The cost of reparations

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Presentation by Our Local History at the Rochester hearing of the New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies. (Photo: Brennon Thompson)

On March 4, the New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies held a public hearing in Rochester and gathered community testimony. The Commission is tasked with “examining the legacy of slavery, subsequent discrimination against people of African descent, and the impact these forces continue to have in the present day.” This was the fourth public hearing held across the state, following hearings held in Buffalo, Queens, and Albany.    

Brennon Thompson

The Rochester hearing was focused on the legacy of urban renewal and the impact of widespread displacement of Black communities. Urban renewal was a 1950s federal program that subsidized local governments’ efforts to address aging urban housing stock and infrastructure, primarily through demolition. The vision of urban renewal to revitalize America’s cities was overpromised and underdelivered. Reconstruction was often slow and rarely rebuilt sufficient housing units. Projects prioritized surface-level beautification, car-centric infrastructure (highways and parking structures), and large public-private developments. In some cases, lots were left vacant.

By the time the program ended in 1974, it was widely criticized for its disproportionate impact on communities of color and commonly referred to as Negro removal. According to city reports, Rochester’s urban renewal program was the 14th largest in the country, “with nearly $200 million ($1.2 billion today) in federal, state, and local funds earmarked for 11 projects.” In total, these urban renewal projects displaced 4,255 households (including 2,738 families and 1,517 individuals) and 1,012 businesses. The majority of displaced households, many of whom were homeowners, relocated to rental properties, while fewer than 20 percent were able to purchase homes. 

Last week’s hearing ran late into the evening with members of the Rochester community lined up to speak. The commissioners listened to testimonies of hardship and resilience that spanned generations. They heard creative ideas for the future and a shared conviction for the importance of the task at hand. 

“Reparations would be the start of the state of New York truly acknowledging the harm that follows the legacy of slavery—a tangible step towards prosperity for all New Yorkers,” said Shay Herbert, a lifelong Rochesterian and representative of the New York Civil Liberties Union’s Racial Justice Center.    

In her opening testimony, Dr. Candice Lucas, senior vice president of equity and advocacy at the Urban League of Rochester, said, “The call for reparations is not simply about acknowledging the wrongs of the past or providing financial payouts to individuals. …  It’s about righting historical wrongs, healing generational trauma, and addressing the injustices that continue to leave countless Black New Yorkers behind.” 

What could reparations look like? The root of the word is repair, but how does a community repair from historic harm? An important first step is accounting and accountability. In the context of urban renewal, there are clear local examples, and a significant amount of work has already been done.   

Clarissa Uprooted  

Nearly 60 years ago, the bulldozers of urban renewal carved up Rochester’s Third Ward, displacing 785 households and 135 businesses. The Third Ward was home to a thriving Black community with Clarissa Street at its heart. Despite demolition and displacement, former residents have fought to maintain their connection to each other and to the land. For decades, the Clarissa Street Reunion Committee, now known as Clarissa Street Legacy, has brought neighbors together to remember and celebrate their community. 

In recent years, an intergenerational collaboration between Clarissa Street Legacy and The Center for Teen Empowerment has sparked a restorative revival called Clarissa Uprooted, which has produced a documentary, uncovered archives, and established a museum-quality exhibit. These acts of creative resilience honor and preserve the memories of what was lost and invite the community to engage in healing and repair. Clarissa Uprooted has also engaged in an effort to account for the generational wealth lost from home equity and displaced businesses. 

Counting the cost 

The true cost of urban renewal is hard to quantify, but students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning recently developed a methodology for calculating the lost intergenerational wealth. As part of their class “Hacking the Archive,” master’s students Alejandra Martinez, Becca Heilman, and Yvette Kleinbock partnered with Clarissa Uprooted to design interactive tools to count the cost. (I was an advisor.)

The students used urban renewal records to create an open-source digital toolkit that includes a replicable methodology for calculating lost generational wealth in a publicly accessible tool and an interactive map that layers archival material and multimedia memories from Clarissa Uprooted. Their analysis captures key characteristics of properties acquired during urban renewal sourced from archival appraisals, such as square footage, year built, number of rooms, and relevant financial data. These details are used to identify existing comparable properties through the city’s Bureau of Assessment. Once several comparable properties are identified, their assessed and market values are used to estimate an average value per square foot that can be applied to the original property demolished during urban renewal. These estimates provide an approximation of the potential current value.

