![](https://neojimcrow.art/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/654bf5976217b.image_.jpg)
(The Center Square) – A measure introduced in Springfield would require corporations seeking to do business in Illinois to pay reparations if the company had any ties to slavery.
State Rep. Sonya Harper, D-Chicago, is calling the legislation the Slavery Disclosure and Redress Ordinance.
Harper said any potential contractor with ties to slavery would be required to submit a statement of their past or planned contributions to a redress fund to be distributed to the Black community.
“This is an effort to pay those who were enslaved family members their share of reparations for the harm their family members endured during slavery,” Harper said during a news conference Tuesday.
Illinois is home to the first city in the country taking part in a reparations program. The city of Evanston provides cash reparations to Black residents in response to past discriminatory practices. That program is being challenged in court.
Tom Fitton, president of the group Judicial Watch, told NBC that the program is unconstitutional.
“They’re using race discrimination to stop the generalized effects of race discrimination of the past and that’s not the way to do it,” said Fitton. “It generates division, resentment, and it’s unlawful.”
The class action lawsuit alleges the program’s requirement that applicants state whether they and their ancestors identify as Black or African American “violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”
The State of Illinois African Descent-Citizens Reparations Commission (ADCRC) has announced the fourth stop on its nine-part series of statewide public hearings. ADCRC is hosting public hearings to discuss reparatory actions for Black Americans in Illinois who are descendants of slavery. The next public hearing will take place in Evanston on Saturday, Febr. 8, at Northwestern University.