Reparations Daily (ish) Vol. 83

3 Ways to Support the Reparations Movement this Juneteenth

Jun 14, 2022

Happy Tuesday!

Apologies for my absence over the last two weeks! June has been an incredibly busy month. So much so that I forgot to celebrate the one-year anniversary of this newsletter.

We sent out our first real edition on June 2, 2021, and it’s been an incredible year. Here are some of the highlights over the last year:

I’ve had the amazing opportunity to interview reparations experts across various fields.
- In one of my first interviews, I spoke with Alicia Bell (then at Media 2070 and now at Borealis) to discuss Media Reparations.
- In July last year, Andre Perry and I spoke about power, narrative change, and reparations. Funnily enough, this past weekend, I got interviewed on the same topic by Rebecca Vallas for her Off-Kilter podcast.
- I got deep in the weeds on reparations with Dr. William Darity.
- I interviewed Erika Alexander, whose documentary, ‘The Big Payback,’ premiered at Tribeca this weekend.
- One of the most popular editions was my conversation with Kyle Strickland at the Roosevelt Institute on the current racial justice landscape.
- And perhaps my favorite interview, with the legend, Dr. Mary Frances Berry.
The newsletter was a runner-up for Roxanne Gay’s Joel Gay Creative Fellowship, which led to us receiving some generous support from the Harnisch Foundation (which we are extremely grateful for)!
We’ve established ourselves as a credible news source. We’ve been added to press lists and will be reporting live from the Aspen Ideas Festival in two weeks (follow our Twitter for live updates)
We were featured on the Yusuf Abdul-Qadir’s NPR’s Afro Futures podcast
We’re at 430 subscribers to the Substack, over 500 followers on Twitter, and have an average open rate of 49 percent. What I love most about this newsletter is that it reaches a range of spaces. We have followers in philanthropy, academia, grassroots organizing, journalism, think tanks, and even Hollywood.

Reparations Daily (ish) will always remain a free newsletter. We have some big dreams for year 2 of the newsletter, and if you’d like to support our continued work, you can donate via Venmo (Trevor-Smith-2511) or Paypal (paypal.me/tsmith1211)

Now for what you’re really here for! There has been an incredible amount of reparations-related news over the last few weeks. I have not had a chance to analyze the California Reparations Taskforce report, but I will in the next edition!

I’ll try to keep this edition light. I’m also including some thoughts on ways you can support the reparations movement this Juneteenth. Here are my recommended pieces for this week:

Nkechi Taifa hosted a Ted Talk titled ‘Reparations: An Issue Whose Time Has Come’ a few weeks ago.
PBS convened a panel of experts to define what reparations and how it could close the Black-white wealth gap in the US.
The New York Times released a long-form piece about the history of the eugenics movement in the US.
KPBS did a great piece analyzing the California reparations task force report.

With radical love,
Trevor

Opinion

Juneteenth is now a federal holiday, and I’m sure folks across the country are thinking about the different ways they can celebrate the extra day off with their families and friends. For Black families in the United States, Juneteenth has always been a celebration and is also known as Emancipation Day, Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, and Black Independence Day.

On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas to announce the end of the Civil War and the end of slavery. The announcement read as follows:

“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The Freedman are advised to remain at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts, and they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”

Juneteenth is the first holiday to be added to the list of federal holidays since the addition of Dr. Marin Luther King Jr.’s birthday in 1983.

The holiday is deeply intertwined with the current reparations movement in the United States, so here are some ways you can support this year:

Learn more about the history of Juneteenth

Read about the history of Juneteenth, or if you’d rather watch, the National Museum of African American History and Culture has a couple of great explainer videos. There are a ton of books that you can buy (buy from Black-owned bookstores!)
African American Community Service Agency will host a “Education Before the Celebration” in San Jose, CA.
Tune in to the BET special at 1:00 pm ET on Juneteenth.

Learn more about the modern reparations movement.

There are an array of events happening this week related to reparations.

Today, at 12:00 pm ET, Andre Perry will be moderating a call with experts on the state of the local reparations movement. You can register here.

FirstRepair @FirstRepairOrg

Let's talk about the "State of the Local Reparations Movement" during our Panel Discussion on Tuesday, June 14th at 12 Noon EST. You don't want to miss this... Register at bit.ly/ReparationsPan…. #Juneteenth2022

If you’re in California, the Coalition for a Just and Equitable California and the National Assembly of American Slavery Descendants will be hosting a community listening session on June 19 at 12:00 PT.
If you’re in New York, Color Farm Media will host a screening of ‘The Big Payback,’ a documentary about Evanston, IL, the first municipality to pay reparations for racial discrimination, at the historic Apollo Theatre on June 19 at 5:00 pm ET. Tickets are free, and Ben & Jerry’s will be passing out free ice cream in support of the film and HR.40!

Donate your money or your time to Black-led organizations and organizations working explicitly advocating for reparations

On June 18, Opal Lee, the ‘Grandmother of Juneteenth,’ will host her annual 2.5-mile walk to recognize the 2.5 years it took for the news of freedom to reach all enslaved people in the United States. You can walk virtually alongside Ms. Opal, join the live events, and donate here.
Volunteer at one of the many Juneteenth celebrations in New York.
Donate to the organization that hosts the annual Juneteenth in Atlanta.
Done to the array of organizations working on reparations advocacy.