Project FREEDOM supports comprehensive reparations laid out by the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC) that focus on addressing the crimes against humanity endured by African American communities due to chattel slavery, U.S. Apartheid system (Jim Crow), the current period of systemic racism, and the on-going impact of each. This effort focuses on repairing Black communities with forward-thinking initiatives that safeguard the future of Black America. The legacies of enslavement and systems of white supremacy harm us all. Across U.S. history, when we’ve advanced the freedoms and rights of Black Americans, it has proven to benefit everyone. 

NAARC’s plan states that, “All Black people harmed in America by America, should be repaired in America by America”. They also state that the eligibility criteria is dependent on the remedy, for example, remedies for slavery, Jim Crow, and systemic racism all address various harms therefore various parties. The steps our government must take include, but are not limited to what is laid out in this letter and as defined by the United Nations:

1. Restoring dignity, freedoms, and rights to all those wronged under racial, gender, and economic hierarchies and inequalities. 

2. Returning the wealth, land, and resources that rich corporations and the 1% owe to Black communities for generations of exploitation, enslavement, and genocide. 

3. Healing our communities from the ongoing trauma and impacts of policies, lies, and violence designed to deny our humanity

4. Recognizing and reckoning with the whole truth of U.S. history and how it has shaped our present. 

5. Removing ongoing barriers to equality and rewriting the rules to ensure the wrongs founded in enslavement and supremacy never happen again. 

 In 2021, the state of California convened a Reparations Task Force, leading to a report with recommendations for the state to provide comprehensive repair to Black Californians for the damage done by chattel slavery. The report made room for the creation of 115 legislative policy proposals outlined in the California Reparations Task Force Report. 

The late congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee carried the baton from the late John Conyers, Jr., and we will continue to carry this work in their name. It is essential that we find a path to achieving and implementing reparations for African Americans in our country. From Palm Springs to Evanston, from San Francisco to New York City, local reparations policies and funding, not just commissions and studies, must be implemented for African Americans to achieve the freedoms afforded to others, closing the wealth gap for good. 

Right now, we are seeing MAGA Republicans attacking the promise of real equality and bolstering white supremacy all across the country. From ending affirmative action, to attacks on DEI, H.B.C.U.s and reparations initiatives, they are attempting to dismantle any program or policy that is aimed at rectifying the ongoing impacts of our country’s history of discrimination. Repair is an urgent antidote to these current attacks on the promise of equality.