Wichita City Council to hear proposal to establish local reparations commission
Wichita, Kansas - The Wichita City Council is expected to hear a proposal on Tuesday to form a local reparations commission.
Kansas Justice Advocate President Mary Dean is reportedly planning to present a proposal for a body tasked with addressing generations of injustice against Black residents, from chattel slavery, through Jim Crow, to present-day discrimination.
If it passes, Wichita would follow in the footsteps of Kansas City and other states and municipalities around the country taking steps to reckon with their legacy of white supremacy.
"Why wouldn’t Wichita join other cities around the country to do the right thing?" Dean told 12 News.
"We need to start hearing our people with the traumas that they have been suffering with, systematic racism, for decades," she added.
Wichita has opportunity "to do the right thing"
Dean said in an interview with The Community Voice that her plan is about making amends for centuries of racial abuse: "When people think of reparations, they think it only has to do with slavery and that it’s just about a check. There’s nothing wrong with a check, but there’s a lot more and I’m asking for a commission of qualified individuals to look into, identify and quantify the damages of local discrimination."
She is calling for experts in housing, economics, criminal justice, health care, and education – areas where Black residents are still experiencing some of the greatest harms – to sit on the commission.
"I think it would be wonderful for the city of Wichita to do the right thing during Black History Month. I’d love to see us start a commission to help the healing process for 40,916 Black people in the city of Wichita," she told the outlet.
"I'd also like to see the state do the same thing for all 178,000 Black residents of the 105 counties in Kansas."
Cover photo: IMAGO / Pond5 Images