‘What is Owed?’ podcast examines the movement behind reparations in Boston and beyond

The city of Boston has taken up the monumental task of trying to heal the racial inequalities caused by 400 years of slavery. Two years ago, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, created the Task Force on Reparations. Its aim is to understand the history of enslaved people in Boston and the impact on their descendants today. As the city wrestles with the idea of paying reparations to the descendants of enslaved people, a new seven-part podcast premiering tomorrow by GBH and PRX called “What Is Owed?”is taking a look through Boston’s layered history and the questions that will inform what reparations might look like in one of America’s oldest cities. GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath spoke about the show with its host, GBH News political reporter Saraya Wintersmith. What follows is a lightly edited transcript. Rath: This is great work and so excited to have you to talk about it. Let let’s dig in, because Boston has so many dark moments in its history regarding slavery. It’s here that slavery was first legalized in colonial America. It’s also one of the first places to start looking into the topic of reparations, and even saw a bill setting up a...