Federal government seeks to halt the first U.S. reparations program for
Black people
[June 17, 2026]
By SAFIYAH RIDDLE
The federal government on Tuesday asked a judge to halt the United
States' first reparations program that offered Black people in a small
Illinois city $25,000 for 20th century race-based housing
discrimination, joining an existing lawsuit that called the program
unconstitutional.
The program, launched in Evanston, Illinois in 2021, is the first and
only one of its kind in the U.S., allotting $20 million to Black
residents — their direct descendants — who lived in the city between
1919 and 1969 and suffered housing discrimination because of city
ordinances, policies or practices. Residents, regardless of race, who
experienced discrimination due to the city’s policies or practices after
1969 also qualified.
The city has already distributed over $7 million — using revenue from a
local tax on legal marijuana sales — to hundreds of people in $25,000
increments to be used for home repairs, down payments on property, and
interest or late penalties on property in the city.
The U.S. Department of Justice called the program “racially
discriminatory” in a court filing Tuesday, saying that it violated the
Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution because it allotted
different benefits on the basis of race.
“There are sound ways for a city to remedy past discrimination or direct
resources to its most vulnerable citizens and neighborhoods. Simply
handing out money based on race, however, is not the answer,” Harmeet
Dhillon, the assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s
Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.
Approximately 14% of the city’s roughly 76,000 residents are Black,
according to the U.S. Census, with 11% identifying as more than one
race. A majority of the city’s Black residents live in the city’s Fifth
and Second Wards, which are historically low-income areas, according to
a 2024 study on the reparations program.
Reparations have long been a hot topic
Reparations has been a hot-button issue across the country since the
abolition of slavery in 1865. But it has become especially polarizing in
recent years after momentum grew for similar programs across the country
in the wake of George Floyd's death in police custody in 2020. At least
five states, including California, New York and Maryland, and more than
a dozen cities, including Boston, Detroit and Philadelphia, have created
have created task forces or commissions to study slavery reparations.
But none have gone as far as Evanston to actually distribute resources.
Robin Rue Simmons, who pioneered the program in Evanston and now leads
the committee that presides over the funds, said that the lawsuit and
the federal government’s support is a “fear tactic” aimed at dissuading
other governments from pursuing similar programs.
Michael Bekesha, one of the attorneys who initially sued the City of
Evanston on behalf of six plaintiffs in May 2024, said in an interview
that applicants weren’t required to demonstrate that they were
specifically harmed by the City of Evanston, leaving race as the only
criteria. His clients would all be eligible for the program if they were
Black, he said.
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In this Nov. 25, 2019 file photo, Alderman Robin Rue Simmons,
5th Ward, proposes a reparations fund during a City Council meeting
in Evanston, lll. (Genevieve Bookwalter/Chicago Tribune via AP,File)
Bekesha said Evanston’s program is different from those in the past,
pointing to the program that compensated Japanese people after the
U.S. government imprisoned over 100,000 people in internment camps
during World War II, or the people in Chicago who were paid after
being tortured by the city’s police department between the 1970s and
the early 1990s.
“Reparations programs aren’t new, but they’ve always been lawful,
they’ve always been connected to specific harms, specific injuries
suffered by specific individuals,” Bekesha said. “And here in
Evanston, there is no connection between the individuals receiving
the money and any action taken by the city of Evanston at any
point.”
Simmons vehemently disputed the idea that the program wasn’t
tailored to specific historical policies. She said redlining
policies across the city between 1919 and 1969 harmed Black
communities for generations, mirroring a prevalent practice
nationwide wherein banks and property owners wouldn’t sell or rent
to Black families in areas with more wealth. Those policies, she
said, often limited access to high-paying jobs, healthcare and
education.
“Evanston has set a new precedent. It has shown that racial
reparations are possible,” Simmons said.
Conservatives reject race-based reparations
The Trump administration's move to halt the program is in lockstep
with a broader conservative rejection of race-based reparations, and
it is a decisive shift from former President Joe Biden's broad
support of a congressional inquiry into ways to address the
government's long history of racial subjugation.
It is also a departure from prevailing attitudes among international
governing bodies like the United Nations, which recently adopted a
resolution that urged countries to implement reparations for the
trafficking of Africans into slavery around the world. The U.S. was
one of three countries that rejected the measure, with the United
Kingdom and all 27 European Union countries abstaining from the
vote.
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