The time for healing is now. The America we love was founded through a profound contradiction: a nation that spoke the language of equality and liberty “for all” while building its prosperity on the enslavement, dispossession, and exclusion of Black Americans and other marginalized groups. This dual founding—one of aspirational democratic ideals and one of exploitation and racial hierarchy—created structures of inequality that have endured across generations. Our nation embedded inequality into its laws, economy, and political institutions, leaving a legacy that continues to shape our lives today. This is not simply a historical wound—it is a living structure.
Repair is long overdue. And while we envision a day when government‑issued reparations finally make things right, we can no longer wait to act. Each generation has been called to examine the harms inherited from the past, and determine its courage to make repair. Today is no different.
Together—right now—we can pursue evidence‑based repair and invest in a stronger, more equitable America.
By acknowledging the truth of our origins and committing to meaningful action, we honor both the ideals the nation professed and the people it excluded. Repair is not only possible, it is necessary for a future in which the founding promises of this country are finally made real for everyone.
Reparation Generation is a national organization that mobilizes charitable contributions to develop, implement, and evaluate critical programs that seek to repair the past and provide reparative healing to eligible Black American Descendants of Enslaved People in the U.S.
Reparation Generation imagines, creates and evaluates reparative programs. RepGen’s programmatic models intend to promote racial healing through community engagement, restorative programming, and charitable grantmaking that support Black American Descendants of Enslaved People in the US. We raise funds through charitable contributions from individuals, corporations, and foundations (“Reparative Transfer Grants”). Our Black Leaders guide our programmatic strategy with the goal of pursuing evidence‑based repair and healing, investing in a stronger, more equitable America for Black American descendants of people enslaved in the US. Join us in working toward a better future for every American.
Reparation Generation’s Board of Directors and National Advisory Board represent an interracial movement of citizens who understand that slavery and oppression have harmed our entire nation, and emotional and economic reparations are the key to healing and fulfilling the aspiration that was the founding of this country. Our Black National Advisory Board (NAB) strategically guides our organization’s programmatic direction and prioritizes programs that address the inequities for Black Descendants of Enslaved People in the U.S.
The America we love was founded through a profound contradiction: a nation that spoke the language of equality and liberty “for all” while building its prosperity on the enslavement, dispossession, and exclusion of Black Americans and other marginalized groups. Our nation embedded inequality into its laws, economy, and political institutions, leaving a legacy of gross inequality that continues to shape our lives today. Reparations are often considered unimaginable and unattainable, yet there are examples of reparations programs in our country and around the world.
Our demonstration models, programs, and specifically our HORT program in Detroit, provide meaningful lessons that repair involves many layers, including economic justice. Our Evaluation work is showing that reparations are possible. And our data demonstrates that charitable contributions can be organized as grants to provide intergenerational wealth, having the healing power to change lives. Now is the time to act and continue to support America’s repair for Black Descendants of Enslaved People in the U.S.
Grounded in the United Nations Reparations principle of Compensation, the Home Ownership Reparative Transfer (HORT) Program aims to create replicable and scalable models that provide partial compensatory repair to Black American Descendants of Enslaved People in the U.S. Reparation Generation’s HORT program provides one-time, $25,000 Reparative Transfer Grants plus homebuyer mentorship, Restorative Genealogy, and other critical supports to Black Descendants of Enslaved People in the U.S. purchasing a primary residence. Our current model demonstration HORT program is in its 3rd iteration and has been implemented in Metro Detroit. HORT participants provided and continue to provide evaluation data on our model. The data, both qualitative and quantitative, demonstrate the nuanced ways and power of reparations to repair and heal. RepGen shares our learnings and data that can inform our nation.
Grounded in the elements of the United Nations principle of Satisfaction, RepGen’s Community Engagement and Activation (CEA) provides forums that bring together rooms of Americans (virtual and in person) to gather. Creating collaborative, multiracial spaces to discuss racial issues and repair encourages people to move from Reparations Curious to Reparations Activated. Our trainings and programs bring forward our learnings about repair and healing, moving the concept of Reparations from a “big” abstract, unimaginable concept to the reality of possibility through RepGen’s Models of Reparations in Action. In turn, CEA provides a reparative framework for individuals, corporations, and foundations to make charitable contributions of wealth transfers to support Reparations in real-time. Through social engagement, supporters mobilize their networks to broaden the reparations movement.
Grounded in the United Nations Reparations Framework and the principle of Rehabilitation, and applying the Social Determinants of Health (SDOH), we center the voices of program participants, contributors, and supporters using qualitative and quantitative data. RepGen designed Reparative Evaluation in response to the lack of standardized strategies to measure reparative impacts. Our mixed-method approach enables real-time feedback, iterative improvements, and robust assessment of program effectiveness. RepGen shares findings and recommendations to advance the greater Reparations movement.
Grounded in the UN principles of Satisfaction and Restitution, Reparation Generation’s (RepGen) Restorative Genealogy Program provides participants with a healing-centered journey into their family history, illuminating through genealogical records and U.S. history a direct link to their descendants, including their descendants who were enslaved in the U.S. Restorative Genealogy unveils lineage, confirms HORT eligibility, and promotes emotional repair.