The Nowness of Reparations for Black People in New Jersey

 In this pivotal moment for multiracial democracy in America and New Jersey, the evening’s Juneteenth event will feature the release and discussion of the New Jersey Reparations Council’s long-awaited report, For Such a Time as This: The Nowness of Reparations for Black People in New Jersey.

Through compelling narrative and storytelling, the report chronicles New Jersey’s often overlooked embrace of slavery and its 400-year aftermath which led directly to today’s vast racial disparities — and proposes bold and strategic policies to repair the harm.

The first-of-its-kind New Jersey Reparations Council was convened by the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice on Juneteenth 2023 to finally confront and repair the deep and often overlooked history of slavery in New Jersey and its lasting impact on the contemporary life of Black people in the state.

A direct line can be drawn from New Jersey’s history as the “slave state of the North” to today, when New Jersey is home to some of the nation’s worst racial disparities when it comes to wealth, health, education and incarceration — including our staggering $643,000 racial wealth gap.

The New Jersey Reparations Council, co-chaired by Taja Nia Henderson (Rutgers Law School) and Khalil Gibran Muhammad (Princeton University), includes nine subject-matter committees that spent the last two years studying New Jersey’s history, forming the basis for bold, strategic policies that are designed to answer this affirmative question: What kind of reparative system does New Jersey need to invest in for Black people to finally be free? To be whole? To flourish?

Intro

• Welcome: Paulette Brown

Fireside Chat (Courageous Philanthropy & Advocacy)

• Amber Randolph
• Maisha Simmons
• Rich Besser
• Ryan Haygood

Panel 1: From the slave state of the north to the two New Jerseys

• Moderator: Taja-Nia Henderson
• Dreisen Heath
• Melissa Miles
• Walter Greason
• Madiba Dennie

Panel 2: What’s next to move reparations forward?

• Moderator: Khalil Gibran Muhammad
• Jean-Pierre Brutus
• Assemblywoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson
• Reverend Charles Boyer
• Nicole Rodriguez
• Larry Hamm

Conclusion/Outro

• Pastor Timothy Adkins-Jones