Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and headquartered at the University of Michigan’s Center for Social Solutions, the Crafting Democratic Futures project brings together nine university partners, each tasked with leading a local effort to devise a racial reparations plan for their area. This talk will lay out the project in Newark, New Jersey, where Rutgers faculty, staff, and students have engaged multiple community organizations in an effort to imagine a reparations plan that both aligns with national and state-level efforts and is uniquely meaningful to the specific place from which it grows.

Mark Krasovic is an associate professor of history and American studies at Rutgers University-Newark, where he is currently the lead PI on a Mellon-funded project devising a racial reparations plan for Newark. He also works on two local archives projects and is writing a book on community arts and cultural programs funded by Great Society-era initiatives like the War on Poverty and Model Cities.