The Boston City Council voted Wednesday to form a task force to study how it can provide reparations for and other forms of atonement to Black Bostonians for the city's role in slavery and its legacy of inequality.
The unanimous vote means Boston now joins a conversation about reparations that is happening across the country from Providence, Rhode Island to California.
"This ordinance is only the start of a long awaited yet necessary conversation," City Councilor Julia Mejia said. "The City of Boston, like many areas around the United States, has profited from the labor of enslaved African Americans and has further disadvantaged them by barring them from participating in the same economic mobility opportunities as their white counterparts."
In Providence, Rhode Island, the mayor earlier this year proposed spending $10 million of federal coronavirus funding on reparation efforts. The money would be spent on financial literacy and homeownership, workforce training, small business development and other programs recently recommended by the city’s reparations commission.
The task force in Boston will examine reparation models and study the disparities that have existed in the city as it relates to the African-American community. It will also collect data on "historic harms" to Black Bostonians and hold hearings where it will gather testimony from the community on problems they have faced.
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