DETROIT (WXYZ) — A task force met on Thursday to begin discussing potential reparations for African Americans in the city of Detroit.
In 2021, Detroiters voted yes on a proposal to launch the task force to examine how to best address historical discrimination. Dozens of Detroit residents filled the Erma Henderson Auditorium at City Hall Thursday afternoon as the task force met for the first time.
The task force is made up of 13 Detroiters, all of which are African American. The group has met twice before virtually but Thursday marked their first public meeting.
“It’s time to rebuild and repair. Anybody living through Black Bottom knows about the horrendous conditions that Black folks went through and it's time to heal. And the only way we heal, we gotta talk about it and bring solutions to the problem," said Keith Williams who is the task force co-chair.
Proponents of reparations say historic discriminatory policies like redlining, the process in which minorities were barred from living in certain communities through discriminatory lending, has a direct tie to the generational poverty that some of the Black community in Detroit still faces today. The task force is meant to explore the possibility of paying those families back monetarily, through education or other means.
Detroiters who spoke during public comment repeatedly mentioned things like the destruction of Black Bottom as crews built the interstate. Black Bottom is a historic neighborhood where predominantly Black families lived. According to the Detroit Historical Society, during World War II, both the economic activity and the physical decay of Black Bottom rapidly increased as hoards of people poured into the city. Detroit at the time, already faced a housing shortage and racial discrimination restricted Black people to the increasingly overcrowded Black Bottom area. In the late 1950s and 1960s, the neighborhood was demolished and replaced with the Lafayette Park residential district and a freeway. Neighbors who grew up there say residents were evicted and booted from the area to make way for the roadway.
"I am born and raised and lived in Black Bottom. We were forced to move with very little compensation. For those that did own their homes, they couldn’t buy a new home anywhere else in the city of Detroit," said one resident.
Other residents mentioned their parents and grandparents who were not allowed to hold certain jobs in Detroit or were compensated with a fraction of the pay their white counterparts received, which impeded them from acquiring the same amount of wealth and setting up future generations for success.
The task force will focus on how to mend the gaps created in housing and economic status among Black residents. The process is set to take place over 18 months.
The task force has yet to discuss how best to compensate residents.
"Let’s be relentless. This is not a job for the task force or the grassroots people to sit idly by for 18 months," said another resident.
The next reparations task force meeting is set to take place April 28th from 4 pm to 6 pm. The location is forthcoming.
