For decades, the idea of reparations for Black communities has been treated like political kryptonite. It is acknowledged just enough to spark controversy, then quietly pushed aside. In the U.S., even when the House Judiciary Committee advanced a historic reparations bill in 2021, it stalled before ever reaching a vote. Globally, former colonial powers have long sidestepped their own moral debts, offering symbolic gestures instead of sustained, structural repair.
However, the landscape is shifting. Local governments, coalitions, and nations are making concrete moves, committing tax revenue, passing formal resolutions, negotiating international agreements, and drafting policy blueprints that call historic wrongs by name. These efforts are purposed to both acknowledge harm and repair it through wealth-building, land return, healthcare access, and cultural restoration.
In the U.S., the conversation is heating up ahead of the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding in 2026, a moment when questions about freedom, equality, and historical accountability will be impossible to ignore. Abroad, demands for colonial redress are growing louder, with nations in the Caribbean and Africa working together to pressure former colonizers into reparative agreements.
Reparations is becoming policy. From suburban Illinois to the halls of Caribbean diplomacy, these initiatives are showing us that repair can be written into budgets, laws, and binding commitments. Here are five places where reparations are already happening.
Evanston, Illinois
In 2019, Evanston became the first U.S. city to earmark cannabis tax revenue for reparations. The city committed $10 million over ten years to its Restorative Housing Program, which provides up to $25,000 in grants for Black residents or their descendants harmed by housing discrimination between 1919 and 1969. Funds can be used for home purchases, repairs, or mortgage assistance.
This is a local reparations model rooted in wealth-building. Nearly 64% of residents support the program, a rare level of consensus on an issue that’s politically divisive at the national level. Even with slower-than-expected cannabis tax revenue, Evanston’s policy is proof that municipal governments can lead where others stall.
Bryan Tillery, co-author of the NORC study on Evanston’s program, said: “Local communities have the ability to … design narrowly tailored policies aimed at repairing racial harms without generating intergroup conflict.”
Asheville, North Carolina
In 2020, Asheville’s City Council voted unanimously to approve a reparations resolution backed by millions in city and county funds. Its Community Reparations Commission has issued 39 recommendations, including $148,000 per family for Black residents displaced by 20th-century urban renewal projects, as well as initiatives for Black-owned business grants, healthcare subsidies, and education support.
This is systems-level repair that addresses wealth, health, justice, and education in tandem. Asheville is showing that reparations can be about long-term investment in community infrastructure, not just one-time payouts.
Councilman Keith Young said at the 2020 vote: “Hundreds of years of Black blood spilled that basically fills the cup we drink from today.”
California State Reparations Task Force
California’s AB 3121 law, signed in 2020, created the nation’s first statewide reparations task force. In June 2023, it released a sweeping report with more than 100 policy recommendations, including financial compensation, formal apologies, education reforms, and criminal justice overhauls. The proposals focus on lineage-based eligibility for descendants of enslaved African Americans and other victims of state-sanctioned discrimination.
This is a detailed framework for how one of the largest and most diverse states in the country could address centuries of harm. While implementation will require legislative approval, the report has already shifted the political conversation nationwide.
Civil rights attorney and task force member Lisa Holder told Time: “Reparations are not just about a check in the mail. It’s about changing systems that were designed to harm so they can never harm again.”
CARICOM Reparations Commission (Caribbean)
Established in 2013, the CARICOM Reparations Commission is pushing European nations to acknowledge and repair the lasting damage of slavery and colonialism. Its Ten-Point Plan calls for full formal apologies, debt cancellation, technology transfer, and development funding. Recently, CARICOM partnered with the African Union to advance a global reparations fund.
In treating reparations as international diplomacy, CARICOM reframes the conversation to show it’s not just a domestic U.S. issue but a global movement demanding colonial accountability.
Dr. Hilary Brown, CARICOM’s Programme Manager for Culture and Community Development, said, “Through strengthened collaboration between CARICOM and the African Union there is the opportunity to articulate a clear diplomatic and advocacy strategy to advance the reparations agenda…”
Germany and Namibia (Colonial-Era Genocide)
In 2021, after years of negotiation, Germany formally acknowledged that its colonial forces committed genocide against the Herero and Nama peoples in Namibia from 1904 to 1908. It pledged €1.1 billion over 30 years for infrastructure, land reform, and other development projects in affected communities. However, the nation avoided labeling the funds as “reparations.”
This is a precedent-setting admission by a former colonial power. While Namibian leaders and community representatives argue the agreement doesn’t go far enough, it signals that even more than a century later, acknowledgment and material commitments are possible.
Namibian President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah spoke at the first genocide remembrance ceremony in May 2025, saying: “We should find a degree of comfort in the fact that the German government has agreed that German troops committed a genocide.”
Where We Go From Here
These five examples are not the whole story. They are entry points into a movement that is gaining momentum in city halls, state legislatures, and international chambers. Reparations is often framed as an impossibility, something too politically charged or logistically complex to attempt. These initiatives prove otherwise. They are messy, evolving, and at times controversial, but they are also real. Each one represents a choice to move past symbolic apology and into concrete repair. The work ahead will require persistence, transparency, and the will to confront uncomfortable truths. Thankfully, the precedent is set. Repair is already happening. The question now is who will follow.
