CHAMPAIGN — Racial covenants were commonly included in property deeds for new developments in Champaign County through the 1940s.
According to Carrie Frank’s 1990 University of Illinois dissertation, these covenants restricted 774 properties from being sold or rented to non-white individuals.
These and other racist housing practices shaped Champaign’s historically Black North End neighborhoods.
“You look at those particular areas, and you can see a lot of disparities there. You can look at numbers in terms of home ownership versus renting. You can look at disparities in terms of health care statistics among African Americans and others,” said Jeffrey Trask.
Trask is one of the leaders of the Champaign-Urbana Reparations Coalition. The new group wants to follow the lead of Evanston, Ill., the first city in the country to offer reparations to African Americans.
Evanston provides eligible households with up to $25,000 for home repairs, down payments on property, and direct cash payments. The program is funded through donations and revenue from a 3% tax on the sale of recreational cannabis.
Trask said his group doesn’t know yet if they want Champaign reparations to look the same.
Even though reparations as a term is controversial nationally, recent events organized by the Champaign-Urbana Reparations Coalition have heartened Trask.
“There’s a certain level of our past in the United States, that’s not pretty – slavery, Jim Crow, mass incarceration, you go down the list. And I believe that this is a form of healing for everyone,” he said.
The Champaign-Urbana Reparations Coalition meets every third Thursday of the month at New Covenant Fellowship on West White Street.
Emily Hays is a reporter for Illinois Public Media. Follow her on Twitter@amihatt.