Reparations Commission

Maura Williams, Racial Justice Community Outreach Ministry Team

​Since it became seated in spring of 2024, the Saint Paul Recovery Act Community Reparations Commission has created its own bylaws; developed sub-committees, work plans, and budget; hosted community listening sessions; and set the course for its next big steps: a Harms Report and a legislative proposal. The Harms Report will underlie future recommendations for repair and redress. The contract for production is being awarded this fall, and delivery of the Harms Report to the Commission is requested by the end of 2026. 

The Slavery Disclosure and Redress Ordinance (SDRO) will likely be proposed to Saint Paul City Council this year. Slavery Disclosure acts require that companies who wish to apply for government contracts investigate their history, and that of predecessors and acquisitions, for any links to slavery and the slave trade before the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. In addition to companies that directly benefitted from the labor of enslaved persons, businesses like financial institutions and insurance companies that engaged in holding or transferring enslaved persons as assets or providing loans for their purchase, would also be required to investigate their records. Companies must then file an affidavit about their findings. Depending on how the ordinance is written, consequences for records of links to slavery must be disclosed to the municipality, and continued pursuit of a city contract might require public disclosures and hearings, programmatic support and/or financial contributions. Insufficient investigations or false affidavits could result in legal action or being barred from future contracts. 

SDROs have been enacted in other municipalities — Chicago, San Francisco, Detroit, Philadelphia, and more, as well as at the state level in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Connecticut. 

Members of Unity’s Racial Justice Team, and more recently the Board’s Reparations Committee, have attended monthly meetings of the Commission as a show of support and as an opportunity to develop personal and institutional relationship with the Commission. Quietly observing their policy work is a far cry from the “hard work of antiracism” as stated in our new ends, but we are preparing to learn, together with the Commission, what will be requested of white allies who commit to standing with them as their recommendations become actionable. The SDRO proposal will be the first public act of the Commission aimed at establishing accountability for historic acts of oppression that enriched the bottom line of enterprises now doing business in Saint Paul. 

We don’t know what kind of blowback the proposal might generate. The Commission will be asking for signatures of support from individuals and organizations to accompany the ordinance proposal to City Council. Most of us are probably comfortable adding a signature to a list of supporters and asking our City Councilperson to back a measure. Are we as willing to take it to the next level and ask organizations in our networks, or our workplace, to add their names in support of the SDRO? 

Learn from representatives of the Commission and Unity’s Board and Racial Justice Team at Wellspring Wednesday on October 1.