Reparations in Action: Uniting for Change: FT Robin Rue Simmons

Robin Rue Simmons is the former 5th Ward Alderman for the City of Evanston, IL, where she led, in collaboration with others, the passage of the nation’s first municipally-funded reparations legislation for Black residents, which began disbursements in January 2022. 

The Champaign-Urbana Reparations Coalition was formed in May 2023 to bring together some of those in the community exploring avenues of education, acknowledgment, and reparations, and seeks to partner with others engaged in antiracist work. Contact us at cureparations@gmail.com for more information.

Simmons’s work is well documented in “The Big Payback”

https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/the-big-payback/. In 2019 Evanston became the first community in the country to offer publicly funded reparations to African Americans harmed by Evanston’s housing policies. After her work on Evanston’s Council, Simmons formed FirstRepair, a not-for-profit working nationally to educate and equip leaders, stakeholders, and allies who are advancing local reparations policies that remedy historic and ongoing anti-Black practices. Abundant resources can be found on their website https://firstrepair.org/.

We thank New Covenant Fellowship for their leadership in this endeavor and the ReGeneration Fund for support of this event.