Six Nominated To African Heritage Reparations Assembly

Town Manager Paul Bockelman has nominated six Amherst residents to serve on the new African Heritage Reparations Assembly (AHRA). The Assembly will be responsible for drafting a Municipal Reparations Plan to be considered by the town council (see below). Amherst adopted a commitment to reparations on June 21 .  The nominations were unanimously endorsed by the Town Services and Outreach Committee at their meeting on September 9, and a vote of the full town council is expected at their meeting on September 27.

There are to be seven voting members of the AHRA, according to the committee charge. Six are to be Black residents, at least two of whom are current or former members of elected bodies in Amherst. One is to be a representative of Reparations For Amherst (R4A). Bockelman indicated that he intends to bring a seventh appointee forward in the future.

The five Black residents appointed are as follows (* indicates a current or former member of an Amherst elected body):

Jamileh Jemison, of  Emerson Court

*Heather Lord, of Riverglade Drive 

Alexis Reed, of West Street

*Irvin Rhodes, of Pondview Drive 

*Amilcar Shabazz, of  Chapel Road 

Michele Miller of Old Montague Road was nominated as the representative of Reparations For Amherst.

Bockelman’s nominating memo states that terms are to commence immediately and implies that terms will end with the submission of the Assembly’s final report for which no due date has been specified.

Nominee Profiles
Bockelman provided the following biographical profiles of the nominees.

Jamileh Jemison grew up in Amherst and recently returned to live in town again. She believes that reparations are a part of healing the racial rift in the United States and the town. She said she was proud of Amherst and impressed with the town’s decision to make a statement by pursuing this course of action for their residents. In her professional life, Jemison manages meetings both to foster discussion and steer groups toward decision making. Her work involves detailed long-term planning and budgeting for complex projects. She is comfortable with public speaking. Jemison self-identifies as African American.

Heather Lord is an elected member of the School Committee. She has worked on racial equity and healing harm for many years. She is appreciative that the town is committed to looking at ways it can do reparative justice work that truly benefits all residents. Lord holds a Master’s degree in education which speaks to her ability to educate, break down ideas, concepts, and facts into more digestible information for the committee and the public. Her Master’s degree in Social Work grounds her social justice work and gives her the skills to have difficult conversations, hold divergent opinions, and bring healing and breath to any work we end up engaging in and/or with. Lord has been working with the Undoing Racism Organizing Collective and Amherst Racial Equity for about eight years. Lord self-identifies as Black, Indigenous, and White 

Michele Miller is the co-founder of Reparations For Amherst, which has designated her as its representative on the AHRA. Ms. Miller has led the reparations effort in Amherst and has become a leading voice nationally about local reparations. She is committed to supporting the Town to study and develop reparations proposals for residents of African Heritage. Miller did not respond to the race/ethnic background question.

Alexis Reed is a graduate of Hampshire College where she focused on film and African Diaspora. Her thesis was a documentary-style film titled ‘Black in Asia’. She worked on the composition of the mission statement and led the marketing strategy of the Knowledge Commons at Hampshire College which was created to provide equitable service to underserved (BIPOC, students with disabilities, low income) populations of Hampshire students.  Reed grew up in Amherst and her African-American family has lived and worked in Amherst since the 1970’s. She brings skills in producing high-quality video products, website design, and graphic design (brochures, signage, etc.). English is her primary language and she also has the ability to converse in Korean, Chinese, and basic French. Reed self-identifies as half African-American and half European-American.

Irvin Rhodes is a former chair of the School Committee, having served on finance, audit, and the town’s budget coordinating group. Reparations is a subject that matters deeply to him and to which he has devoted much thought. He believes reparations are of great import to Amherst and the nation.  Rhodes has extensive experience in Town government and has a solid understanding of town finances and budgets. He has earned Bachelor’s, Masters’, and Doctorate degrees with his Doctorate being in Counseling Psychology and Organizational Development, with additional training in finance, mergers, and acquisitions. He was a Policy Fellow at George Washington University and an Evaluation Research Fellow at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, with a specialization in quantitative and qualitative research. 

Rhodes has been a teacher and educator at the elementary school level, the secondary level, and the university level. He has devoted the last twenty years to working as a consultant to various businesses throughout the country in the area of capital formation. He has taught entrepreneurship and financial literacy to elementary school students in Amherst through the Junior Achievement program. In addition to being president of the Amherst Rotary Club, Rhodes has served on the board of directors of ABC House, New England Public Radio, International Language Institute, Amherst Media, and was a member of the Micro Grants Committee of the BID. He currently serves on the boards of directors of the Hampshire County United Way and the Downtown Amherst Foundation. 

Rhodes self-identifies as Black. 

Amilcar Shabazz has served on the School Committee and Regional School Committee, the School Equity Task Force and the Town-Gown Steering Committee. He said that anti-Black racism was a powerfully negative force in his life and, as the father of three children, he would like to make racism less of a factor in their lives and that of other young people. He also wants to help the town repair harms resulting from historical and ongoing inequities and injustices. He is motivated to develop remedies in consultation with injured members of the community to produce a model for other towns to be inspired to action.  Shabazz’s study of and work for reparations for African heritage people began in 1980. He was a founding member of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America. He teaches a class at the University of Massachusetts on reparations and has lectured on the topic throughout the country. He has been active in Black community organizing at the municipal level in numerous cities. Academically, he serves as the president of the National Council for Black Studies. Shabazz self-identifies as African. 

The Process
The interview team was composed of Dr. Barbara Love, Professor Emeritus of Social Justice Education at UMass; Keisha Dennis of the Residents’ Advisory Committee; and Sid Ferreira of the Human Rights Commission and the ABC House Resident Director. Bockelman did not sit in on the interviews but discussed the recommendations with each of the interviewers.

The Interview Team considered the following issues during their deliberations: 

1. Broad range of community representation. 

2. Inclusion and diversity of perspectives, experiences, etc. 

3. Range of skill sets. 

4. Diversity in age ranges. 

5. Diversity in class background. 

6. Cross-generational perspectives. 

7. People with Amherst background and background experience outside Amherst. 

The Interview Team interviewed all candidates. All team members agreed on questions and contributed to the discussion during the interviews. At the conclusion of the interviews, the team discussed the interviews with Bockleman. 

The Charge
The AHRA is charged with developing a Municipal Reparations Plan that includes both a reparations fund and a community-wide process of reconciliation and repair for harms against Black people.

The plan will include: 

• A plan for developing ongoing funding streams to repair past harms committed by the Town against Black people. 
• An allocation plan including eligibility criteria, which will be determined and approved by the broader Amherst Black community through a census and community feedback process. 
• Additional means of repair for anti-Black structural and communal racism, including public events and activities that prioritize truth telling and reconciliation. 

The AHRA will also coordinate with other groups working toward racial equity in Amherst to ensure collaboration. This includes engaging, as appropriate, with other community stakeholders such as the Amherst Business Improvement District, Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce, faith communities, and other organizations to develop extra-municipal reparations efforts that align with and complement the town’s Municipal Reparations Plan. The goal is to present a Municipal Reparations Plan to the Town Council by October 31, 2021 and a final report at the completion of the assembly’s work.