New Reparations Documentary from 2023 duPont winner Erika Alexander
The award-winning creator of “Finding Tamika” is sparking conversations about reparations.
Erika Alexander at the 2023 duPont-Columbia Awards Ceremony.
Erika Alexander, who recently won a 2023 duPont Award for “Finding Tamika,” a podcast about why so many Black women go missing, is not resting on her laurels.
On January 16, 2023, she and co-director Whitney Dow released “The Big Payback,” a documentary about the first tax-funded reparations bill for Black Americans. It follows rookie Illinois Alderman Robin Rue Simmons as she pushes to legislate reparations to address the wrongs caused by redlining and slavery. The bill, funded by a cannabis tax, would provide $10 million to correct systemic bias against Black constituents.
On the national level there is House Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, who has been fighting for the past 30 years to pass a national reparations bill. Her proposed bill, HR 40, would establish a commission to examine the merits of reparations proposals. Simmons’ and Lee’s battles play out against the backdrop of COVID and the 2020 racial reckoning.
“The Big Payback” follows the making of a reparations bill while showing how injustice in the past feeds modern day inequity. The film explores many sides of the argument through conversations with everyday people who support reparations, oppose it, or believe the proposed bill doesn’t go far enough.
“I think what they’re offering us is an insult,” one person says.
“How do you determine who’s supposed to get it?” asks another.
In the film, Mitch McConnell says that he thinks it’s not a good idea to provide reparations for something that happened 150 years ago. Representative Lee, champion of HR 40, says the reparations are for the institution of slavery which has never gone away–it is still present in convict leasing, voting oppression, and poll taxes. That’s why, she says, HR 40 is a long overdue response.
Alderman Simmons talks about her excitement about being the face of this historical moment. At the same time, she says she’s intimidated by the pressure it brings, wondering what happens if she doesn’t get it right.
Alexander sees the film as an opportunity to have a conversation. After the film’s release, Alexander and her team continued pushing the reparations question. In March, they went on a reparations debate tour of North Carolina’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), giving students a platform to share their perspectives.
Watch “The Big Payback” on PBS.
To learn more about Alexander’s other recent project, the 2023 duPont winner “Finding Tamika,” check out the latest episode of the On Assignment podcast. Listen to her heartfelt reaction to learning she had won a duPont, the inequity in news coverage of missing women of color, and how she came to Tamika’s story.