It all started with the promise of 40 acres and a mule.
For 160 years, Black Americans have called for reparations, and in recent years, various task forces — notably in Illinois, California, and North Carolina — have pushed for payment for the harms done by slavery and Jim Crow. But while slavery is often framed as a Southern stain on American history, its legacy reaches far beyond — shaping disparities in education, wealth, and justice across the entire nation, including in places like New Jersey.
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By the 1830s, New Jersey accounted for more than two-thirds of all enslaved people in the Northern United States. It slowly became known as the “slave state of the North.” Now the New Jersey Reparations Council is working to confront this history head-on, and ensure that the promise of 40 acres and a mule is finally kept.
Formed in 2023, the council — a diverse coalition of advocates, community leaders, and experts, including faculty from Rutgers-Newark — is crafting a comprehensive blueprint to address the lasting impacts of slavery and systemic racism in the state. From the racial wealth gap to school segregation, their work aims to not only educate but also advocate for policies that could pave the way for healing and equity.
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New Jersey “is one of the most diverse states, and it has this representation of being progressive, but yet [it has] all these inequalities,” says Jean-Pierre Brutus, the convener of the council and senior counsel in the Economic Justice Program of the nonprofit New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.
One stark example of inequality in New Jersey is the nearly $300,000 racial wealth gap between white families and Black and Latino families. School segregation, a direct result of redlining, exacerbates these disparities.
“Reparations and racial healing would address those inequalities,” Brutus says.“It would help to have a more thriving New Jersey, not just for Black folks, but for New Jersey as a whole.”
NJISJ has been at the forefront of the reparations movement since launching its “Say the Word: Reparations” campaign in 2017. The New Jersey Reparations Council, born from this initiative, is now tackling nine key areas shaped by slavery’s legacy: history, public memory, economic justice, segregation, democracy, public safety, health equity, environmental justice, and faith-based resistance.
The council’s work also sheds light on lesser-known stories, like the closure of the Bordentown School, an all-Black public boarding school once hailed as the “Tuskegee of the North.” The state claimed it “lacked diversity” because only two white students were enrolled and so the school was shut down in 1955.
Brutus says the council has been engaging the public through community dialogue, advocacy summits, animated explainer videos, and partnerships with local leaders like Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. Rutgers-Newark has also been a key hub for this work, including hosting serval NJISJ events and contributing research through projects like “Scarlet and Black,” which examines the university’s own ties to slavery.
In addition, in early February, Rutgers hosted a two-day conference “Racial Justice, Reparations, and the University,” which brought together experts on current restorative justice practices.
“Rutgers-University Newark was not afraid to host this reparations event at this moment when there’s been an attack on universities holding race-conscious projects,” Brutus says.
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I have lived in Newark, New Jersey, all my life and was never taught that slavery existed here. I always learned of the horrors of the South but never the truth about the North until I became a student at Rutgers-Newark. Rutgers-Newark professors Tim Eatman and Mark Krasovic have also led community meetings to ensure residents’ questions about reparations are being answered. And this year on Juneteenth, the council will unveil its findings at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.
The event will mark a critical step in the council’s mission to educate the public and push for justice, healing, and policy changes.
“We’re going to advocate with stakeholders [and] policymakers to actually get these recommendations implemented,” Brutus says.
Aaliyah Amos is one of Word In Black’s four Racial Healing Youth Ambassadors. She reports on and amplifies African American student experiences with her campus Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation groups. Launched by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the TRHT effort promotes inclusive and community-based healing activities and policy designs that seek to change community narratives and broaden the understanding of diverse experiences among people.