by Richard E. Besser and Ryan P. Haygood
In today’s fraught political climate, it may feel counterintuitive to ignite a call for reparations.
At a time when many national leaders are conducting a far-reaching gaslighting experiment, attempting to erase America’s centuries-long embrace of slavery and its aftermath, reparations are often dismissed as politically toxic or impossibly complex and costly.
But this is not the time for small imaginations.
In New Jersey, a new report by the New Jersey Reparations Council shows what could happen when we ask the right question — not “Is it possible to repair right now?” but “How can we repair, and how soon?”
“For Such a Time as This: The Nowness of Reparations for Black People in New Jersey,” released on Juneteenth, lays out a blueprint for repair that is bold, transformational, and — crucially — replicable by other states. It offers a powerful look at the Garden State’s history of slavery and more than 150 years of subsequent racist policies and practices, and proposes a transformative framework for reparative justice.
The call for reparations in New Jersey is part of a rising tide of reparative justice across the nation. In Portland, Oregon, the city will pay $8.5 million to 26 descendants of Black Portlanders who were displaced from their homes and businesses in the 1950s through the 1970s. In Tulsa, the site of one of the deadliest race riots in U.S. history in 1921, Mayor Monroe Nichols recently announced a $105 million reparations package focused on community redevelopment. Four states, plus Washington, D.C., have established commissions to explore reparations.
Since the beginning, Black people in America have led the call for America to live up to its democratic ideals. Whether through fighting for voting rights, desegregation of schools, fairness in the justice system, or so much more, these struggles — while still ongoing — have all made America better. There is nothing more American than holding ourselves and our leaders accountable to America’s highest ideals of liberty, justice, and equality.
In fact, it’s the ultimate form of patriotism.
The Slave State of the North
“For Such a Time as This” is the culmination of two years of intensive work by the New Jersey Reparations Council, chaired by leading scholars Taja-Nia Henderson of Rutgers Law School and Khalil Gibran Muhammad of Princeton University. The Council was convened in 2023 by the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The report recounts the often-overlooked history of slavery and oppression in New Jersey, which has been called the “Slave State of the North,” and the continued oppression that followed. In 1804, around the time other northern states were moving to abolish slavery, New Jersey instead passed a “gradual abolition” law that not only failed to abolish slavery, but also paid some white enslavers reparations. The program was so extensive that one year before it ended, it amounted to almost 30% of the state budget, nearly bankrupting the state. By 1830, New Jersey held over two-thirds of all enslaved people in the North, and although on the winning side of the Civil War, resisted ending slavery until 1866.
Oppressive policies and practices rooted in white supremacy continued over the next centuries, including Jim Crow segregation and redlining, which limited Black homeownership and cut off a path to wealth development for Black families.
The report draws a clear throughline from past oppression to present harm in Black communities, including entrenched and interconnected racial wealth and health disparities.
In 2023, the median household income for Black households in New Jersey was less than $69,000; for white households, it was $110,100. New Jersey has a staggering $643,000 median racial wealth gap between white and Black/Latino families, among the highest in the nation.
That wealth gap is tied to similarly stark health inequities: Black New Jerseyans are more likely to die prematurely from most of the leading causes of death, including heart disease and diabetes; they also have lower life expectancy and higher mortality rates. New Jersey’s schools are some of the most segregated in America, and our prisons some of the most unequal.
Change From the Ground Up
New Jersey may have been the last northern state to ban slavery, but as leaders of a national health philanthropy and a social justice institute in New Jersey, we reject a future where it is the last to heal.
We’ve seen in the Garden State how flexing community power can be transformative. NJISJ was a leading group behind a push to lower Newark’s voting age to 16 for school board elections, and championed a bill to restore the right to vote for more than 83,000 people on probation and parole.
Similarly, around reparations, change will come from the ground up.
The report is designed to help lead New Jerseyans through a process of self-discovery, reflection, and repair. It calls for a comprehensive model of reparations that includes but goes beyond cash payments, so compensation is paired with systems change to prevent the recurrence of injustice.
In the coming months, advocates across the state will bring the report to life in New Jersey’s communities. We’ll raise awareness about its findings and push for policies to strengthen our democracy, eliminate environmental racism, end school and housing segregation, close the racial wealth gap, dismantle a punitive and racist criminal legal system, and create a society where health is no longer a privilege for some but a right for all.
As we mark the July 4 holiday, what could be more patriotic than pursuing these high ideals? Let’s work toward a society where life, liberty, and justice are finally, truly, and equally accessible to all.
Richard E. Besser, M.D., is president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Ryan P. Haygood, Esq., is president and CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice and serves on the board of trustees at the foundation. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation provides funding for one of Word In Black’s health reporters.
