The St. Paul City Council is exploring reparations for Black residents whose ancestors were enslaved, as a form of racial healing after generations of institutionalized racism in Minnesota.
The council will take up a resolution Wednesday that would form a commission to consider reparations. The document apologizes for a series of historic scars, from slavery at Fort Snelling — including the enslavement of Dred Scott — to the destruction of St. Paul's Rondo neighborhood to make way for Interstate 94 in the 1950s.
"As a city, as a state and as a country, we can't talk about slavery, Jim Crow, Rondo, red-lining and racial covenants as being sins of the past," said Council Member Jane Prince, the resolution's lead sponsor on the council. "It is a debt owed by all of us."
Trahern Crews, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States who heads up its national reparations working group, is partnering closely with Prince.
"We are now the epicenter of the social justice movement because of George Floyd. It's time for bold reparatory justice policies," said Crews, who is co-chairing a community reparations steering committee.
The resolution, to be considered days before the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, appears to have support from all seven council members. If it passes, St. Paul will join a small group of cities across the country that have launched reparations commissions.
St. Paul's resolution calls for the formation of the "St. Paul Recovery Act Community Reparations Commission," which Crews said would interpret reparations broadly, considering everything from cash payments to individuals to establishing health clinics and community centers in Black neighborhoods and providing small business and mortgage assistance to Black residents.
Prince said part of reparations could be making sure existing resources are deployed more equitably.