“We shouldn’t ignore the past,” Martinez noted. “There’s important information that lives in archives, and the archives can be contested in terms of who has access to that information.” 

Reflecting on the use of the toolkit beyond the classroom, Heilman said, “This is a potential model for engaging the community.” Her classmate Kleinbock added that it is “a way to engage with the neighborhood and the scale of the harm that had been caused, and drawing connections to the current conditions in the city.”

For Katherine Sprague Dexter this project is deeply personal. Her family home was demolished during urban renewal, uprooting her childhood and tearing apart her community. According to archival documents, in September of 1970, the city of Rochester acquired her family’s home for $7,600 (a present-day value of roughly $70,000 when adjusted for inflation). Using the students’ methodology by evaluating comparable properties’ assessed value and market data, Katherine’s family home could be worth over $450,000 today. 

Sprague family photos and urban renewal appraisal document
Source: Clarissa Uprooted Exhibit, courtesy of the Sprague family and the city of Rochester

“My heart fills with great sadness and pain because my hopes and dreams for our future were taken away from us,” Dexter lamented. As a seasoned real estate agent, Katherine knows the value of home equity as the primary source of generational wealth for American families. “I had to struggle to get my children through college.” While generations of Americans have used homeownership to secure their families’ financial future, residents of the Third Ward had their assets and opportunities stripped away. 

The voice from the past

As the commission confronts this loss half a century later, the community understood the implications of urban renewal from the beginning. In a 1966 article titled “Urban Renewal Poised For Big, Big Steal,” published in The Frederick Douglass Voice, one of Rochester’s most prominent Black newspapers, editor Howard W. Coles cut to the heart of the issue: 

“…where some of the most valuable land within the city of Rochester is located. This land or rather these land sites are going to sell sky high to those that stand in with the politicians and the king makers. Many Negro and White home owners will never be able to buy another home again. At the moment there aren’t any available housing units for the 886 families that the BIG BULL-DOZERS WILL PUSH OUT OF THE WAY, however, they …keep saying, don’t worry we will take care of you.”

“We weren’t taken care of,” says Joan Coles Howard, Coles’ daughter. “My father understood what was really happening, and he was right. He spent his life advocating for our community, and he always spoke truth to power. In addition to publishing the newspaper for over 60 years, he was also a licensed real estate agent and assisted displaced residents to acquire homes in other areas.” 

Howard W. Coles property, 445 Clarissa St., acquired by the city of Rochester
Source: Genesee Appraisal Service

Despite relentless advocacy, the bulldozers came for Coles’ property too. In 1967, the city acquired his property for $5,400 ($51,800 adjusted for inflation) and slated the home for demolition. According to the MIT students’ analysis, the property could have been worth over $200,000 today. “Yes, we lost our homes and generational wealth,” said Howard, “but for me, the most important loss was the loss of those communal values which seem to have disappeared through the destruction of our ‘village’.”

Bulldozed businesses 

Some residents lost more than just their homes. George Fontenette’s family lost their businesses as well. His grandparents owned a grocery store and a restaurant called Vallot’s Tavern on Clarissa Street, and a few blocks north, on the corner of Ford and Troup Streets, George’s parents had their own grocery store. The entire family enterprise, including homes, businesses and rental properties, were sold off for pennies on the dollar and torn down.

The Fontenette family grocery store on the corner of Ford and Troup Streets
Source: Michael F. Quinn Appraisal

Reflecting back, Fontenette said, “All they told us was, ‘The highway is coming through and we have to move!’ But there are homes in that area that are still up, that never got torn down, and I think to myself, why? Why did they leave some of them up and not tear them all down? Where I lived at, there’s nothing but a tree. It’s so upsetting. … My house could have still been standing there, with a new roof, new siding, different things like that, you know. I’ve come to realize they had a master plan, but they never told us.”  

The Fontenettes were not the only family who lost businesses. The Third Ward was the economic and cultural hub for Black Rochester, home to long-established Black-owned restaurants, shops, and entertainment venues. Many of the businesses were even listed in “The Green Book,” a national travel guide published annually to help Black Americans find safe businesses and accommodations during the Jim Crow era. After urban renewal, residential zoning prohibited commercial businesses from returning to the neighborhood. 

