12.5 Million Enslaved: The Stakes Behind the Fight for Local Black Reparations

An estimated 12.5 million Africans were forced onto ships bound for the Americas during the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and about 1.8 million did not survive the journey. This historical scale is now at the center of a legal and political dispute in the United States as the nation approaches its 250th anniversary.

Robin Rue Simmons, who now goes by N'nanba, helped create Evanston, Illinois' $25,000 housing grant for Black residents affected by discriminatory housing policies. She is now working to expand this model to more than 100 communities. The Trump administration is moving to block such local programs through legal challenges and policy shifts.

The federal pushback coincides with global debate. In March, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution describing the trafficking of enslaved Africans as the gravest crime against humanity. More than 120 countries backed the resolution, while the United States, Argentina, and Israel voted against it. Fifty-two nations, including England and 27 European Union members, abstained.

N'nanba, who chairs Evanston's Reparations Committee, stated that the administration creates many barriers but that federal redress remains a collective north star. William Darity, a co-author of a book on reparations, noted that no president has supported comprehensive Black reparations. He said, "Now, Trump will speak the word, but with hostility."

In September, President Donald Trump told supporters, "They want to steal your money for reparations," adding that it is going nowhere. The Justice Department has joined a lawsuit against Evanston, alleging the program violates the 14th Amendment and the Fair Housing Act. A federal judge allowed the department to intervene this month, following a claim by plaintiffs that the city picks winners and losers based entirely on race.

The pressure has reached higher education. Harvard University fired its team, which had identified nearly 500 living descendants of people enslaved by the university's past leaders, days after President Trump's January 2025 anti-DEI order. Virginia Theological Seminary continues annual cash payments to descendants, with its endowment growing from $1.7 million to $2.8 million since 2019. Juan Woolfolk, a Georgetown descendant, is using a $10,000 scholarship to study museum studies at Southern University at New Orleans.