Non-profit reparations organization FirstRepair serves over 100 local communities and is opening a resource center in December. FirstRepair is opening a new resource center in December

According to former Ald. Robin Rue Simmons (5th) Even though she left the city council in 2021, she said people across the country still came to her asking for advice on how to set up reparations initiatives in their own communities.

Rue Simmons, who served as a council member from 2017 to 2021, led Evanston’s reparations program, which now provides grants of up to $25,000 to Black residents who lived in Evanston from 1919 to 1969 and their direct descendants.

Evanston’s reparations program was the first of its kind in the country in 2021 and was challenged in court in May by a conservative activist and non-Black Evanston residents.

In response to requests from communities across the country, Rue Simmons founded FirstRepair, a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing tools and sharing practices that lead to sustainable local reparation policies. FirstRepair achieves this by leading workshops and conferences across the country and conducting research.

FirstRepair, founded in 2021, now serves over 100 locations across the country, including Tulsa, Oklahoma and Denver.

FirstRepair’s newest project is the National Resource Center for State and Local Reparations, located at the organization’s headquarters at 1900 Asbury Ave. The center will open Dec. 4, the first day of the organization’s fourth annual symposium, Rue Simmons said.

The center will include a library and other resources to support the reparations movement, she said.

A mural unveiled in July surrounds the center and celebrates Black excellence, she added.

The organization also hosts monthly national strategy sessions for community leaders to collaborate and share ideas, Rue Simmons said. She added that there are also monthly meetings for FirstRepair’s West, East, Midwest and South regions aimed at allowing community leaders to work more closely together.

The name FirstRepair comes from Rue Simmons’ belief that communities should work to repair the harm suffered by the Black community before public policies can be implemented, she said.

FirstRepair’s logo consists of three interlocking circles, the Adinkra symbol for leadership from West Africa, Rue Simmons represents the leadership Evanston has shown in the reparations movement.

She stressed that it is important to support local communities in their reparations programs, as many national initiatives start with grassroots actions.

“All the communities that FirstRepair works with ask the organization for help,” said Rue Simmons. The nonprofit doesn’t have the capacity to do its own outreach, she said.

After the killing of George Floyd in 2020, more places became interested in reparations and the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum, Rue Simmons said.

“(FirstRepair) was a direct response to the growing demand in this country for racial reparations,” said Rue Simmons.

However, some communities turn to FirstRepair before they are ready to implement a reparations program, she said.

Rue Simmons said criteria for a community to launch its own reparations initiative include having a legislative champion – someone who continually advocates for reparations initiatives – community political will and support for the Black community.

Tulsa District 1 City Councilwoman Vanessa Hall-Harper is a leading proponent of a reparations initiative in Tulsa.

She said she began working with FirstRepair in 2021 when the Tulsa City Council was looking to pass resolutions recognizing the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, a race riot against Black residents and their homes and businesses.

In August, Tulsa formed the Beyond Apology Commission. which is examining a financial reparation program for the victims of the Tulsa race massacre and their descendants.

Hall-Harper said she attends FirstRepair’s annual symposiums to stay involved and learn from other communities starting their own reparation programs.

She calls the people at FirstRepair and these events her “repair family,” she said.

“We work together,” Hall-Harper said. “And while a community’s repair or approach may be different, the solution or end game is the same, and that is justice.”

FirstRepair also hosts general legal strategy sessions focused on frameworks that community leaders can use for their reparations initiatives, as well as events at local schools and at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.

At the United Nations Permanent Forum for People of African Descent in April, FirstRepair partnered with several U.S.-based legal centers to host a side event on reparative justice, said Elisa Walker, FirstRepair communications associate.

Walker, who grew up in Evanston, said she feels particularly connected to the reparations movement because she has seen how it has impacted her community.

“When I started to develop at FirstRepair, it was mostly the narratives and stories that I hear from community members of (other) communities about their history and what reparations mean to them,” she said.

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