Advancing Five Pillars of Racial Equity

Why this investment?

Shelby County, home of Memphis, is the largest county in the state of Tennessee, both in terms of size and population. It is made up of just over 929,000 people, 54 percent of whom identify as Black or African American. Members of the Black community are all too familiar with the systemic disadvantages they face on a daily basis, whether it be unaffordability, unequal health outcomes, mass incarceration, or lack of job access. All of which have been documented by multiple studies, including from the NAACP and the University of Memphis. Recognizing these injustices, in June 2020, the Shelby County Board of Commissioners passed a resolution declaring racism as a public health crisis and committing to enact policies to eradicate all forms of racism.

With the influx of one-time funds from ARPA undergirded by an equity framework, Commissioner Ford recognized the opportunity to address systemic racism. He and other Shelby County leaders were inspired by Evanston, Illinois’s housing reparations program put into place in 2021 as a strategy to redress redlining and segregation. To address health inequities, they sought to establish mental health programs that address the sustained trauma in Black communities. They also wanted to pilot programs that helped people gain access to credit, real estate, stocks, and life insurance to build generational wealth. According to a study referenced by Ford, dollars spent within the Black community stay within the Black community for only six hours, compared to 15 to 25 days in other communities.

After initially spearheading an ARPA investment in a reparations study and set of community investments with no avail, Ford worked quickly to mobilize community and commission support to repurpose the funds into a new racial equity committee and grant program that would still deliver on the community investments envisioned in the prior investment. He sees the racial equity investment as a step toward “helping the people at large and letting them know that we have identified the socioeconomic ills that have gotten us to this particular point.”

What is this investment?

In February 2023, Shelby County passed a resolution to study the feasibility of community reparations for Black residents and make initial investments in reparative programs. The County adopted the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America’s definition of reparations as “a process of repairing, healing, and restoring a people injured because of their group identity and in violation of their fundamental human rights by governments, corporations, institutions and families.” The resolution focused on the most important areas of need within five pillars: housing, economic development, financial literacy/generational wealth, mental health/culturally competent healthcare, and criminal justice/reentry. The original vote for the reparations study passed by eight to five—with all eight votes coming from the County’s Black commissioners. 

After a year of inactivity from the Reparations Subcommittee, the County began the process of repurposing the funds. Seeing that the community investments were at risk, Ford stepped in and in December 2023 he requested the formation of a Racial Equity Ad Hoc Committee to engage community members in a process of reviewing data on inequities in the County and recommending solutions.

Recognizing the political reality that another reparations investment would not pass the commission, he focused on racial equity, drafting a resolution to create a community grant program that would fund six nonprofit organizations working to address the five pillars outlined in the prior resolution. The resolution passed ten to three, but it was an uphill battle. Several of the original sponsors of the reparations resolution withheld their votes until the very end, and getting to the seven votes needed required winning the votes of several moderate and conservative commissioners. 

The resolution recommended grants to six nonprofit organizations addressing the five pillars: a $1.2 million investment in the Black Coalition of Housing, in concert with the National Association of Real Estate Brokers; and grants between $600,000 and $700,000 to the Black Business Association of Memphis, the Mid-South Minority Council, StartCo, Young WallStreet, and RISE Memphis.

Centering equity in the program

Since its roots as a reparations study, the Shelby County investment has focused on advancing racial equity with a focus on the Black community. Community engagement was central to the racial equity resolution, with the Racial Equity Ad Hoc Committee holding six community meetings in early 2024 attended by 500 residents to review the research on inequities undergirding the proposal as well as the solutions. The nonprofit organizations funded by the initiative are Black-led institutions with deep roots and long track records serving the County’s most disinvested communities.

Toward transformative change

The biggest obstacle for Shelby County moving forward is finding a dedicated funding source after the ARPA money is spent. The Racial Equity Ad Hoc Committee will operate over the next two years and issue quarterly reports. The hope is that the use of the initial $5 million in racial equity investments can highlight the real world impact and transformative possibilities of a racial equity project. Once the funds are spent, the goal is that the County and its partners can come back and prove with concrete data the tangible improvements made through this legislation, find a dedicated funding source, and prevent this from being a one-time investment. “Hopefully, with the successes that we have, we can find a dedicated funding source so that we can have racial equity,” Commissioner Ford says.