Prairie Liberation Center

Reparations Now!

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On October 23, 2025, the Champaign County Board voted in favor of supporting the creation of an intergovernmental reparations committee, committing $25,000 to funding the initiative. The county joins the City or Urbana, who has already committed to supporting the creation of the reparations commission and also committed $25,000 of the city budget. The Champaign-Urbana Reparations Coalition (CURC) is also asking the City of Champaign and the University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign for support and funding of the proposed reparations coalition.

What Are Reparations?

Reparations are material acts meant to address the centuries of unpaid slave labor and the on-going super-exploitation of African Americans. Reparations are not charity; they are an acknowledgement of and an effort to address the harms inflicted by systemic racism.

Slavery created the foundation of the United States financial portfolio, upon which the wealth of the existing billionaire class was built. If connections can be traced from slavery to the current wealthy elite of today, they can also be traced from slavery to the overall challenges in African American lives today.

A History of Exploitation

From chattel slavery to Jim Crow laws, from housing discrimination and redlining to mass incarceration and police violence, Black folks in America have and continue to face the most extreme forms of state repression. This is no accident. The billionaire ruling class knows that the Black freedom movement has always been the most progressive force for radical change in the US. The control of the billionaire class is built upon the exploitation of African Americans.

This exploitation is enforced by police terror. In 2009, Champaign police murdered 15-year-old Kiwane Carrington, who had commit no crime, while he was in the yard of his aunt’s house. Similarly, Rantoul police murdered Azaan Lee and Jordan Richardson in 2023. Neither had committed a crime. In all three cases, the officers responsible for the deaths of these young Black men were not held accountable.

In 2022, the City of Champaign’s Black population was 17.9 percent. Yet, it constituted more than 56% of traffic stops. In Urbana, Black people represented 18.3 percent of the population. However, they made up nearly 46.5 percent of that city’s traffic stops. And 57% of booking into the Champaign County Jail over the last five years have been African Americans.

Reparations are acts of repair intended to address this history of exploitation and violence. They include acknowledgement of harm, policies that remedy historic and ongoing anti-Black practices and can include financial payments.

Implementing Reparations in Champaign County

The Champaign-Urbana Reparations Coalition (CURC) has been engaged for over two years in community education, has compiled data from a survey of residents, and is in conversation with local decision-makers. CURC is asking the Cities of Champaign and Urbana, the County of Champaign, and UIUC to establish and fund a Champaign County Reparations Commission for African Americans to document the need for reparations and bring recommendations for action.

The work will involve research into local histories of discrimination and subsequent harms, the preparation of a comprehensive harms report, community education and, identification of potential models of repair, location of funding sources, and finally presentation of legislation to enact repair.

Laws and policies in Champaign County have systematically contributed to and exacerbated racial inequalities in housing, health and well-being, education, employment, and public safety. UIUC also has shaped and solidified racial inequities.

The Central Illinois branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) unequivocally supports CURC in their work.

What Will it Really Take to Uproot Racism in America?

Racism is so persistent in America not just because of personal attitudes and prejudices – it is an ideology reinforced constantly by the billionaires who rule this country, and the powerful institutions they control.

Racism allows the ruling class to grow even richer by exploiting Black workers and workers from other oppressed communities especially intensely – slavery is the most extreme example and was the foundation the entire economy of the United States was built on. And racism also helps the elite divide working people. If white workers are tricked into thinking that Black and Latino workers are the cause of their problems, then the millionaires and billionaires who are actually to blame get let off the hook.

Through courageous struggle, there have been periods of great progress towards racial equality. But like the history of affirmative action shows, whenever that struggle slows down, the natural tendency of the system is to roll back that progress. The ultimate solution is to end this system and build a new one where poor and working people – the vast majority of us – have the power. Only then will equality and unity finally be prioritized over oppression, exploitation and division.

Take Action Now!

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