Kenneth Wideman News Today

A city in Illinois is expected to pay 140 mostly elderly black residents $25,000 each in reparations by the end of the year in what theyre calling a test run for the whole country.

A suburban Chicago city has become the first to start paying reparations to qualifying black residents in what is being seen as "a test run for the whole country."

Evanston, Ill., has committed to spending $10 million over 10 years for discrimination

Evanston, Illinois has been referred to as the new epicenter of the civil rights movement, when in 2019, it became the first city in America to guarantee funding for reparations to black residents. The program has been hailed by other cities looking to implement something similar, but it has brought unintended, unfortunate consequences. In part two of this series, Reparations Nation, the Washington Examiner looks at how the controversial scheme hasnt always worked for recipients as intended.

Evanston residents Kenneth Wideman (at left), 77, and Shelia Wideman, 75, are now set to receive the cash - more than two years after their names were randomly selected along with 16 others.

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Most conversations about reparations center on compensating descendants of enslaved people. Evanston focused its effort on repairing damage caused by housing discrimination.

Kenneth Wideman has lived in Evanston nearly his entire life. He tells people how much he loves his hometown whenever he travels, he said.  “I was raised here,” Wideman said. “My blood is here.” His Evanston pride grew in 2019 when he learned the city was creating a Restorative Housing Program to address the city’s...