Activists in Boston are calling for $15 billion in cash payouts from the city as reparations for slavery, an issue a Boston committee is already considering.
As Boston's task force studying how the city might enact reparations continues its work, a grassroots organization on Saturday called for a price tag of $15 billion.
The Boston Peoples Reparations Commission held a news conference in Roxbury to announce their proposal.
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"The wealth of this city was built on slavery. And the city is responsible to pay back the wealth they extracted free of charge from other human beings who died at some point in the labor for this city," said Rev. Kevin Peterson, who founded and runs the New Democracy Coalition.
The $15 billion would be split three ways, according to the commission's proposal: $5 billion in direct cash payments to Black Boston residents, a $5 billion investment in new financial institutions and $5 billion to address the racial education education gap and for anti-crime measures.
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By comparison, Boston's budget for Fiscal Year 2024 is $4.28 billion.
The organizers of the Boston Peoples Reparations Commission argued that educational effects of slavery could be felt 100 years after it was abolished.
The City of Boston established its Reparations Task Force in 2022. The group, which last met Feb. 6, website lists its focus areas as:
- Working with a research partner to release a study on the legacy of slavery in Boston and its impact on descendants today
- Engaging the community throughout the process to include input from lived experience
- Providing recommendations to the Mayor for reparative justice solutions for Black residents
