Chicago Activist Revives Call for Reparations Amid Outrage Over Mayor’s Payouts to Migrants

A Chicago activist has revived a reparations campaign that calls for an annual exemption from property taxes after Mayor Brandon Johnson approved $9,000 housing payouts to migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border. The mayor’s action led to outrage in the Black community due to concerns the incoming wave would eventually price them out of their own neighborhoods. Howard Ray, the founder of ReRan who last year unsuccessfully campaigned for the alderman seat in Chicago’s 37th ward, blasted Mayor Johnson for the $750-a-month payments to incoming migrants that is intended to help cover their rent and other living costs. A majority of Chicagoans have been up in arms over the mayor’s recent benevolence to asylum seekers, while Black residents have become outraged after helping to elect the Democrat last fall, although Johnson did recently rebuff an additional $300 million in funding to help ease the crisis. A Chicago activist says the city is using tax dollars to push out African-Americans from their neighborhoods. (Photo: Getty Images) A call for reparations Ray sought to highlight the racial disparity between incoming migrants and the city’s longtime Black residents, claiming that the Black community had long demanded similar public funds but never received any, although...