Dayvon Love
Director of Public Policy
Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle
Advocacy to advance reparations in Maryland garnered major traction over the last few years.
Former Delegate Wanika Fisher (D-Md.-47B); former state Sen. Jill P. Carter (D-Md.-41); Delegate Marlon Amprey (D-Md.-40), Delegate Gabriel Acevero (D-Md.-39) and Delegate Aletheia R. McCaskill (D-Md.-44B) have all put in legislation to advance reparations policy dating as far back as 2021.
Maryland established the Truth and Lynching Commission, which has completed its work in studying the harms done to Black people in Maryland as a result of lynching, and making recommendations about how to address those harms. Maryland established the Community Repair and Reinvestment Fund in 2022 which uses revenues from the taxation of recreational cannabis in order to invest in the communities that were hardest hit by the war on drugs.
Baltimore City created the Community Reinvestment and Reparations Commission in 2023 as the vehicle to direct resources that come from the state via the Community Repair and Reinvestment Fund.
In 2025 the Maryland General Assembly, under the leadership of the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland, passed legislation to establish the Maryland Reparations Commission, which is tasked with studying the impact of chattel slavery, Jim Crow and racial oppression against Black people in general. The commission also has a goal of producing recommendations on how to implement reparations policies in Maryland.
In spite of this legislation being vetoed by the first Black person to serve as governor of Maryland, the legislature overrode governor Moore’s veto in December of 2025. There is College Park Restorative Justice Commission that was established in 2022, that released recommendations in October of 2025 regarding remedies to address the harm caused by local municipal government toward the historic Black community of Lakeland.
These are just highlights of the range of reparations efforts that have been underway in Maryland over the last several years. With this volume of work on reparations, Maryland is proving to be a hotbed of reparations activity. With such a strong and vigorous civic environment, organizers are doing the work to advance reparations. Black people in Maryland have an opportunity to impact the national reparations advocacy landscape.
The historic reparations bill, HR 40, was initially introduced in 1989 by late Congressman John Conyers (D-Mich.), and was taken up by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas-18) when congressman Conyers passed away. Now, it has been picked up by Congresswoman Ayanna Presley (D-Mass.-7), who has an opportunity to make important legislative progress. HR 40, which is a bill that would establish a federal commission to study the issue of, and make recommendations for how to enact reparations in the U.S. has struggled to advance at all in the legislative landscape. The year 2021 was the first time that the bill advanced out of a congressional committee in almost four decades.
With the Democrats poised to take back control of the House of Representatives, and a puncher’s chance of taking control of the U.S. Senate, we have an opportunity to move HR 40 through the entire chamber in the U.S. House, and begin to make progress in the U.S. Senate. Maryland is uniquely able to have influence over how HR 40 and other reparations related legislation move through congress.
Representative Jamie Raskin from Maryland’s 8th Congressional District, will serve as chair of the House Judiciary Committee if/when the Democrats take control of the U.S. House next year. This is the committee that HR 40 will be assigned to. We have an opportunity to urge Representative Raskin to publicly commit to moving HR 40 out of committee, which will help to create additional pressure on Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.-8), who will likely become the next Speaker of the House when the Democrats take control of the U.S. House, to put HR 40 on the House floor to pass the U.S. House of Representatives. Not only does this help create additional leverage in moving HR 40 in the U.S. Senate, but putting HR 40 on the table helps to create additional space for other reparations related legislative initiatives.
HR 40 is one of many reparations related legislative efforts that are being advocated on the national level, and Maryland has an opportunity to play an important role in advancing reparations nationally.
To support the effort to ensure that HR 40 will move out of committee in the next congress, contact Congressman Raskin’s Office and urge him to publicly commit to moving HR 40 out of his committee within the first 90 days of the next congress.