The Evanston, IL Test Case: Why Repairing State-Sponsored Theft Isn’t ‘Discrimination’

The legal challenge against Evanston, Illinois’ Restorative Housing Program is more than a local policy dispute; it’s a clinical attempt to stop a city from taking responsibility for its own history. My DNA doesn’t allow me to see this as just another legislative debate. I’m the granddaughter of sharecroppers from Palmetto, Louisiana—a small town in the southwest part of the state that still relies heavily on farming to survive.

My family’s history is rooted in a system that worked like a predatory machine, extracting Black labor while ensuring families like mine remained poor. While my family eventually managed to buy their own land and farm, that victory came only after decades of severe financial hardship. Generations later, we’re still trying to recover from those hits to our stability, and even in that admittance, I recognize our privilege. Sharecropping was just one way the system trapped Black families after slavery ended. Redlining was another—a quieter, more calculated kind of theft.

This history is why the Evanston case matters. In 2021, Evanston became the first U.S. city to pass a reparations bill, pledging $10 million to address the wreckage caused by its own racist housing laws. Now, the federal class-action lawsuit Flinn v. City of Evanston characterizes these $25,000 grants as “racially discriminatory.” The lawsuit claims that attempting to remedy past harm violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. This is a dangerous distortion of the facts. Evanston’s program is a settlement for state-sponsored theft, not a matter of “racial preference.”

From 1919 to 1969, Evanston’s government actively forced Black residents into specific areas. Through exclusionary zoning and the denial of building permits, the city corralled Black families into the 5th Ward. This coordinated effort suppressed Black wealth on purpose. The city’s 2020 report details how officials used “city planning” to remove what they called “surplus population”—a clear code for Black residents.

When we examine the racial wealth gap today, we’re looking at the compounding interest of these specific, localized thefts. According to Federal Reserve data, the median white household holds roughly $285,000 in wealth, compared to just $44,900 for the median Black household—a gap of more than six times. Much of this disparity is rooted in the home—the primary asset for the American middle class. By freezing Black families out of the housing market during the country’s biggest economic boom, Evanston stunted the financial trajectory of entire generations.

The lawsuit, filed by the group Judicial Watch, argues the program is unconstitutional because it uses race as a requirement. However, the program is actually tied to a clinical paper trail of harm. To qualify, a person must prove they lived in Evanston as a Black resident during that era of discrimination, or be a direct descendant. The use of race is necessary because the harm was specifically racial. As the Evanston: Impact Study points out, these policies were created to diminish Black opportunities.

This lawsuit is part of a bigger national push to erase the history of systemic racism from the public record. We see it in the bans on “divisive” history in schools and the dismantling of affirmative action and DEI programs. Evanston is a test case: if a city can’t use its own records to provide redress for its own admitted failures, then local justice is effectively blocked everywhere.

The plaintiffs in Flinn v. City of Evanston argue they’re being denied $25,000 “but for” the race requirement. They’re ignoring that they weren’t the targets of the 1919 zoning laws or the redlining that devalued Black property. Cities pay out settlements for government negligence all the time—ranging from police misconduct to broken infrastructure. Usually, no one calls those settlements “taxpayer redistribution.”

For the Black residents of Evanston, these grants represent a rare moment of reciprocity. They provide the capital needed for home repairs or mortgage assistance—tangible tools that help families remain in a city that once tried to push them out. According to the City of Evanston, over 250 individuals have already been approved for or received funds. It’s a major step toward stabilizing Black homeownership and addressing what we recognize, clearly, as state-sanctioned economic violence against Black families.

Black folks fully understand that this outrage about repairing harm done to Black families isn’t about the law; it’s about the fear of accountability. We accept government settlements for almost any other kind of harm, but when the harm comes down to racism, the defense of “colorblindness” is used as a silencer. We can’t claim to value the “American Dream” while we protect the very mechanisms used to steal it from an entire demographic.

Evanston shouldn’t be a legal pariah; it should be a model. Other cities with similar histories are watching this case. If the courts decide that we can’t fix documented government harm, they are both defiling the Constitution and subsidizing injustice. True restoration requires disrupting the economic status quo built on exclusion. Until then, the debt remains, and local, state, and federal governments need to pay up.

Josie Pickens is an educator, writer, cultural critic, and abolitionist strategist and organizer. She is the director of upEND Movement, a national movement dedicated to abolishing the family policing system.

SEE ALSO:

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New York Reparations Movement Gains Help From BLIS Collective