“The Most Livable City in America”? Reparations Model Implementation, Progressive Mindsets, and Post-Racialism in Evanston, Illinois

Bibliographic Data

ID18963218
AuthorsTaylor Darks (0000-0002-5427-183X, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume56
Issue7
Pages551-573
Publication date2025-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Black Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-9347 • E-ISSN: 1552-4566
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00219347251346183
OpenAlexW4411748676
LanguageEN
References cited13

In 2019 Evanston, Illinois passed the first local reparations program for Black Americans in the United States. This legislation has been joined by other localized legislative efforts across the U.S. though the federal-level push for reparations remains stagnant. Evanston serves as a notable case study illustrating how reparations initiatives can be conducted within a local government framework. Drawing on 11 interviews with city council members and other stakeholders in Evanston and an analysis of over 200 government documents spanning from 2018 to 2020, this study unveils the intricacies of executing reparations models in local policy. This study finds that previously developed reparations models are implemented in overlapping ways to mitigate potential legal challenges. Additionally, the discourses utilized by stakeholders are shaped by colorblind racism, the white racial frame, and post-racial attitudes to rationalize the adoption of reparations within the city’s jurisdiction. This article contributes to reparations and the sociological body of literature by addressing the implementation of the localized political discourse and subsequent reparations models

Criminology · Political science · Sociology · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Disaster Management and Resilience · Political and Economic history of UK and US

Tools

Open DOI