimination and how to support the city’s African American community moving forward. It would establish the St. Paul Recovery Act Community Reparations Commission, a permanent 11-member advisory body to the mayor and City Council. One of its objectives would be to “make short, medium and long-term policy, program and budget recommendations to specifically address the creation and sustainment of generational wealth for the American Descendants of Chattel Slavery […].”

“Reparations can look like any number of things: it can be an apology or acknowledgment, it can be direct payments, it can be housing assistance, business assistance,” said Council Member Jane Prince, who sponsored the ordinance. “When this commission starts to meet, nothing will be off the table.”

Construction of Interstate-94 tore apart the city’s vibrant Rondo Neighborhood starting in the 1950’s. 80% of the city’s African American population once lived there, but hundreds of homes were torn down, and businesses were displaced.

“My mother was born and raised in the Rondo district of St. Paul, Minnesota, and I never forget that,” said Benjamin Mchie, who served on the city’s Legislative Advisory Committee. “It had an impact on a lot of families. It was part of urban renewal that was a national agenda that affected Black communities from Boston to Los Angeles and included every major metro area that had African Americans as part of both great migrations after slavery.”

In January 2021, the City issued a resolution apologizing, in part, for “systemic discrimination […] perpetrated through redlining and racial covenants, access to housing, environmental injustice, and the removal of St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood.”

“We have to look at the fact this is a 500 year old problem,” said Mchie.

“We did get some skepticism from people who are unsure about this, who have questions about this. I want to be clear that the process of educating our community about why this is necessary will be absolutely essential as well,” said Yohuru Williams, one of the Legislative Advisory

Committee conveners at the June meeting. “It’s going to be very important to bring the community along to do the historical recovery necessary, so people are really invested in the idea that this is not a handout to communities of color, this is restitution for historic injustice that continues to hurt our community socially, economically, politically.”

Join us for a conversation with members of the City’s Legislative Advisory Committee by zoom.

[email protected] and 651-207-4926
free and open to all