Get to know the Greenbelt Reparations Commission

The city of Greenbelt, MD. (City of Greenbelt)

Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled Dr. Lois Rosado’s name as “Lois Rosaldo.” A correction has been made to the story to reflect proper name spelling.

The 21 member Greenbelt Reparations Commission, picked by the Greenbelt Maryland City Council on December 14, 2022, is working towards reviewing and proposing local reparations for African American and Native American residents.  

“I think it’s important for communities like Greenbelt to explore reparations because, like many racial justice movements, it's from the ground up, it's a grassroots movement. The more we can do to bring attention to the topic to share what we learned to highlight harms that have been done, I think more people will understand why this is important,” said Secretary of the Reparations Commission Denise Nadasen.

What processes does the committee go through in proposing reparations? 

Commission members bring ideas or suggestions about reparations, which the rest of the commission would vote to either approve or deny. If approved, the executive committee would review it and send it to the entire commission. The process concludes with the city council’s final approval. 

Since the committee’s first official meeting in January 2023, the commission has worked tirelessly on researching reparations, talking to experts about how to approach organizing proposals and finalizing the committee structure.  

"We are learning as we go, but we're also hoping to bring in experts who can teach us a little bit about how to organize the work that we're doing," said Secretary Nadasen. "We are still in a phase of discovery." 

These experts include the San Francisco Reparation Committee, the Evanston, Illinois 

Reparation Committee and the 400 Years of African American History Committee. 

All three committees have contributed to helping African Americans around the country. The Evanston, Illinois Reparation Commission helped pass the first reparations law in U.S. history for its city. The San Francisco Reparations Committee is working on giving $5 million per every eligible black resident in San Francisco, California and The 400 Years of African American History Committee has created events and programs to educate people on Black History. 

For the Greenbelt Reparations Commission to progress to the level of proposing and receiving reparations, it first needs to research more of the city’s history - which Greenbelt Commission member Lois Rosado admits is a challenge.

"We have had a lot of challenges in terms of where to look," said Greenbelt Commission member Rosado, "while we have some lawyers as part of the commission, they don't have no time to do that detailed research, and we may have to bring in expert legal advice to help us find that information."

These difficulties in researching historical archives are why some people push back on the idea of reparations. Council member Silke Pope voted against the idea of reparations in Greenbelt because of the financial implications and because the events occurred generations ago. 

"We simply do not have the financial means or the manpower to do the in-depth research that is necessary to thoroughly investigate this injustice," said Pope during a Council Forum in 2021, "The land was owned by the federal government, and I strongly believe that if anyone should research and spearhead this issue, it should be the federal government and not our current Greenbelt residents." 

Greenbelt commission member Rosado believes that Greenbelt's local government can support reparations because of history. 

"Local governments can defy state and federal governments,” said Greenbelt committee member Rosado, "the current structure of marijuana hasn't changed on the federal level, but state after state has changed the rules and made marijuana legal basically, and same with the local level, so one can challenge the state and federal law, but no one ever did."

The Greenbelt Reparations Commission is actively working on a project on literature that teaches people the history of slavery in Greenbelt. 

"As we get those materials organized, we will make them available to the Greenbelt Community," Secretary Nadasen said.