* The Illinois African Descent-Citizens Reparations Commission…

The Illinois African Descent-Citizens Reparations Commission (ADCRC) today released “Taking Account: A History of Racial Harm & Injustice Against Black Illinoisans,” the State’s first comprehensive, evidence-based report examining how slavery and its vestiges produce historical harms and continue to generate inequities for Black Illinoisans.

Commissioned by ADCRC and in partnership with the University of Illinois Chicago’s Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, the report traces racial injustice from colonial enslavement and early statehood through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, urban renewal, and mass incarceration. Drawing on scholarly research, historical archives, government data, and community perspectives, the report documents the impact of deliberate policies that structured opportunity along racial lines.

“Confronting the truth of our state’s history is a necessary first step toward building a more equitable future,” said ADCRC Chair Marvin Slaughter, Jr. “By grounding our work in historical evidence and the lived experiences of those who have experienced harm, we are laying the foundation for informed and meaningful reparative action. The Commission is proud to release this during the 100th anniversary of Black History Month, a commemoration of the contributions of Black Americans to American society. We are proud to continue the legacy of Carter G. Woodson in honoring the resilience and strength of Black Americans.”

The findings will guide the African Descent-Citizens Reparations Commission’s recommendations to the Illinois General Assembly on pathways toward reparative action.

“The idea that racial inequity simply dissolved after the end of formal segregation is a myth,” said Dr. Terrion L. Williamson, project leader and associate professor of Black Studies and Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago. “Redlining, chronic school underfunding, discriminatory lending, and over-policing were not isolated injustices. They were policy decisions that structured opportunity along racial lines and continue to shape the experiences of Black residents in Illinois today.”

The report identifies nine broad categories of harm and documents how each continues to share disparities across Illinois:

- Enslavement and Servitude: Although Illinois entered the Union as a free state in 1818, legal exceptions, indenture systems, and restrictive laws allowed slavery and slavery-like arrangements to persist for decades, embedding racial hierarchy into the state’s early economic and legal foundations.

- Racial Terror: From lynchings and race riots in Springfield (1908), East St. Louis (1917), and Chicago (1919) to the proliferation of Sundown Towns, racial violence and intimidation enforced segregation and exclusion well into the 20th century.

- Political Disenfranchisement: The Illinois Black Codes (1819–1865) barred Black residents from voting and civic participation. Later tactics — including violence, gerrymandering, and prison-based districting — diluted Black political power and representation.

- Stolen Economic Labor: From enslavement and exclusion from unions to discriminatory hiring practices and present-day income disparities, Black labor has been systematically exploited and undervalued, contributing to a persistent racial wealth gap.

- Policing and the Legal System: Early systems that monitored Black mobility evolved into modern forms of policing, punitive sentencing, and mass incarceration that disproportionately impact Black communities and destabilize families.

- Housing: Redlining, racially restrictive covenants, contract selling, exclusionary zoning, and public housing segregation created an architecture of segregation that limited Black homeownership and concentrated disinvestment and environmental harm in Black neighborhoods.

- Education: Segregation, inequitable school funding, and housing policy have produced enduring educational disparities.

- Family: Policies that sanctioned family separation, economic exclusion, and disproportionate surveillance have destabilized Black households across generations, even as Black families built resilient community-based systems of mutual aid and support.

- Health: Historical exclusion from quality healthcare, environmental degradation, housing instability, and systemic bias contribute to higher rates of chronic illness, maternal and infant mortality, and premature death among Black Illinoisans.

Click here to read the report’s executive summery.

* From the report…

Illinois’ history with slavery was neither accidental nor peripheral; it was intentional, structured, and state-sanctioned. Understanding this early system of racial control is critical to any discussion of reparations because it reveals how the state’s legal and economic foundations were built through the exploitation of Black labor and the denial of Black freedom. While publicly claiming the title of a “free state,” Illinois used law and policy to preserve slavery’s logic and perpetuate racial harm that continues to shape inequities today.

From its founding, although geographically part of the North, Illinois was deeply entangled in the institution of slavery and the racial hierarchies that sustained it. While the state entered the Union under the banner of free soil, lawmakers and local authorities worked relentlessly to maintain systems of racial control and coerced Black labor. Illinois leveraged legal loopholes, territorial exceptions, and political alliances to uphold such labor and protect White economic and social interests. Territorial leaders adopted pro-slavery statutes from the Indiana Territory, permitted long-term indenture agreements that functioned as slavery in all but name, and carved out explicit legal spaces. State officials resisted federal efforts to curb these practices, defended the rights of slaveholders, and facilitated the capture and forced return of enslaved people seeking refuge across state borders.

The origins of this system date back to 1720, when, under French colonial rule, enslaved Africans were brought into the Illinois Country from Saint Domingue (now Haiti) to work in agriculture, mining, and religious missions.35 This marked the beginning of a racially based labor system that bound Black people in slavery and allowed White settlers to profit. When control of the region shifted from France to Britain and later to the United States, the system did not disappear; it simply adapted under new authorities. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which governed the territory that would become Illinois, declared in Article Six: “there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory.” On paper, this positioned Illinois as part of the free North. In practice, however, the ordinance’s enforcement was weak and riddled with contradictions. It included a clause allowing for the capture and return of fugitive enslaved people, effectively recognizing the legitimacy of slave property claims from the South. Moreover, the ordinance provided no federal mechanism to enforce its ban on slavery, leaving interpretation and implementation to local officials who were often sympathetic to or directly involved in slaveholding practices. This absence of oversight allowed Illinois settlers and lawmakers to sustain slavery through a range of legal fictions and contractual disguises.

Enslaved people were often reclassified as “indentured servants,” bound by contracts that could last decades or even for life. Territorial leaders passed local laws that extended the reach of slavery under the guise of regulating labor. Early statutes borrowed from the French Code Noir, which had governed enslaved populations under French rule, and incorporated its racial logic into Illinois’s emerging legal order.38 These codes sharply restricted the freedoms of free Black residents, prohibited interracial marriage, and authorized severe punishment for resistance or escape.

Even as Illinois entered statehood in 1818 with a constitution that nominally barred slavery, state officials created exceptions to keep the practice alive. Enslaved labor persisted in the salt mines of Gallatin and in private homes under the state’s so-called voluntary indenture laws, which forced Black people into servitude through economic and legal coercion. White settlers from Southern states brought enslaved individuals into Illinois, trusting that local officials would turn a blind eye. In this way, Illinois was a “free state” in name only, with legal systems designed to maintain racial control and economic exploitation.

Illinois’s connection to slavery was not just incidental or peripheral; it was central to the development of the state itself. The laws and practices established during this time formed a lasting system of racial control that persisted even after slavery was formally abolished. The Illinois Black Codes, enacted in the following decades, continued this pattern of racial domination into the nineteenth century, further criminalizing Black mobility, limiting economic independence, and enforcing racial inequality through law and order.

Lots more, so Click here and read the report.