A task force studying to make recommendations for slave reparations in Wilmington won’t issue a preliminary report until next year. It was scheduled to come out in May.
The delay stems from a miscommunication between the task force and the City Council on holding open meetings that align with the Freedom of Information Act, which states that “a public body must post notice of the date, time, place of meeting, and whether the meeting will be conducted seven days in advance.”
“We were holding our meetings, but we weren’t publicly noticing,” said Coby Owens, the chair of the task force. “We had no control over letting people know about them through the City Council’s website, but now everyone is on the same page — we had to be FOIA-complaint.”
In December 2022, Wilmington launched the City Council Reparations Task Force with nine appointed members. The group was tasked with researching the First State’s complicated slave history and examining how African Americans in the state have been impacted by an economic legacy of slavery and systematic racism.
Issues up to discussion will focus on how the original harms of enslavement have shaped struggles for Black Americans in Delaware today. Those include over-policing, deed restriction language to discriminate against Black people and prevent them from owning property, forced busing to schools and redlining — a practice of denying services like health care, insurance or credit to communities of color.
The task force, which held its first public meetings last month, was expected to report its findings to the City Council by May 30.
Now, the committee plans to complete the work through the end of the year and issue a final report to the City Council by January 2024, according to Owens.
“We restarted the [six months of research] so that we could do the public meetings properly, have public input and hear from the community about their vision of reparations as well as really make sure these recommendations speak to the true needs of the residents,” Owens said.
Who else is on the task force?
- Shane Cannon, a social worker for the state of Delaware
- Michael Casson, a dean of the College of Business at Delaware State University
- Darryl Chambers, the executive director of Wilmington’s Youth Empowered to Strive and Succeed Program
- Alisia Drew, a project manager at Social Construct LLC, a business impacting social issues in Wilmington
- Jason James Jr., an associate professor and doctor of education at Neumann University
- Renata Kowalczyk, CEO of Wilmington Alliance, a nonprofit economic development organization
- Leandra Marshall, a global liaison for the Global Institute for Equity, Inclusion and Civil Rights and the Global Societies’ Program at Delaware State University
Owens, a community coordinator and organizer for the Delaware NAACP, said the task force is planning to meet every other Monday over the next several months.
The next meeting, taking place on Aug. 14, will center on the economic disparities that have plagued Wilmington, followed by a discussion about health on Aug. 28.
Contact local reporter Cameron Goodnight at cgoodnight@delawareonline.com, or by calling or texting 302-324-2208. Follow him on Twitter at @CamGoodnight.
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