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Democrat Mayor Announces Task Force for Slavery Reparations

Madeline Leesman
Madeline Leesman  |  January 25, 2024 12:45 PM

On Wednesday, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu (D) announced that the city created a reparations task force to study the city’s slave history and its lasting impact.

"For four hundred years, the brutal practice of enslavement and recent policies like redlining, the busing crisis, and exclusion from City contracting have denied Black Americans pathways to build generational wealth, secure stable housing, and live freely," Wu said in remarks on Wednesday. 

“I’m grateful to these teams of historians who will serve our city by documenting Boston’s role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the myriad legacies of slavery that continue to impact the daily lives of our city’s communities,” Wu added, according to WCVB.

Reportedly, the researchers will examine the city’s history with slavery from 1620 to present day. The task force has a budget of $500,000 to study the issue. 

"Boston is on trial to redress historical injustices that flow directly and indirectly from the institution of chattel slavery, and the examination of the truth and expansion of the narrative that will give us that evidentiary pool from which to argue for repair," task force member L’Merchie Frazier said, according to Fox News.

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The Boston City Council voted to form the task force in December 2022. 

Boston is not the first Democrat lawmaker to take this step in looking into reparations for slavery. Matt previously reported how New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) signed “racial justice legislation” vowing to create a committee to investigate reparations for slavery. 

Boston is not the first Democrat lawmaker to take this step in looking into reparations for slavery. Matt previously reported how New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) signed “racial justice legislation” vowing to create a committee to investigate reparations for slavery. On the west coast, California released a report on black reparations. Recently, Democrat Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York called for reparations from the federal government.

And, last month, Wu’s office was exposed for throwing an event intended exclusively for “electeds of color,” a.k.a., non-white officials, which Mia noted.