BOSTON — The City Council unanimously approved a task force that would spend the next two years exploring reparations for Black people.
The council did so with an uncharacteristic lack of conflict, as no one really spoke against what’s a high-profile and societally controversial matter and councilors didn’t take even veiled shots at each other.
This task force, if signed into law by the mayor, will create a five-person body to first research history of the effects of American slavery and then other more recent discriminatory policies like “redlining” of access to cash in Boston, then to assess what the city’s done since to address those before coming up with yet-to-be-determined next steps.