St. Paul’s reparations commission will convene this summer. What happens now?

Isabel Saavedra-Weis, Pioneer Press
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Four years ago, social justice advocate Trahern Crews and council member Jane Prince started talking about what racial reparations could look like in a city like St. Paul. As of January, St. Paul has a permanent Recovery Act Community Reparations Commission advising the city council and the mayor.

More local governments across the country have been pursuing reparations initiatives in the past couple of years with the goal of generating wealth for American descendants of chattel slavery. Yet, St. Paul’s initiative is unique.

“Being a permanent part of the government is what sets us apart from other reparation commissions popping up around America right now. It allows us to make short-term, medium-term and long-term suggestions,” said Crews, who is the co-convener of the commission.

The city established the 11-person commission after a two-year-long trial as a committee was deemed successful. The commission will serve as an advisory board to the St. Paul City Council and the mayor on issues surrounding inequities for African-American descendants of chattel slavery.

Minnesota’s racial history

North of the Mason-Dixon line and deemed as slavery-free territory under the Missouri Compromise of 1820, many considered Minnesota to be part of “the free North.” Yet, history shows that people were enslaved on Minnesota territory as part of the fur trade and at Fort Snelling.

One example was Dred Scott, an enslaved Black man who was taken to Fort Snelling and who fought for his freedom in the 1850s. His legal case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided that despite living in a free territory, Black people were not citizens and therefore not entitled to freedom.

Racial injustice persisted in Minnesota long after slavery was abolished. In 1920 in Duluth, three Black men were lynched by a white mob. In the late 1950s, the construction of Interstate 94 tore apart the thriving Rondo neighborhood in St. Paul and displaced hundreds of Black families. It was events like these that created grounds for the racial wealth gap that exists today, Crews said.

“Slavery broke Black people’s spirit, and it broke the Black community down socially, politically and economically. And reparations comes from the word ‘repair,'” he said.

When the St. Paul reparations committee was approved in 2021, the city also issued an apology for slavery at Fort Snelling, destruction of the Rondo neighborhood and for its role in committing institutional racism against its Black residents and descendants of chattel slavery. Acknowledging the harm is only one step, Crews said.

The Reparations Commission is using the five principles of reparations established by the United Nations: assurance of non-repetition, restitution and repatriation, satisfaction, rehabilitation and compensation. While all aspects are important, some are more relevant for today’s reparations work, says Crews.

“Since we can’t restore the U.S. back to its original state before slavery, we have to look at compensation,” he said.

‘We can’t do what we’ve always done’

Council member Prince met Crews at a conference in 2019, where Crews led a workshop on reparations. They soon got in touch and started a book club at the East Side Freedom Library to start educating the community about the impacts of slavery and benefits of reparations.

“(The book club) helped people see that this is not a crazy idea. This idea is actually founded in our nation’s legal system, which has redress in this country for when people suffer civil or criminal wrongs,” Prince said.

Then, with COVID-19 disproportionally affecting Black Americans and the murder of George Floyd capturing national attention, Prince and Crews saw the audience for reparations conversations grow.

“Regrettably, that was the opening for us to say, ‘We can’t do what we’ve always done. Nothing we’ve done before has worked. Reparations is the thing we haven’t tried, and we need to make a real commitment to it,'” Prince said.

Community awareness

Education has been central to Prince and Crews’ strategy for proposing reparations as a local political issue. They said that for the most part, St. Paul government and community members were open to a reparations commission, although some were hesitant.

“I think some people in the Black community think that if they don’t use the word ‘reparations,’ things are easier to get by,” Crews said. But he believes that with more community awareness of Minnesota’s history, more people will understand the importance of the term.

Prince has also had a number of conversations with residents in her district who raise concerns about reparations and whether they are justified. She says education is the key.

“It comes down to asking people to learn more. If we all start with some basic knowledge about what wasn’t available to African-American people, it makes the conversation go a lot better,” she said.

Both said they haven’t received as much backlash as they expected. But Prince isn’t putting her guard down yet.

“I have been waiting for it. When we start putting real money into this, we’ll get people’s attention. But right now, we’re still kind of below people’s radar,” she said.

Commission to convene this summer

For now, the city continues to sort through 48 applications to fill the 11 spots on the commission, which is set to start convening this summer. Terms will range from one to three years, which allows new applicants each year and less interruption due to staffing turnover. In the meantime, the commission’s agenda remains up in the air.

“We have been very intentional as the city council and the members of the Legislative Advisory Committee not to tell the commission what its work is. When the appointees are seated, they will determine their work plan and priorities, and decide what buttons to push,” Prince said.

However, Prince added that she could see the commission working toward housing equity for Black Americans, much like the city of Evanston, Ill., has done.

With the commission’s guidance and city funding, St. Paul’s Inheritance Fund — an initiative started by Mayor Melvin Carter to help low-income families from the Rondo neighborhood rebuild wealth through homeownership — could be expanded to Black descendants of slavery in all of St. Paul.

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