ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – Thursday night the Fulton County Reparations Task Force held its first in-person meeting at the Government Center in downtown Atlanta.
According to a news release from Fulton County, the Reparations Task Force serves as an advisory body to the Board of Commissioners to investigate and provide recommendations to the Board of Commissioners regarding priorities, objectives, and policies that will support the revitalization, preservation, and stabilization of the Black/African American population in Fulton County in the form of reparations.
Task force Vice Chairman Marcus Coleman says the board has been meeting virtually and researching Fulton County’s history over the last two years.
“Slavery and the Jim Crow era, and even the era after that, has not only resulted in stolen land, it’s not only resulted in inequities as far as financially, it’s not only resulted in disparaging numbers as it relates to healthcare mentally and physically, education, business contracts. Literally the list goes on and on,” Coleman said.
Right now, the task force is compiling a list of possible reparations and eligibility requirements.
“All of the atrocities that our ancestors were faced with, as their heirs, it is our duty to uncover every single avenue of repair,” Coleman said.
Public comment was light at Thursday’s meeting, but one man addressed the board and voiced his opinion on where money should go.
“I’m just here so that whatever we come up with that it goes to the right group. I believe whatever Fulton County comes up with should be specific to the American descendants of U.S. chattel slavery,” a man said during public comment.
The Reparations Task Force received a quarter of a million dollars from taxpayer funds earlier this year to aid in their research. Coleman says they are aiming for an October 2024 deadline to present their findings to commissioners.
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