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Two high schoolers, one 22-year-old BLM activist among 10 appointees to Boston's reparations task force

11th graders Damani Williams and Denilson Fanfan, and University student Carrie Mays, 22, were included in the city's task force on Tuesday

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: Two high schoolers and a college student are among the ten people appointed to decide what kind of reparations should be paid to black Bostonians. Damani Williams and Denilson Fanfan, both high school juniors, and Carrie Mays, a 22-year-old University of Massachusetts student and Black Lives Matter organizer, were included in the city's reparations task force on Tuesday, February 7.

While it is unclear what expertise the two high schoolers will offer, a profile of the Jeremiah E Burke High School, which they attend, says it is located in "one of Boston's most historically marginalized areas." Mays, on the other hand, shot to prominence after her efforts to rally people to join a BLM protest in Boston following the death of George Floyd in June 2020.

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Young recruits

According to Mays, the BLM message resonated with her because her family was once stopped by police at gunpoint -- an incident that caused her personal trauma. She now organizes discussions about racism at her school and gives speeches about the issue at national conferences. Meanwhile, her social media is replete with messages supporting BLM and embracing identity politics. A pinned post on her Facebook calls for the "white-washed school curriculum" to "teach black history beyond slavery."

Mays is a member of the Boston Community Action Team and was recently appointed a member of the Civilian Review Board of Police Accountability, according to the Daily Mail.  As Boston's Democrat Mayor Michelle Wu announced the members of the reparations task force on Tuesday, Mays wore large earrings that said, "young, gifted, and black." Other youngsters on the panel, as mentioned, are basketballers Fanfan and Williams, both of whom are juniors at Jeremiah E Burke High School. And while it is unclear what expertise they are expected to provide, the Burke High School profile says that it serves students "residing in high-poverty, high-crime neighborhoods within the Dorchester-Roxbury Grove Hall area" and deals "head-on with issues of trust, cultural relevance, respect for traditions, and diverse belief systems." The school profile adds, "Our students rely on teachers that can differentiate their instruction, provide culturally-relevant instruction, and create a trauma-sensitive learning environment."

The task force

These young members will join seven other senior colleagues to make recommendations in June 2024 "for truth, reconciliation, and reparations addressing the city of Boston's involvement with the African slave trade," per recently-passed legislation. The task force will be chaired by Attorney Joseph Fester Jr, a former president of the NAACP Boston branch and a current member of the city's Black Men and Boys Commission, which was established in 2021 to advise the mayor and city council on "issues pertaining to black men and boys," per the city's website. Other members of the commission are listed as follows:

L’Merchie Frazier — Public historian, visual activist, and Executive Director of Creative and Strategic Partnerships for SPOKE Arts

George Greenidge, Jr. — Founder and Director of Greatest MINDS

Dr. Kerri Greenidge — Asst. Professor of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora at Tufts University

Dr. David Harris — Former Managing Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice

Dorothea Jones — Civic organizer and member of the Roxbury Strategic Master Plan Oversight Committee

Na’tisha Mills — Program Manager for Embrace Boston

The newly appointed team will examine reparation models, study racial disparities in the state, and collect data on "historic harms" to black Bostonians. The panel will also hold hearings to gather testimony from black residents about the problems they have faced or continue to face.

The task force is expected to make recommendations for reparations by 2024, as well as offer ways to eliminate policies and laws they deem harmful to black Bostonians. Furthermore, it will also recommend how the city will issue a formal apology to the "people of Boston for the perpetration of gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity on African slaves and their descendants."