What Is Owed?

Boston, a city entrenched in the history of the American Revolution, creates a task force to explore the city’s history of slavery and economic discrimination and to consider reparations for Black citizens.

We look back at the history of efforts in Boston to explore reparations, particularly through the lens of Sen. Bill Owens, the first Black member of the Massachusetts Senate. At the end of the 1980s, Owens, inspired by activism he had seen in Detroit, introduced a bill to pay reparations to Black descendants of enslaved people. That bill is credited as being a model for national legislation introduced by Rep. John Conyers in every session of the U.S. Congress since 1989 to create a national commission on reparations.

One of the biggest challenges for a local reparations effort is determining who should get repaid. Historically, the idea of reparations has been tied to the forsaken promise of 400,000 acres the U.S. government was going to give to formerly enslaved people due to the atrocities of slavery. However, the harms endured by Black people have not been confined to that period. We start the episode at Cape Coast Castle, a slave trading outpost on the coast of Ghana where enslaved people were first taken from the African continent and sold into the institution of slavery. We use this first point of harm to begin a discussion with a series of Black political thinkers about how the harms against Black people can begin to be addressed through reparations.

Although reparations has been historically fought for by Black people, the duty will be ultimately carried out by the government. To understand this role, we look at one of the biggest reparation efforts launched in history – repaying survivors of the Nazi regime. In this episode, we focus on the reparations paid by the Austrian government in response to WWII and how the nation prepared itself before reckoning with the harm done to others. Then we look at one of the most comprehensive proposed reparation plans for the U.S. and see how the two compare.

As Boston begins its first steps into considering reparations, we look at the city of Evanston, Illinois - which is already doing it. Evanston is the first city in the U.S. to enact municipally-funded reparations legislation. Robin Rue Simmons is a former city alderman who led the passage of the bill, which began disbursements in January 2022. In this episode, Rue Simmons and her collaborators talk about what they learned during the efforts to move their city towards reparations as well as how the effort changed their city.

We’re talking about the “R” words. Race. And Reparations. With Ibram X. Kendi, founder and director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research.

Boston’s Mayor and members of the reparations task force speak about the progress made so far, the challenges going forward, and what they think reparations could actually look like.

GBH News and The Emancipator -- a digital magazine that reimagines the nation’s first abolitionist newspapers – convened a conversation to consider how Boston might change in the decades after reparations are enacted.

GBH news and PRX produced a one-hour highlight reel of the What Is Owed podcast which was broadcast on two dozen public radio stations nationwide.

Jamil Smith, editor-in-chief of The Emancipator — a digital magazine that reimagines the nation’s first abolitionist newspapers for a new day — and GBH News examine how Boston might change after reparations are enacted.

Reparations for Black Americans has been debated for centuries. Here's how - 200 years ago! - Black activists helped a formerly enslaved woman win reparations in Massachusetts.

Boston's reparations task force continues a conversation that's been happening here for hundreds of years.

GBH's All Things Considered host Arun Rath speaks with Saraya Wintersmith, host of the new podcast "What is Owed?", about the city's history of slavery and how it looks to heal the inequalities it caused.

The podcast dives into Boston’s history of slavery and discrimination and examines what could come of the city’s Task Force on Reparations.