How The “Big Payback” Brings Renewed Focused To The Fight For Reparations

By Melissa Noel· Updated January 18, 2023

When filmmakers Erika Alexander and Whitney Dow sought to make a documentary about the ongoing fight for reparations in the United States, they initially thought it would center the history of the movement and its challenges, including a deeper look at the decades-long push for the passage of H.R. 40. That’s a federal bill that would create a national commission to study slavery and discrimination in the U.S. and recommend potential remedies including reparations. The bill has stalled in Congress for over 30 years.

But, after hearing about Evanston, Illinois’ developing reparations plan, they turned their attention away from the past and decided to instead take a look at what they say was history unfolding in real-time.

Former Illinois Alderwoman Robin Rue Simmons led the charge to introduce what they believe is the first piece oflegislation of its kind in the United States: a city law, Resolution 126-R-19, that allocated funds to local reparations for Black Evanston residents.

“When we heard the story, and we heard about Robin Ruth Simmons and about what she was doing, we flew out to Evanston. We thought, why focus on the past when there’s history in the making? This is the story that we should follow,” Dow says.

In the PBS documentary, “The Big Payback,” Dow and Alexander chronicle how Evanston became the first city in America to have a tax-funded reparations bill for African Americans, passed in 2019 under Simmon’s leadership— 400 years after the first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown, Virginia.

“This is an example of when someone says, we, us as a people, are taking our lives into our own hands….We are not waiting on anyone to decide what we deserve,” Alexander tells ESSENCE.

WATCH: The Big Payback

“What Robin does, she showed that the impossible was possible. Everybody thought it was impossible…until it actually happened and is now, well, it can be a model for others to follow,” Dow says.

Offered in the form of housing funds, Evanston’s “Restorative Housing Program” offers eligible Black residents $25,000, paid directly toward a mortgage balance, a down payment on a home, property taxes, or a home improvement contractor. Recipients must have lived in Evanston sometime between 1919 and 1969; future payments will go to people whose parents or grandparents lived there during that time. The city pledged to spend $10 million over a decade, funded by a tax on legal marijuana sales. About $400,000 has been provided to 16 people so far.

The “The Big Payback” which premiered on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and can be viewed online, is particularly timely as another significant, first-of-its-kind push for reparations at the state level in California is underway. The state made history by implementing a first-in-the-nation task force to study and develop reparation proposals.

After over a year of meetings, the group is expected to deliver its final report by this summer. Other cities are also considering implementing programs to address the harms against African Americans that began with slavery and have continued through systemic and institutional racism.

“We all need to deal with the debt that’s within the fabric of America from sea to shining sea. So we’re talking about racism; we’re talking about the residual evil that resides within the DNA of our country,” shares Alexander.

“It’s the government’s debt to pay. And, I figure I’m going to do my best to put my skill set, which is, as a storyteller, me and Whitney partnered together to do this, to not only have that conversation, but to amplify and acknowledge the people who are doing that type of work and who had been doing that work for decades, and for many, many years, before we ever showed up,” adds the beloved actress and activist.

Both Alexander and Dow say that they hope the film shows other people what is possible and that they can get involved if they choose to. The documentary’s website features a community discussion guide, podcast, and a soon-to-launch policymaker and organizer toolkit.

“One of the things that we really love about the film is that so many films you see about race show the problem and unpack the problem. This is a film about a solution,” says Dow.

“The time is now, and America has got to finally deal with its moral debt,” adds Alexander.