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with you and because of you. Thank you. This is Our Body Politic. I'm Farai Chidea. Reparations for the intergenerational loss of wealth due to slavery and subsequent government policies undermining black wealth and health have been in and out of the public eye for decades, but they have heated up with the racial reckoning following the murder of George Floyd and other people lost to state violence.

And now legislators at the local, state, and federal level are all making moves.

Some of those moves are still in play and some of them are quite concrete.

So a decisive step came last year when the city of Evanston, Illinois, approved the nation's first program to give reparations

for black residents funded by a state tax on cannabis sales. Elsewhere, a California State

Task Force recommended comprehensive recommendations for government actions and laws that resulted

in the loss of black-owned land, among other things. And here on our

body politic, we recently spoke with Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee, who's been spearheading

a national bill, H.R. 40, to research reparations. It is the umbrella to lack of voting rights.

It is the umbrella to lack of health care. It is an umbrella to poor education. It was first

introduced three decades ago.

And now some supporters are urging President Biden to sign an executive order if the bill cannot pass the Senate.

The big payback is a new documentary premiering this month at the Tribeca Film Festival, and it follows bills over the past few years through the public's

heated debates around race. Joining me now are the documentary's co-directors, Erica Alexander and

Whitney Dow, as well as former Fifth Ward Alderman for the city of Evanston, Illinois, Robin Rue

Simmons. She is now the executive director of a nonprofit, first repair

for local communities considering reparations. So, Erica, let me start with you. Why this story?

So I think like a lot of people, when I started this journey, I think I mistook reparations in the

movement as this personal admission or apology for payment

...