As America continues commemorating the 250th anniversary of its independence, Boston has an opportunity and an obligation to confront a question our nation has never fully answered: How can we celebrate 250 years of freedom when millions of Americans were never truly free?
Among those denied that freedom were today’s American Freedmen, the descendants of those enslaved in the United States, whose labor helped build Boston while their families were denied opportunities to own property, build wealth and fully participate in democracy.
In 1852, Frederick Douglass asked, “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?” His question exposed the contradiction between celebrating liberty while denying it to millions. Today, American Freedmen are asking a modern version: When will acknowledgment become accountability, and when will accountability become repair? Boston can answer by demonstrating what meaningful reparative justice looks like when descendants help lead the process.
When Boston established its Reparations Task Force, many descendants believed the city was prepared to become a national model by confronting its history and moving beyond symbolic commitments. It represented hope that Boston was prepared to move from documenting harm toward repairing it, with descendants helping to determine what repair should look like.
For many of us in Roxbury and across Boston, these are not abstract debates. They are questions about whether our children can remain in neighborhoods their families helped build, whether Black businesses can grow and whether the next generation will inherit opportunity.
Audrey Thomas, a lifelong Roxbury resident, connects reparations to education, saying, “Our young people deserve better.” Melvin Core, born and raised in Roxbury, speaks to displacement: “We deserve reparations, and we deserve to stay in our community.” Terri Hinton of Dorchester connects Boston’s responsibility to her family’s history, explaining that her grandmother was a sharecropper in Alabama and that those hardships were passed down.
More American Freedmen must come forward and tell their stories because those stories document how public policy shaped neighborhoods, education, housing, economic mobility and generational wealth. No one can speak more authentically about slavery’s enduring consequences than descendants who live with them. Our history should not be diluted in ways that separate reparations from the specific harms of enslavement and its aftermath. Irving Carlos Matias, who experienced institutional injustice, reminds us that justice must ultimately include the opportunity to rebuild with dignity.
That is why concerns about the city-commissioned Tufts University reparations research have resonated so strongly. Residents have raised questions about transparency, methodology and the direction of the research. Boston should discontinue reliance on the existing Tufts report, determine whether public funds can be recovered under the agreement and redirect those resources toward an independent, accredited team of historians, genealogists, economists, legal scholars and reparations experts with demonstrated descendant-centered expertise. Completing that work by November would give the task force and community sufficient time to review the findings and advance recommendations for implementation in the next budget cycle.
Boston cannot afford another year of delay.
Moving from research to implementation also requires leadership that reflects the community. Many residents continue to ask why Lori Nelson, an American Freedman who brought institutional knowledge and lived experience to Boston’s reparations work, is no longer publicly leading the initiative. Because this process addresses specific harms to a specific population, descendants must have meaningful leadership roles alongside qualified researchers and public officials.
Earlier this year, I formally requested a meeting with Mayor Michelle Wu to discuss a path forward. I called for a public implementation plan, dedicated funding, greater descendant leadership, transparency regarding research contracts and expenditures, and a permanent Office of American Freedmen Affairs. H.4351, which proposed establishing a Massachusetts Office of Freedmen Affairs, was not enacted, but its purpose remains urgent. Boston should not wait for another legislative session to begin building the local infrastructure necessary for lasting accountability.
Boston has an extensive historical record, and disparities remain visible in housing, education, economic opportunity, displacement and wealth.
Research should inform policy, not postpone it. Repair requires investment, accountability and the courage to turn historical findings into public policy that changes lives.
As I said at our July 17 community rally, “American Freedmen have our boots strapped and are ready to do the work of repair. The question now is: Is the city ready?” If Boston wants to lead the nation in reparative justice, it must trust descendants to help shape their repair.
America is commemorating 250 years of independence, but Boston can help define what the next 250 years represent by choosing action over another cycle of study and delay. The community is ready to tell its stories, lead and partner. Now City Hall must demonstrate that it is ready, too. The next generation deserves the benefits of repair, not another promise that justice will come someday. The time for repair is now.
Aja Jackson is a community activist and American Freedman.
