Oak Park reparations task force outlines requests for Village Board

The Oak Park Village Board is considering taking its first steps onto a path for local reparations after being presented the findings of a task force along with several requests to remedy historic wrongs against the village’s Black community. Despite this, some on the board cited the ongoing lawsuit against Evanston’s reparations program as a concern since that program is the only one that could be studied as an example for Oak Park. “We are committed to helping the board reach its goals and the community reach its goals,” Village Manager Kevin Jackson said at a July 16 meeting. “We did have a relationship with Evanston to understand what’s going on right now with (its) initiative and if there is a legal basis to be found. We haven’t found it at this point. We would build any initiatives on top of that.” Jackson said other steps could be taken beyond reparations in the equity sphere to attempt to repair some harms. The citizen-led task force, headed by Christian Harris and Nancy Alexander, began in fall 2021 as an offshoot of Walk the Walk, a protest group formed in response to the murder of George Floyd. The nine-person task force worked...