Chicago moves toward reparations with bus tours and town halls as $150M deficit looms

Chicago took its first step after establishing a reparations task force two years ago.

And now, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson plans to hold a public engagement forum called “Repair Chicago” to “gather lived experiences of harm of Black Chicagoans” as part of an effort to implement reparations for Black residents.

“Your experience is evidence and we’ve placed it at the center of our work,” Johnson said. “By engaging directly with residents, we are grounding this work in the voices and lived realities of the people it is meant to serve.”

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The first event took place on Tuesday and two more events are scheduled through April.

Johnson’s office announced that the “Repair Chicago” effort would involve “bus tours, panel discussions, town halls, and hearings,” helping the task force members gather input for the administration’s reparations study. 

“The community engagement process will gather input from Chicagoans across the city to better understand Black Chicagoans’ experiences across generations and how systemic racism has shaped their lives, opportunities, and well-being,” Johnson said.

The move comes two years after Johnson named his chief equity officer, Carla Kupe, to lead the reparations task force with $500,000 in funding. In 2024, Johnson signed an executive order establishing a reparations Task Force, comprising 40 members, that addresses “historical harms committed against Black Chicagoans and their ancestors through the form of reparations.”

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Johnson’s effort to implement reparations comes while the city endures financial strains. Fox News Digital previously reported that Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, is facing a corporate fund budget gap of more than $1 billion, while its 2025 fiscal year is projected to close with an approximately $150 million deficit and about two-fifths of the budget going toward debt service and pension costs.

Johnson said in April the city was “at a crossroads” and had to “essentially do more with less,” while simultaneously slamming the Trump administration for reportedly threatening federal funding, calling it a “different scenario we weren’t under before.”

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Chicago could follow several states and local municipalities looking to implement reparations to some degree. On the state level, Illinois’s reparations commission released a report laying out what it called the state’s history of harms against Black residents. 

Evanston, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, was the first to pay Black residents in reparations to cover housing expenses. The program issues $25,000 direct cash payments to Black residents and descendants of Black residents who lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969.

Many have proposed compensation to rectify historical harms to Blacks. Some of these programs have faced legal challenges considering that they have race-based implications. 

For instance, a San Francisco resident is claiming that the city’s Reparations Fund is dividing the city. 

The mayor’s office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.