Mayor Tishaura Jones took the historic step of establishing a volunteer commission to explore and recommend opportunities for reparations in St. Louis on Wednesday.
She was joined in Room 200 by advocates and community members as she signed Executive Order #74.
“I am totally supportive of this. It is long overdue,” she said shortly before adding her signature to the order.
“Let’s be frank. It is time for our people to win.”
Kayla Reed, Action St. Louis executive director, said she is eager to “open the dialogue.”
“I’m excited about what is possible. It is time to look honestly and forthrightly at our past” and its impact on us now. People in North city need to know how it got that way. What decisions were made.”
Jones said she will review the commission’s work “to chart a course that restores the vitality of Black communities in our city after decades of disinvestment. We cannot succeed as a city if one half is allowed to fail.”
The Commission will be comprised of nine members. All must live in the City of St. Louis, and must represent different backgrounds, including at least one civil rights advocate, clergy member, attorney, academics, public health professional, and youth.
According to the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA) reparations is defined as “a process of repairing, healing and restoring a people injured because of their group identity and in violation of their fundamental human rights by governments, corporations, institutions and families.”
About a year ago, 25 local organizations sent a memo to Mayor Jones’ administration, requesting establishment of a reparations commission to address “the longstanding harms of racial exclusion, occupation, and economic divestment done to Black people and communities in the City of St. Louis.”
For years, we have been talking about the disparate outcomes that have long existed for Black St. Louisans. We have introduced terms like systemic racism and racial equity into the everyday language to better understand the status quo,” said Blake Strode, ArchCity Defenders executive director said as the organizations prepared for a reparations Teach In on Oct. 15 at Central Baptist Church.
“A lot of people have different opinions and feeling on what [reparations] means. What it looks like,” Strode said on Wednesday.
The Reparation Commission will explore the history of race-based harms in the city; reveal the present-day manifestations of that history; and, ultimately, propose a method and potential funding resources for directly repairing the harms that have been inflicted.
Jones is a member of the Mayors Organizing for Reparations and Equity (MORE) Coalition, and is engaging with other mayors “to explore best practices and align goals around reparations.” Jones said the commission “is the latest effort by the administration to explore opportunities for reparations at the local level.”
Those interested in applying to serve on the commission can apply at the city’s website, www.stlouis-mo.gov.
