The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in October hosted a meeting of a state-supported reparations committee, where two of its professors and one of its researchers advocated in favor of reparations.
"The first problem, an analysis of Black workers' lived experiences in Illinois, reveals two dominant relationships," said Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua, a professor in the school's history department. "They shared with White workers labor exploitation. That is the hallmark of capitalism: theft."
Cha-Jua, fellow professor LaKisha David and doctoral student Naomi Simmons-Thorne spoke at the October meeting held by the African Descent-Citizens Reparations Commission.
The commission was established by the Illinois General Assembly, in part to study reparations and "discuss the implementation of measures to ensure equity, equality, and parity for African American descendants of slavery." The commission reports its findings to the general assembly.
Cha-Jua said that "the most frequent lived experience of the African American people has been as enslaved persons, sharecroppers, farm laborers, domestic servants, washerwomen, wageworkers, non-industrial or industrial workers, menial laborers in the public sector and as contemporary sub-proletarians laboring in part-time, temporary, low-wage un-unionized and benefit-less jobs."
He also said that after emancipation, Black male workers were subject to what he termed "super-exploitation" and "racial terrorism," and took the audience through a litany of 19th century atrocities perpetrated against Black people in America.
"It's not about individual reparations," he concluded. "We constitute a nationality that simply does not have a state. But we are a nation of people, so what we want to talk about is collective reparations. Reparations to communities and reparations to the African American people, as well as individual payments."
Simmons-Thorne, who studies philosophy at UIUC, discussed the "three species of justice," one of them being "rectificatory justice."
"It is this type of justice that is at the heart of the reparations movement, but it is also the type of justice that has been least thought about in the history of philosophy," she said.
"I often hear this, that reparations is just [Critical Race Theory] or DEI, when ancient philosophers in the fourth century BCE were talking about this kind of justice. So this is not just a modern thing, or some kind of modern excess."
Simmons-Thorne, in her capacity as a member of an Urbana-Champaign reparations committee, devised a survey to report to lawmakers sentiments on what aspects of reparations are "most salient to people." The survey focuses on whether educators are properly teaching students about reparations precedents.
"We want to know whether our educational institutions, whether our centers of public information, is doing a good job of educating residents and citizens, both local and statewide, about reparations precedents, like the one that happened of course in Evanston or in Rosewood, Florida, and whether our educational institutions are teaching about the principles of international law and where, you know, reparations is enshrined in the right to remedy and repair crimes against humanity."
In 2019, Evanston, Illinois, became the first locality to implement reparations in the form of cash payments. Eligible African Americans could receive up to $25,000 in cash payments. As of June, about $6.3 million in reparations had been paid, according to the African heritage because it is housed within my broader research initiative, The African Kinship Reunion at the University of Illinois, which focuses on repairing genealogical harm caused by slavery and forced family separation," David told Fox News Digital.
"That emphasis reflects the historical reality that African American family records were uniquely and systematically destroyed, not a restriction on participation. Access to family history is also closely tied to psychological well-being, identity development, and a sense of belonging — outcomes the state already supports through adoption records, family reunification and archival access.
"The envisioned Office of Genealogical Affairs would be open to all people and would treat genealogy as a public service, extending support to individuals whose documentation is incomplete through no fault of their own. The core issue is equitable access to family history and its psychological well-being benefits."
Simmons-Thorne, Cha-Jua and the University of Illinois did not respond to requests for comment.