A grassroots effort in Michigan is raising reparations — while the government lags

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: A grassroots reparations effort in Michigan is making progress where government-led attempts have stalled. Sophia Saliby of member station WKAR in East Lansing reports. SOPHIA SALIBY, BYLINE: 2020 was a turning point for Lansing, Mich., resident Willye Bryan. Between the racial reckoning following the murder of George Floyd and the health disparities that hit the African American community during the pandemic, she knew it was time for action. WILLYE BRYAN: You start with slavery, which is the original sin, and it has left an aftermath of destruction in its path. SALIBY: The answer for Bryan was for what she calls the debt owed to African Americans to be repaid through reparations. She started at her church, a predominantly white congregation. Pastor Stanley Jenkins remembers when Bryan first brought it up. STANLEY JENKINS: And my first reaction was, well, that’ll never work, and then immediately, I said, let’s do it. SALIBY: Most of the church stood behind them, pledging $100,000 over the course of 10 years. Eighty thousand dollars of that came from contributions from individual congregants. JENKINS: There was a sense that people were waiting, even if they didn’t know it, for somebody to take that first...