By Nancy Solomon
A social justice organization in New Jersey is observing the Juneteenth holiday by taking on the question of reparations for Black residents of the state.
“The Reparations Council, which is convened by the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, is an effort to study the history of slavery and segregation and its relationship to ongoing evidence of racial disparities and anti-Black racism and a number of inequalities, including the racial wealth gap,” said Khalil Gibran Muhammad, co-chair of the council.
Muhammad is a professor of history, race and public policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and a resident of South Orange, New Jersey. Much of his research has focused on racial inequalities and the criminal justice system.
The institute created the council after a bill to create a state Reparations Task Force stalled in the state Legislature.
“And so this council is doing the work that the Legislature should be doing in an effort to move forward with a plan of action,” Muhammad said. “The issue of reparations, perhaps in the state of New Jersey, remains controversial enough that some elected officials fear that there may be political backlash by moving forward.”
The bill to study reparations was first proposed in 2019, and reintroduced every year since. Sponsored by Democrats Shavonda Sumter, Britnee Timberlake and Verlina Reynolds-Jackson in the Assembly and by Sandra Cunningham, Renee Burgess and the late Ronald Rice in the state Senate, the bill would have done what the Institute for Social Justice now plans to do.
A social justice organization in New Jersey is observing the Juneteenth holiday by taking on the question of reparations for Black residents of the state.
“The Reparations Council, which is convened by the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, is an effort to study the history of slavery and segregation and its relationship to ongoing evidence of racial disparities and anti-Black racism and a number of inequalities, including the racial wealth gap,” said Khalil Gibran Muhammad, co-chair of the council.
Muhammad is a professor of history, race and public policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and a resident of South Orange, New Jersey. Much of his research has focused on racial inequalities and the criminal justice system.
The institute created the council after a bill to create a state Reparations Task Force stalled in the state Legislature.
“And so this council is doing the work that the Legislature should be doing in an effort to move forward with a plan of action,” Muhammad said. “The issue of reparations, perhaps in the state of New Jersey, remains controversial enough that some elected officials fear that there may be political backlash by moving forward.”
The bill to study reparations was first proposed in 2019, and reintroduced every year since. Sponsored by Democrats Shavonda Sumter, Britnee Timberlake and Verlina Reynolds-Jackson in the Assembly and by Sandra Cunningham, Renee Burgess and the late Ronald Rice in the state Senate, the bill would have done what the Institute for Social Justice now plans to do.
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