Two members of the reparations task force in Detroit said they would be stepping down on Saturday, arguing that the group did not have a strategy and was suffering a “lack of progress.”
Task force co-chair, Lauren Hood, said she and Maurice Weeks were considering leaving the reparations task force for a while, and added that the group was “lacking a broad strategic vision.”
“I think, collectively, that group of people has different ideas about what reparations is fundamentally and we didn’t get to a place where we had a broad strategic vision,” Hood said.
“I’m happy that we’re now getting things done. We’ve got some partners who can help us organize existing information that will help make decisions, but we also still desperately need a strategy for how we engage the public around this work.”
Hood also said she hoped their decision to leave would help spark some needed activity in the areas that need the most work.
“We haven’t had a public meeting in a few months so the impetus was there just because we had a public opportunity to let folks know what was happening,” Hood said. “We had some concerns at the last meeting that we had and nothing really changed. So it’s just like, how long do you stay the course when you don’t see anything changing?”
“Perhaps this is what needed to happen,” she continued. “That we needed to make space for other people to be able to show up in their full capacity.”
