Members of Boston’s Reparations Task Force said the conservative shift in national politics has given their work renewed significance and reason to finish — even as the panel has not held an official meeting for nearly nine months.
“I’m disappointed, but not demoralized,” said task force Chair Joseph Feaster. “I intend to stay in the struggle. I believe my members of the task force will and the city of Boston is committed to seeing this through, and that’s what I intend to assist them in doing.”
Carrie Mays, one of four Black women on the task force, said historical work with community is pivotal at this moment.
“I do believe that it is up to our community and the efforts in initiatives like this [task force] to preserve history so that we can teach our own children and keep the legacies of our ancestors alive through our own voices,” Mays said, adding that the reparations advocacy will likely be balanced with the widespread movement among Black women to prioritize self-care.
“I do not think that this is going to make the work stop, because at the end of the day, if we’re talking about Black women especially, they still have to go back to being nurturers, they still have to go back to being the mothers of their households and the mothers and the aunties and the stakeholders and the electeds of our community,” said Mays. “Like [rapper] Nipsey Hussle said, 'The Marathon Continues.’”
Task force member George Greenidge said Black family ancestors ”expect us to carry on this work.”
“The movement work of reparations for African Americans in this country has happened many years before a Donald Trump’s presidency,” he said. “And the work of reparations will exist and continue to flourish years after his four-year presidency.”
The members’ comments come as the nation prepares for a conservative trifecta with majorities in Congress and on the Supreme Court along with Trump’s re-election. The comments also come as the panel nears the previously set deadline to complete its work.
According to its establishing ordinance, the task force is scheduled to dissolve at the end of the month unless the mayor acts to extend its work. In a statement, the mayor’s media office said Wu has until Dec. 31 to make that determination, and she is planning to grant an extension.
Since being named to the task force in 2023, chair Feaster has been paid $10,000. The other five remaining members have each been paid $7,500, according to the mayor’s office.
The Reparations Task Force faced a number of issues at its launch that put it out of sync with the two-year timeline set out its establishing ordinance. The missteps are documented in the GBH News podcast What Is Owed?
In June, several members of the task force appeared at a City Council hearing where they implied that oversight from the Wu administration has hampered their efforts.
The panel has since gained a project manager. Khalid Mustafa, a former Bunker Hill Community College adjunct professor and freelance community organizer, was hired by the city in October.
In addition to struggling with political oversight, one clear point of disagreement between task force members is public meetings. The panel has not had one since March — a strategy that the panel chair has said is most practical since “there’s nothing for the task force to really meet about,” given that city-hired researchers are still working to document the history and legacies of slavery that will inform the panel’s recommendations.
“And once we get our research, we will do that. … But at the present time, I don’t think that our failure to have a meeting should signal anything other than there’s not a need for this task force to have the meeting.”
Other members told GBH News they disagreed.
“I believe that we should have more meetings simultaneously as the amazing work that the community is doing is happening,” said Mays, noting that the panel has awarded $70,000 to 26 community groups doing independent community engagement work. “This reparations process, especially when it comes to the task force, is political, but also very logistical, so that means that there are administrative things that must be addressed … [that are] fundamental to moving this process forward.”
Greenidge also supports more meetings.
“I think there should be a meeting every month. However, that has not been the operating procedure,” he told GBH News. “I’m excited that I’ve been able to attend meetings with other task force sources in Atlanta and also I plan to attend another one with the with First Repair and Evanston. … I have no idea what projects and programs and things [other task force members have] been working on individually because we haven’t all been in the room together.”
