Reparations campaigns get boost from new philanthropic funding
WJXT
NEW YORK The campaign to win reparations for Black Americans plans to bring broader support for smaller nonprofits advancing the cause, with a new philanthropic funding initiative announced Friday at the Alight Align Arise national conference in Atlanta.
The Decolonizing Wealth Project, an organization dedicated to creating racial equity through education and radical reparative giving, is committing $20 million over five years to boost campaigns for reparations across the country, along with a research collaboration with Boston University to map reparation projects.
The project's founder and CEO Edgar Villanueva announced the plans at the Atlanta gathering of advocates, including the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman, the Democratic congressman whose district represent parts of The Bronx and Westchester County in New York.
The point of all of this for us is to elevate the issue and the opportunity for reparations and to resource these groups who have been doing this work, often for a little or no money, and it takes the money to win, said Villanueva in an interview.
