Chicago University activists launch reparations campaign calling for $1B

University of Chicago student activists are demanding that the institution pay $1 billion in reparations to the residents of the city’s South Side.

The UChicago Against Displacement group accuses the university of harming and displacing poor and black residents living in the area.

Demands include $1 billion in affordable housing grants and a $20 million-a-year rent assistance fund, and a commitment not to expand the university further into the Woodlawn or Washington Park areas.

The group cites the Obama Foundation’s $500 million “presidential center” — currently under construction — as a project that could displace South Side residents and harm the community. Rents in the area around the center have risen sharply since the announcement.

A mission statement from UCAD said, “Using our unique connection to the school, we are urging the university to recognize its history of harm, support the passage of a community benefit agreement, and pay reparations to the South Side.”

The group cites the Obama Foundation’s $500 million “presidential center” — currently under construction — as a project that could displace South Side residents and harm the community. Pictured: Barack and Michelle Obama begin construction of the center

In a statement to DailyMail.com, the University of Chicago said the school has “developed deep partnerships with our community and the City of Chicago, and we continue to make far-reaching contributions to address community priorities and improve the quality of life ‘. on the south side.’

“With continued input from community residents and elected officials, we are working toward a range of community priorities, including N-12 education, college readiness, health care, public safety, workforce development, non-profit capacity building, and economic inclusion,” the press said. . release continued.

The campaign follows similar movements across America demanding reparations for black people — including descendants of enslaved people — harmed by historically racist policies like redlining.

UCAB said: ‘Reparations are an effort to recover the resources that have been stolen and withheld from people for years so that they can live their lives with the same benefits and resources as those they expelled in the first place.

“As members of the university preying on the South Side and its residents, we have a responsibility to work to undo the damage that has been done while limiting future damage.

“No amount of money will ever equal all that has been lost and stolen from the Black South Side residents over generations, but it is vital that we do not act to protect the future of the South Side.”

UCAD staged a protest in February to ‘relaunch’ the reparations campaign after the movement initially started around January 2022.

The protest began in the Woodlawn area, which the activists described as “symbolic of how UChicago doesn’t respect its boundaries or the people around them in their community.”

One activist said, ‘Not alone [the University] having a connection with slavery, it has its own form of removal [and] form institutional policies to further remove and expel black and brown people from the south side of Chicago.”

The group was also involved in a 2022 demonstration when a speech by university president Paul Alivisatos was hijacked by activists calling for reparations.

The campaign comes at a time when demands are being made across America for reparations for black people whose families were affected by racist policies — with several states pursuing high-profile policies to pay hundreds of billions of dollars in compensation.

A UCAD mission statement on its Instagram page said, “Using our unique connection to the school, we are urging the university to recognize its history of harm, support the passage of a community benefits agreement and make reparations to the south side’

The activists allege that the University of Chicago has disadvantaged residents in the South Side area of ​​the city through discriminatory practices

Activists disrupted a speech by University President Paul Alivisatos in 2022 as part of the reparations campaign

In 2021, Chicago became the first city in America to launch a reparation program for black residents whose families were harmed by discriminatory policies.

The suburb of Evanston launched its recovery program in 2019, committing $10 million over a ten-year period using funding from the three percent city tax on recreational marijuana sales.

California’s reparations plan is by far the most controversial — and ambitious. The state’s reparations commission was told at a recent meeting to increase the amount given to each black resident from $5 million to $7.6 million — as one economist said the proposed $800 billion budget is not enough.

The numbers were brought up as the Golden State reparations commission held a hearing in Sacramento on Wednesday — their 13th since its launch in June 2021.

The group has until July 1 to issue their full set of recommendations.

That money is primarily aimed at fundamental black Americans, who are descendants of black people who were enslaved in the US.