Continuing Conversations on Race and White Privilege: New Jersey Reparations Council Report

New Jersey has been called the “slave state of the North” for its deep involvement in and commitment to slavery. A direct line can be drawn from that history to today, when despite being one of the most racially diverse states in America, New Jersey is home to some of the nation’s worst racial disparities in the areas of wealth, health, education and incarceration.

The New Jersey Reparations Council is the first-of-its-kind commission to finally confront and repair New Jersey’s deep and often overlooked involvement in slavery and its lasting impact on the contemporary life of Black people in the state.

On June 19, 2025, Juneteenth, after two years of study and research by experts, the Council released its report.

Join Not in Our Town Princeton on February 2 to hear about the report and the Council’s work from its convenor, Jean-Pierre Brutus.  Click here to register for the Zoom link.

Jean-Pierre Brutus is a senior counsel in the Economic Justice Program at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.He leads the Institute’s reparations advocacy. He was a member of the Reparations Narrative Lab and represented the Institute as a community fellow on the Rutgers- Newark Crafting Democratic Futures Project on community dialogues on reparations.

Prior to joining the Institute, Jean-Pierre worked at Legal Services NYC, where he represented Bronx tenants facing eviction as part of New York City’s right to counsel program. Jean-Pierre is a graduate of Georgetown University. He earned his PhD in African American Studies and JD from Northwestern University.