Reparations board picks experts
Mar. 4—HIGH POINT — The city commission studying slavery reparations has selected a team of academic experts it wants to help guide its work.
The One High Point Commission plans to enlist professors from High Point University and UNC-Greensboro, as well as the services of the National Institute of Minority Economic Development.
The City Council has appropriated $45,000 to hire outside experts to assist the commission with compiling a report on the history and impacts of slavery and segregation on Black residents and recommending possible policy changes.
The commission chose Paul Ringel, professor of history at HPU, and Virginia Summey, historian and faculty fellow at UNCG, to "build on the work of (local historian) Glenn Chavis" in delving into certain aspects of High Point's history, according to the commission.
Ringel and Summey will work with the commission "to document potential discrimination and segregation practices" by the former High Point City Schools Board of Education from 1915 to until the system merged with Guilford County Schools in 1993.
The team will also examine city of High Point ordinances since 1960 for the same purpose.
The commission plans to enlist UNCG Professor of Global African Diaspora History Omar Ali to lead another aspect of its work.
His team "will author a report on the transatlantic slave trade, how Africans helped build wealth in our area, Black resistance to enslavement and other forms of discrimination, how Black people created their lives amid myriad institutional, legal and societal challenges, and some recent history of African Americans in the city of High Point," according to the commission.
The National Institute of Minority Economic Development will assist with recommending "restorative" policies in areas such as housing, health care, transportation, economic development and education.
