Our Reparations For Lakeland Now! Campaign…

will advance the Reparations movement underway in Lakeland/College Park, MD from restorative justice work to concrete reparations. Lakeland is a historic Black town forced to incorporate into the City of College Park MD by a referendum overwhelmingly opposed by Lakeland residents (circa 1945), and subsequently devastated by urban renewal (1970s).

Our goal is to change the narrative by empowering Lakelanders, whether local or in the Lakeland diaspora, to revitalize the process and to move the Restorative Justice process from study to repair through education and collaborative strategic planning led by Lakelanders.

The Ancestors are watching us! From L to R, Mrs. Mary E. Braxton, Mr. Harry M. Braxton, Sr, and Mrs. Agnes Gross speaking out against urban renewal in the 1970s. From the Lakeland Community Heritage Project Digital Archive.

Six strategies will be pursued:

1 DOCUMENT HARMS AND IDENTIFY THE IMPACTED DESCENDANTS:

Compile existing documentation to create a community tree showing multiple layers of relationships, familial and other, among Lakeland residents during and prior to the urban renewal period. Document past and continuing harms including impacts on health, capacity for generational wealth building, housing security, and emotional and psychological well-being.

2 REMEMBER LAKELAND’S HISTORY OF RESISTANCE:

Collect and archive the papers of James Alfred “Billy” Weems, a legacy Lakelander and College Park sanitation worker who published his own newspaper and conducted a one-man campaign to stop urban renewal until his untimely death.

3. BROADEN EDUCATION:

Hold community-led conversations and educational events that will advance public awareness of the need for reparations and successful models that could apply, using the Black Lives Matter Reparations Toolkit as a resource.

4. BRING A TRAUMA-INFORMED LENS TO THE NARRATIVE AND TO LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT:

Offer workshops that will provide trauma-informed safe space to help heal divisions and distrust, strengthen Lakelander’s leadership capacities and tell a fuller story using the Braxton Institute’s model for “Dialogues on Resisting and Thriving” which employs practices such as narrative medicine, ritual, and healing music to address collective trauma.

5. FORGE CONSENSUS FOR A CONTEXTUAL MODEL OF REPARATIONS.

We will do this by holding a 2-day convening at Bon Secours Conference Center for community leaders, fact witnesses and experts, representatives from community organizations as well as disaffected Legacy Lakelanders.

6. BUILD MOMENTUM AND ADVOCATE FOR REPARATIONS:

Deploy a communications strategy that will galvanize public commitment and pressure the City, County, and University to implement the community’s consensus demands for Reparations for Lakeland Now.

Campaign Leader:

Core Leadership Team:

We are supported by Reparations leaders from Evanston, Illinois, Asheville, Tennessee, and Shelby County, Tennessee and Howard University Law School and other experts who will participate directly in our community-led convening and advise our team on strategy and best practices.