As St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones reviews the St. Louis Reparations Commission report, she said her office will continue to make intentional decisions to invest in communities of color through the city’s Economic Justice Action Plan.
The eight-member volunteer commission released its final report and recommendations in October. The mayor’s office has not completely read the 124-page report. However, Jones said many of the report’s recommendations for Black St. Louisans are being addressed through the city's homebuyer assistance grants, home repair programs, job training efforts and upgrades to north St. Louis’ transportation infrastructure.
“We are making intentional decisions to invest in neighborhoods that haven't seen investment in decades,” Jones said. “So that, in itself, repairs harm done by previous administrations.”
The commission convened from April 2023 through September 2024. Throughout that time, Black St. Louisans voiced their opinions on reparations and testified about how they were affected by redlining, environmental injustice, medical racism and segregation. Most Black St. Louisans who were heard from said cash payments would begin to rectify the years of racism that they endured in St. Louis.
In February 2024, Jones and Neal Richardson, president of the St. Louis Development Corporation, attended a meeting to discuss the Economic Justice Action Plan with the commission and attendees. Some agreed with the plan and saw it as a starting point for restoring justice for Black St. Louisans, and others said cash payments would be a better option.
“You want economic development, pay the descendants of American slaves with our ancestors that put in 400 years of free labor. You will build your economy. It's going right back into the economy anyway. Cut the check,” St. Louis resident Anthony El Shag said during the February 2024 meeting.
Economic justice was a phrase coined by the Martin Luther King Jr., and it is about pivoting from civil rights to the economic health of families, Jones said during an interview last month.
“I personally feel that when we say economic justice, that people know exactly who that's targeted towards,” she said.
The reparations report focused on several categories: housing and land ownership, neighborhood and built environment, education, public health, criminal justice and policing, state violence and legal reform and economic justice and wealth creation.
Under the pillar of economic justice and wealth creation, the commission suggested that the City of St. Louis provide low-interest loans, business grants and technical support programs to Black entrepreneurs, create job training and entrepreneurship programs and direct cash payments or tax relief to descendants of enslaved St. Louisans and Black residents.
The commission also recommended that the city pay up to $25,000 to Black former residents or direct descendants of people who lived in McRee Town, Mill Creek Valley or the Pruitt-Igoe public housing project. The money would repay families for the city’s role in displacing thousands of Black residents from their homes in neighborhoods that were later destroyed.
However, Jones said cash payments are not an option.
“Missouri state law makes direct cash payments unconstitutional, and the only exception that we were able to get was during COVID when we had direct cash payments for our direct cash assistance,” she said. “We were also sued for our guaranteed basic income program … and cash payments have been challenged in courts in other states, as in Flinn versus the City of Evanston. So, unfortunately, cash payments isn't something that we're able to do because the state constitution prohibits it.”
St. Louis Public Radio asked the mayor’s office to specify what part of the Missouri Constitution she was referencing, but a spokesperson did not offer a response to that request. However, the lawsuit filed last summer against the city’s guaranteed basic income program uses the constitutional provision that says, "No county, city or other political corporation or subdivision of the state shall own or subscribe for stock in any corporation or association, or lend its credit or grant public money or thing of value to or in aid of any corporation, association or individual, except as provided in this constitution."
Jones said that the city is working on a limited budget and that cash payouts would force her administration to pull money from payroll, personnel, services or capital.
“Reparations isn't just cash payments. Reparations is also about who is leading the city and paying attention to the harms and the things that haven't or that have prevented Black St Louisans from thriving,” Jones said.
