Daywatch: Johnson launches task force on reparations for Black Chicagoans
Good morning, Chicago.
Mayor Brandon Johnson launched a task force yesterday to examine implementing a reparations program for Black Chicagoans, casting the move as the latest step in his administration’s agenda focused on racial justice.
Under Johnson’s new executive order, the commission will conduct an examination of “all policies that have harmed Black Chicagoans from the slavery era to present day and make a series of recommendations that will serve as appropriate remedies,” according to a statement from the mayor’s office. The announcement came after Johnson earmarked $500,000 in the 2024 budget toward studying the issue.
Specific areas of harm toward Black Chicagoans that the announcement listed include housing, health, education, mass incarceration, policing and more. In his statement, Johnson nodded to the upcoming Juneteenth holiday and said the moment to act on rectifying “the legacy of chattel slavery and Jim Crow laws” is now, noting that Black Chicagoans still suffer disparities in life expectancy, unemployment and more.
Read the full story from the Tribune’s Alice Yin.
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