CHAMPAIGN — The Champaign-Urbana Reparations Coalition announced a $1 million donation from an anonymous donor at its meeting on Thursday.
Jeffrey Trask is the founder and president of the coalition, whose goal is to “address the historic and ongoing harms caused by systemic racism and discrimination.”
Trask read a statement from the anonymous donor who said he’s a white man in Champaign County from the baby boomer generation.
The donor said he wants to help “repair the damages from slavery, the Jim Crow era, and current mass incarceration and other forms of discrimination caused by systemic racism.”
The donor also said one of his biggest concerns is C-U’s wealth gap, specifically focusing on housing and healthcare.
The coalition has started a fund to allow other C-U residents to also donate towards reparations for the local Black community.
“We do see this as a potential opportunity to grow a fund like that with the purpose of looking at the harms that people are experiencing and letting individuals be part of that healing,” Trask said, noting that this fund does not replace the work that needs to be done on the government level.
The coalition will meet with community members and leaders to determine where people want the money to go.
Trask said a significant portion of the money will be used as an endowment to help fund future reparations work.
The $1 million donation is a launching pad, he said, “not just in this community, but communities all across the country, to see this example of this donor and say, ‘We could be part of this as well.’”
‘The economic disparities in our world were created, and we can undo them’
Robin Rue Simmons of Evanston, also known as N’nanba, is the founder of First Repair, a government-funded reparations program.
Speaking to attendees at Thursday’s meeting, she said reparations aren’t unusual; the government has given communities reparations for events like 9/11.
But she said getting reparations for Black people is much harder than for other communities.
“When it comes to the crimes against Black people, that’s when we can’t figure out how to do it,” Simmons said. “It’s unattainable. It’s a political nonstarter … It’s not unique to Black people. It’s just an issue when it is about Black people.”
The C-U Reparations Coalition meets on the third Thursday of every month at New Covenant Fellowship in downtown Champaign.
This month’s meeting, which was co-sponsored by the Black liberation group, Ubuntu Project, featured a performance from the DREAAM Praise Dancers, a fireside chat and guest speakers, including State Rep. Carol Ammons (D-Urbana) and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign associate professor emeritus Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua.
Ammons said reparations require people to be honest about the history of the U.S.
“If I had my magic wand, I would have every elected official, I would have every clergy, every professor in an academic institution teaching the American people the truth about its existence and why repair is the only solution for American democracy if it is to survive,” she said.
“It will not survive fascism, and it will not survive because we ignore the obvious. The economic disparities in our world were created, and we can undo them.”
The coalition is asking the leaders of Urbana, Champaign and Champaign County, along with the U of I, to establish and fund a Champaign County Reparations Commission for African Americans.
This commission would “document the need for reparations and bring recommendations for action to the public governing bodies,” according to a proposal on the CURC’s website.
The city of Urbana and the Champaign County Board have already donated toward this effort, according to the coalition.