WHAT WE PROPOSE HAPPENS NEXT BRJC outlines six immediate steps to move Boston’s reparations process forward
BOSTON, MA – As Boston’s reparations process enters an important new phase following the cancellation of a portion of its historical research, the Boston Reparative Justice Coalition (BRJC), through the Reparations Now! Campaign for Boston, is releasing a six-step community proposal focused on completing unfinished work, strengthening descendant participation, and providing residents with a clearer path from historical research to recommendations and implementation.
On September 2, community activist and American Freedman Aja Jackson wrote in the Bay State Banner that Boston must stop studying reparations and start delivering them. Since then, the urgency has increased: the Tufts-led portion of the historical research was cancelled, the full $335,000 contract amount was returned to the City, and the separate Northeastern research covering 1940-2020 is complete and under review.
With several community proposals and timelines now circulating, BRJC believes residents should have a clear understanding of what is already underway, what remains incomplete, and what additional steps could help move the existing work toward completion.
“The City must document the facts, and the community must document what those facts did to our families,” said Jackson. “The goal is not to replace professional research with testimony. It is to make sure descendant evidence can help identify records, add context, reveal gaps, and show the generational impact of documented public actions.”
WHAT WE PROPOSE HAPPENS NEXT
- Complete the missing historical research. Finish the factual record from the 1600s-1940 with rigorous documentation of policies, institutions, properties, displacement, economic losses, government actions, and other identifiable harms wherever records allow.
- Release the completed 1940-2020 research for public review. Residents should be able to read the findings, understand the evidence, ask questions, and identify gaps or areas requiring further examination.
- Open a structured descendant testimony and evidence period. American Freedmen and descendants of people enslaved in the United States should have a clear, consent-based way to submit family histories, addresses, property records, photographs, deeds, oral histories, business records, employment histories, and other evidence.
- Connect community testimony to professional research. Family testimony should help researchers identify missing records, corroborate documented harms, provide context, and reveal impacts that may not appear in government files.
- Complete the economic analysis and connect documented harms to possible remedies. Once the historical and family records are assembled, Boston can more clearly evaluate the scale and continuing effects of documented harms and organize remedy options for consideration.
- Move to public recommendations and an implementation timetable. The community should know when research ends, when recommendations will be presented, how the Mayor will respond, and what the next steps toward implementation will be.
COMPLETE THE FACTUAL RECORD. BUILD THE DESCENDANT RECORD. CONNECT THE EVIDENCE TO THE HARM.
INFORM THE REPAIR.
COMMUNITY GATHERING
REPARATIONS NOW! Community Meeting, Briefing & Organizing Session – Friday, September 25, 2026, 6:00-7:30 PM, in front of the Shaw-Dudley Library, 149 Dudley Street, Roxbury. Residents are encouraged to bring family names, Boston addresses, property information, photographs, records, and the stories they know.