The New Jersey Reparations Council, founded in 2023, comprises a coalition of groups and individuals pushing ahead with formal recommendations for reparations in New Jersey.
In doing so, the group is challenging New Jersey to reconsider its identity, often cast as a relatively liberal “Blue” northeastern state rather than a former slave state whose legislature remains intransigent on the question of reparations.
“I think New Jersey likes to think of itself as a progressive state, and in some ways it is,” says Jean-Pierre Brutus, convenor of the New Jersey Reparations Council, in a conversation with NPQ. “But on the issue of racial justice, it does not match its presentation to the rest of the nation.”