Reparations
HEALING THROUGH JUSTICE
The national debate around reparations can be complicated and emotional, and we’ve provided a list of resources below that provide background and insight. What is clear it that our nation’s corrosive history of slavery has caused lasting harm to generations of people of African descent, and if that harm is not addressed it will keep inflicting damage.
Embrace Boston is committed to informing and influencing local, state, and national reparations efforts that seek full repair from the transatlantic slave trade, chattel slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and ongoing inequities. We believe Boston—and Massachusetts—can be a leader in facilitating meaningful repair, and that the opportunities and equity it unlocks will benefit us all.
DISCRIMINATION
BY DESIGN
“A centuries-long series of consequential policy decisions…have produced, perpetuated, and compounded…racial inequities.”
– King Boston’s Preamble to the State of Black Boston report, 2022
- Black people comprised 1 in 3 Covid-19 deaths in Boston (as of 4/2022).
- Nearly 60% of arrests in Boston in 2020 were of Black people.
- Only 35% of Black households in Boston are homeowners, compared to 68% of White households.
- Only 25% of Boston’s Black students in grades 3–8 were reading at grade level, compared to 62% of White students.
Create Justice Together
ADVANCING
THE DIALOGUE
In the wake of 2020’s summer uprisings for racial justice, Embrace Boston sought pathways to healing and joined with Black leaders from across Massachusetts to form the Black Mass Coalition and guide individuals and organizations in the private sector, nonprofit and philanthropy worlds, and halls of government attempting to determine how they should respond to the constant rage of an oppressed people.
The group created the Blueprint for a New World for Massachusetts, which calls for a $1 billion Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Fund to support BIPOC institutions, Black and Indigenous-led nonprofits and businesses, and other reparative efforts.
On the heels of this Blueprint, Embrace Boston put a stake in the ground around coordinating local reparations efforts in Boston in partnership with faculty at University of Massachusetts Boston who, in league with faculty from other higher education institutions from across the country, created the Higher Education Reparations Engagement (HERE) taskforce.
TAKE ACTION
If you identify as a Black Bostonian we invite you to join our in-person, Boston Reparations Lab event on October 1, to lend your voice to the vision of reparations in Boston!
REGISTER HERE
Join the Voicemail Project
What does reparations mean to you? Tell us through the Voicemail Project!
Call 617-506-9575 to lend your voice.
RESOURCES
Explore these links to find out more.
RECORDINGS
Tune in to conversations and convenings focused on reparations.
1/12/2022
During our fourth statewide meeting we heard from a national panel of advocates, including Robin Rue Simmons, Executive Director of FirstRepair, Evanston, IL, Dr. Amilcar Shabazz representing the African Heritage Reparation Assembly of Amherst, MA, and Sheryl Evans Davis, Executive Director of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission.
WATCH
10/26/2021
During our first statewide gathering, folks ground on national organizations involved in reparations work and heard updates from advocates working to create change here in Massachusetts.
WATCH
11/10/2021
The third statewide meeting offered a communal learning space to explore Shawn Rochester’s The Black Tax, which breaks down the series of inequitable policy decisions through history that have directly influenced today’s wealth disparities in the Black community.
WATCH
5/27/2021
During our first statewide gathering, folks received ground on national organizations involved in reparations work and heard updates from advocates working to create change here in Massachusetts.
WATCH
Join us on May 24th for our MA Statewide Reparations Convening!
GBNPHC's HBCU Night @ The Celtics