Session three: Where are We Today, and What’s Next?
October 3, 2021 • 4:00-5:30 p.m.
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This session will focus on the details of, and differences between, the two reparations programs currently available in Evanston and the issues facing them. We will develop ideas for how to support these local programs as well as national reparations, both financially and otherwise.
Robin Rue Simmons
Founder & Executive Director, FirstRepair
Commissioner, NAARC
Legislative Committee Member, N’COBRA
Robin Rue Simmons is the Founder and Executive Director of FirstRepair, a new not-for-profit organization that advocates for local reparations, nationally. She is
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the former 5th Ward Alderman for the City of Evanston, IL, where she led, in collaboration with others, the passage of the nation’s first and to date only municipal-funded legislation providing reparations based on Black citizens' experience in the aftermath of slavery.
Most recently, Rue Simmons was the Director of Innovation and Outreach for Sunshine Enterprises, a not-for-profit which has supported over one thousand entrepreneurs (virtually all African American and three quarters women) in launching or growing their businesses.
Rue Simmons is a commissioner of the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC), a member of the Legislative Committee of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA), and was a fellow at the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference/McCormick Theological Seminary. She previously served as a board member for the National League of Cities’ National Black Caucus of Local Elected Leaders, a board member of Evanston’s Connections for the Homeless, and the President of the Evanston Black Business Alliance
Pre-session work (choose 1 or 2)
City Ordinances and other recent city action: