AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Remnants of slavery are tangible in Charleston, S.C. Bricks bear the fingerprints of enslaved Africans, and many Black families share the names of plantation owners. But talking about reparations is tough. South Carolina Public Radio's Victoria Hansen takes us to a city that's trying to make amends.
VICTORIA HANSEN, BYLINE: On Junteenth 2018, then-Mayor John Tecklenburg offered a resolution - for Charleston to apologize for its role as the nation's largest slave port.
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JOHN TECKLENBURG: All in favor of the question, please say aye.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Aye.
HANSEN: As the resolution passed, councilman William Gregorie raised his fists in the air. He wrote the apology made the same week his church, Mother Emanuel, marked the anniversary of a racist massacre. He says the 2015 murders of Black parishioners by a white supremacist brought the city together.
WILLIAM GREGORIE: It's unbelievable the sacrifices that we have to make in order for there to be progress.
HANSEN: Gregorie believed the apology would lead to reparations, as it promised Charleston would strive for racial equality. Six years later, there is a commission to address disparities, but it's forbidden from considering cash reparations, teaching critical race theory or defunding police. That wasn't the case when the city's first commission formed in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd and protests downtown.
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UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) No Trump, no KKK, no racist USA.
HANSEN: Those protests turned violent, and Gregorie got to work leading that first commission, coming up with 125 recommendations to make the city equitable for Black people. Charleston faces rapid gentrification, with white families earning, on average, more than twice as much as Black families. But in 2021, as the commission tried to share its ideas before City Council...
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Order, y'all.
HANSEN: ...They were met with public opposition. People were upset the city had removed a statue of John C. Calhoun, a former vice president who defended slavery. Dozens, like Tammy Kanapaux, signed up to speak.
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TAMMY KANAPAUX: Why are you taking away our history? Why are you trying to create division among all of us?
HANSEN: Charleston Black Lives Matter leader Marcus McDonald served on the commission and tried to speak.
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MARCUS MCDONALD: We do live in a racist country, and this is a racist city. And if you look - that's right.
HANSEN: But people took issue with some of the recommendations now prohibited, like creating a reparations fund for Black residents, offering critical race theory in public schools and reallocating police funding. Former Councilman Harry Griffin took issue, too.
HARRY GRIFFIN: I would have gladly accepted the recommendations of the report without some of those polarizing words.
HANSEN: Griffin joined other council members who ultimately rejected even receiving the report. They didn't hear about ideas to reduce poverty or improve access to healthcare.
GREGORIE: So I was really angry. I was angry.
HANSEN: Angry, Gregorie says, because the recommendations were just that - recommendations. Former Councilman Jason Sakran, who co-chaired the commission, says Council failed to keep the promise of Charleston's apology.
JASON SAKRAN: We can talk about it all we want. But until we actually do something and put our money where our mouth is, then all this is just BS.
HANSEN: Sakran blames the political weaponization of words.
KAMEELAH MARTIN: Reparations has become ugly word.
HANSEN: African American Studies professor Kameelah Martin, at the College of Charleston, says it's not just politics I makes reparations difficult - it's accountability.
MARTIN: It suggests that someone is guilty and that perhaps there are victims.
HANSEN: She believes uncomfortable conversations must be had. But McDonald, with Charleston Black Lives Matter, questions if the city is ready.
MCDONALD: There's an issue with Charleston and, like, the old boy system and old money system that allows, like, the people in power to do what they have always been doing.
HANSEN: Within months of that contentious council meeting, the commission was dissolved, and Charleston's first diversity manager left. But Gregorie says their recommendations for affordable housing and economic development are now part of the city's 10-year plan.
GREGORIE: I think reparations are happening, and we may not call it that.
HANSEN: Community activist Pastor Thomas Dickson says call reparations what it is - making amends by paying or directly helping people wronged for generations.
THOMAS DIXON: Systemic racism - it's these people over here don't deserve to have what we have.
HANSEN: The city's new commission, formed in 2022, is quietly trying.
For NPR News, I'm Victoria Hansen in Charleston, S.C.
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