Our February Schumacher Conversation, “Making Reparations: Seeding a Just Future,” is happening this Thursday the 16th at 2PM EST. As with all our online Conversations this year, registration is free.
On the eve of this event, we are pleased to share more from each of our panelists and their inspiring work to advance reparations at the community level.
These three women are at the forefront of a movement to publicly reckon with legacies of injustice faced by their communities and to repair their harms. Each of their stories shares a “think global, act local” mindset—facing complex issues facing societies at large by starting from the bottom up.
As a former alderwoman in Evanston, Illinois, Robin Rue Simmons led an historic initiative for Black reparations at the municipal level. In 2019, Evanston became the first city in the country to guarantee funding – up to $10m – for reparations for African American residents. Simmons helped steer the legislation through more than a year of public meetings, discussion, expert testimony and legal review— a story portrayed in the documentary The Big Payback (recently debuted on PBS).
Today, the local reparations initiative is being funded by the first $10 million of adult-use cannabis sales tax revenue collected by the City, with the first stage of the program dispersement focused on homeownership. Since then, Robin has gone on to found FirstRepair, a non-profit that informs local reparations initiatives nationally.
There’s no one form of repair that can satisfy the totality of the harms of Black people and the crimes against the humanity of Black people in this nation…But we have to recognize that we have to start somewhere. We have to take a first step.
– Robin Rue Simmons
Today, the local reparations initiative is being funded by the first $10 million of adult-use cannabis sales tax revenue collected by the City, with the first stage of the program dispersement focused on homeownership. Since then, Robin has gone on to found FirstRepair, a non-profit that informs local reparations initiatives nationally.
Chief of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation, Kelly LaRocca also serves as Director for the National Lands Advisory Board for First Nations Lands Management in Canada. As Chief, she participated in an historic reconciliation settlement between the governments of Ontario and Canada and seven First Nations communities in 2018.
The agreement concerned the “Williams Treaty” of 1923, which deprived the Scugog Island Mississaugas access to the freshwater shores which were the basis of their traditional economy for centuries. The landmark settlement included over $1 billion in financial compensation to the group of seven First Nations, recognition of harvesting rights, and an entitlement for each First Nation to add acreage to their reserve lands.
With the funds of the Scugog Island First Nation managed in a trust structure, decision-making includes member representatives and community consultation. In Chief Kelly’s view, the focus is on meeting community members’ needs, investing in human-scaled economic development which empowers people to thrive, and preserving this benefit for future generations.
Four pillars of our approach to community wealth are 1) energy self-determination, 2) food security, including gardens, greenhouses, and sustainable harvesting, 3) education and health, and 4) cultural maintenance, connecting our young people with elders who, against all odds, have held on to our language and traditions.
– Chief Kelly LaRocca
Winona LaDuke is an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) economist, environmentalist, author, prominent Native American activist, and a former US Vice Presidential candidate. In our last letter, we revisited Winona’s 1993 E.F. Schumacher Lecture. This account of decades-long efforts to regather lost Ojibiwe land at the White Earth Land Recovery Project remains a touchstone on the possibilities of the Native American Land Back movement.
That same year, Winona also co-founded Honor the Earth, an Indigenous environmental advocacy group. Committed to deep transformation in economic, social, and political relationships, the organization supports Indigenous communities in addressing climate change and energy justice while uplifting Indigenous solutions.
The reality is that building a renewable energy economy on Native lands (and restoring local, non-industrial food systems and foods themselves) will not only help mitigate the climate change crisis but also address the poverty and social injustices that plague our communities…
– Honor the Earth
By rekindling and sharing centuries of wisdom, they aim to “restore knowledge systems and practices…and create durable energy and food economies for Native America,” blazing a path on climate action others may emulate. Since their founding, Honor the Earth has re-granted over $2 million to over 200 Native communities.
We look forward to hearing more from each of our contributors.