A case for reparations

This project builds on existing research and provides a public tool to assist communities and policymakers in calculating real costs. Of the 11 states and 22 localities that have taken formal steps towards reparations, the majority are engaged in studies and drafting recommendations. Some include specific references to urban renewal, notably, Asheville, N.C., which states in its reparations resolution that the city will make “amends for carrying out an urban renewal program that destroyed multiple, successful black communities.” 

The MIT students’ analysis provides a starting point to make amends by quantifying lost assets and offers an opportunity for others to build on their work. As the community and the commission wrestle with the details of reparations, this methodology is worth serious consideration. 

“When I think about reparations,” Dexter reflected, “the first step would be to rebuild our community, to rebuild my home right where it used to be! I’d move there tomorrow. The Third Ward is my home and it always will be.”     

In her powerful testimony, Dr. LaShunda Leslie-Smith, executive director of Connected Communities, urged the commission to action.

“I come from a family where generational wealth was never a possibility because each generation was forced to start from a deficit,” she said. “Reparations are not a handout. Reparations are necessary correction, a moral obligation, a long overdue acknowledgment that this country and this state owe a debt to Black Americans that cannot be ignored any longer. … The question before us today is not whether or not reparations are deserved—the evidence is undeniable. The question is, do we have the courage to act?” 

Brennon Thompson is an urban planner and a fair housing advocate.

The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real nameSee “Leave a Reply” below to discuss on this post. Comments of a general nature may be submitted to the Letters page by emailing  [email protected].

3 thoughts on “The cost of reparations

  1. Brennon, thank you for writing up these reflections. I was unable to attend as I was visiting N Zealand where I began learn about learning about Māori culture, and the reparations that have been made. After reading, listening and speaking with people, I came away in agreement with the author of an article on Māori reparations in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (https://ssir.org/articles/entry/a_story_of_reparations_and_healing_from_new_zealand): “What the Māori showed me was that obstacles were present, but the weight of the debt owed guided the nation. Finding a way through the resistance and doubt was worthwhile.” I hope NYS reparations work includes Black and Indigenous neighbors.

  2. Many thanks to Mr. Thompson and the Beacon for providing their readers with information on an important public hearing which all/most of the local media “forgot” to publicize in advance, thus depriving many of us of the opportunity to attend.
    Now for the soapbox. Any truly-civilized society accepts responsibility for the education, health, safety and economic welfare of all its citizens. And if such responsibilities are faithfully and honestly discharged, the entire concept of “reparations” becomes moot and unnecessary.
    That aside, and even assuming that reparations can be rationally defined (which I would argue can’t be done because by transferring millions of individuals from Africa to the New World, Africa also lost any economic benefit which those individuals might have generated had they been left alone. Surely an impossible concept to define.), the processes to calculate, collect and disburse such reparations are logical impossibilities.
    First, given that slavery in the United States predates the establishment of the country by over 150 years, and given that it’s appearance in the New World was the result of the actions of Old World kingdoms such as England, Spain, Franch and Holland, any attempt to calculate the economic benefits of slavery accruing to today’s white Americans must of necessity first calculate the total value of the labor stolen from the enslaved, and then determine (and subtract) what percentage of those benefits accrued to the benefit of the residents of other countries. Drilling down further results in a similar issue of the economic benefits of slavery that accrued to the separate states. Yet another calculation bordering on logical absurdity. One which leads us to the question of the collection of reparations.
    It could be claimed that the entire cost of reparations should be borne by the federal government. Subject to the deductions mentioned above. But that’s a non-starter. Setting aside that states which entered the Union post-emancipation will claim that they did not benefit from slavery (an incorrect statement of course), even in a more circumspect and compassionate time than the Age of Trump, the necessary votes in Congress and a presidential sign-off isn’t going to happen. To say nothing of there being no guarantee that the Supreme Court would ever approve the concept.
    Defaulting responsibility for reparation costs to the states is another non-starter. For the reasons stated above, and for the fact that calculating and allocating each state’ share of reparations is another of those logical absurdities.
    So we end up at disbursement. Here we have the unsolvable problem of determining eligibility. Connecting a 21st Century descendent to the value of the labor stolen from their ancestors between 1619 and 1865 is another in our long list of impossibilities. And any plan to make wholistic disbursements to descendants as a group stalls out in the calculation phase as outline above.
    To me this brings us back to the only plausible and implementable process. Setting aside reparations as an unworkable concept and accepting our national obligation to ensure the educational, health, safety and economic welfare of all our citizens.

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