Reparations activists call out blue states for using slavery history to fund broader agenda
Reparations activists from a grassroots organization called the U.S. Freedmen Project told Fox News Digital that recent immigrants and non-foundational Black Americans should not be included in government reparations programs.
"I also think it’s not morally correct, you know? You don't give out remedies to people who haven't experienced the harm," Annette Wilcox, a spokesperson for the group, told Fox News Digital.
"A lot of these policies — the Commission on Racial Equity in the city, the Mayor’s Office on Equity and Justice — they talk constantly about slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, convict leasing. All of those things that happened to a specific group of people," Wilcox added. "Then, when it comes time to give out resources and remedies, it's going to everybody: underserved communities, POC [people of color], immigrants, marginalized groups. You’re using one group of people's history to then give remedies to a wider group."
The U.S. Freedmen Project, composed of self-identified "Foundational Black Americans," aims to educate the public on the legal and historical distinctions between African Americans who are direct descendants of enslaved people in the U.S. and those who immigrated to the country voluntarily in recent decades.
Wilcox reacted sharply to efforts by New Jersey Democrats pushing the state to consider direct reparations proposals that could include residents who are not direct descendants of enslaved people.
The proposed legislation — the Truth, Reconciliation, and Repair Act, spearheaded by Assemblywoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson and state Sen. Angela McKnight — aims to address wealth disparities stemming from historical slavery and systemic discrimination. Informed by research from the New Jersey Reparations Council, the bill seeks to establish a framework for state-level reparative policies.
U.S. Freedmen Project president Devine Prince told Fox News Digital that lawmakers and certain advocates are "conflating reparations with racial justice and social justice."
Fox News Digital previously spoke with New York residents who voiced similar concerns during a public hearing for the New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies at Hempstead High School on Long Island. Residents warned state officials that broadening the scope of reparations to include recent immigrants and other marginalized groups risks co-opting and diluting the movement.
One supporter, Aubrey Muhammad, delivered tense testimony accusing politicians of misallocating resources away from historic Black communities amidst demographic shifts.
"The Democrats, in a sick way, imported 25 million immigrants. And 70% of them came into poor Black neighborhoods," Muhammad argued in a follow-up interview with Fox News Digital. "Hempstead, since the '90s, has been flooded with immigrants. That's taking the resources, putting them towards others."
Demographic data from the U.S. Census Bureau reflect significant changes in the Village of Hempstead over the last three decades. Today, the community of roughly 59,000 is nearly evenly split between Black residents (43.2%) and Hispanic or Latino residents (45.3%). In 1990, the Hispanic population made up roughly 14% of the village.
"That’s why, frankly, I think we're in the situation today, where descendants of slavery in the United States are at the bottom of just about every socioeconomic parameter," Wilcox said.
Prince expounded on the issue, arguing that broader social challenges deserve their own dedicated solutions rather than being packaged under the umbrella of reparations.
"What we're finding out coming from the left wing of the political spectrum is that they are conflating reparations with racial justice and social justice. All three are similar, but they are far from the same," Prince said. "So what happens is when people believe a rising tide lifts all boats … you're conflating repair for the badges and incidents of slavery with discrimination like not being able to catch a cab, or with the social justice of fair immigration policies."
Members of the U.S. Freedmen Project have become vocal fixtures at public hearings across the country. They maintain that true reparations must be lineage-based — strictly reserved for direct descendants of enslaved human beings in the United States.
Prince argued that for any reparations policy to survive inevitable legal challenges, it must be tied strictly to lineage rather than race.
"What the Democratic Party loves to do is push them all together to create 'people of color' coalitions. These policies are largely being pushed in blue states, which is also where these issues are happening," Prince said. "There is a responsibility for any political entity to address its constituents directly and, more importantly, specifically — because that's how true coalitions are built, not by cobbling people together and pretending they all have the same plight and political priorities."
New Jersey and New York are part of a broader wave of state and municipal governments exploring reparative frameworks. In Illinois, the Chicago suburb of Evanston made headlines as the first city to distribute government-funded reparations to Black residents to remedy historic housing discrimination.
However, Evanston’s program faces a high-profile class-action lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch and the Trump administration, alleging the program’s race-based eligibility criteria violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
SAN FRANCISCO JUDGE NOT CONVINCED REPARATIONS FUND WILL BE DISCRIMINATORY DURING LAWSUIT HEARING
"It either becomes something that is unconstitutional and will be challenged and shut down — like Evanston is on its way to being done — or you convert it into a universal program," he said.
"That is not reparations," Prince warned.
While Prince called broader social and racial justice initiatives "admirable," he reiterated that they should not hijack the legal definition of reparations.
"Reparations, in the context we're talking about, are only for those that were enslaved, emancipated, and then subject to the badges and incidents thereof," Prince said. "That is the American freedmen. Positioning it that way circumvents any legal challenge based on race."
The New Jersey lawmakers did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.