N'nanba's Evanston Reparations Face Federal Legal Hurdles

Robin Rue Simmons, known professionally as N'nanba, designed a housing grant in Evanston, Illinois, that provides $25,000 to Black residents whose families suffered from discriminatory policies. She now helps expand this municipal program to more than 100 communities. Recent federal actions have created new barriers for these local efforts.

The push for local reparations has accelerated as the nation approaches its 250th anniversary. The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution in March describing the trafficking of enslaved Africans as the gravest crime against humanity. More than 120 countries supported the measure. The United States, Argentina, and Israel voted against it. Fifty-two nations, including England and 27 European Union members, abstained.

Simmons, who chairs Evanston's Reparations Committee and served as a city councilwoman, said her group still views federal redress as its collective north star. She noted that the current administration presents many obstacles to that goal. William Darity, a co-author on a book about reparations, observed that no president has previously supported comprehensive Black reparations. He stated that Trump will speak the word but with hostility. In a speech in September, the president told supporters that reparations are an attempt to steal money and that the movement is going nowhere.

The administration has moved to challenge Evanston's specific program in court. A lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch claims the city distributes funds based on race without identifying specific harm. Michael Bekesha, representing the plaintiffs, argued that the Constitution prohibits governments from picking winners and losers based entirely on race. A federal judge allowed the Justice Department to intervene in the case this month. The department alleges the program violates the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause and the Fair Housing Act.

The Justice Department has also targeted other local initiatives. Last year, the department sent a warning letter to leaders in Asheville and Buncombe County, North Carolina, who were considering similar programs. Kiersten Pels, a department spokeswoman, stated that race-based government benefit programs are unconstitutional and often violate federal civil rights law. The trans-Atlantic slave trade forced an estimated 12.5 million Africans onto ships bound for the Americas. About 1.8 million did not survive the journey. Roughly 388,000 were taken to what is now the United States.

Higher education institutions have also faced pressure. Georgetown University continues to offer admission consideration to descendants of enslaved people tied to its history. However, Richard Cellini, who previously led a Harvard project, said new work across the sector has stalled. His team identified nearly 500 living descendants of people enslaved by Harvard's past leaders. Harvard fired the team days after Trump's anti-DEI order in January 2025. An outside firm is continuing research, but Harvard has not provided redress to those descendants. Kirt von Daacke, a historian at the University of Virginia, reported no new scholarship programs since Trump returned to office.

Some programs continue to provide direct benefits to recipients. Juan Woolfolk, 36, a descendant linked to Georgetown, is using a $10,000 scholarship to study museum studies at Southern University at New Orleans. Virginia Theological Seminary makes annual cash payments to descendants of people who labored on its campus. That endowment has grown from $1.7 million to $2.8 million since 2019. Joe Martin, 46, a Delta flight attendant who received an Evanston grant, said 40 acres and a mule did not go down the way it was supposed to. He added that when a legitimate program is created, the government responds with resistance.