A resolution passed in November 2019, making Evanston the first city to approve a local reparations program, prompting other cities like Amherst, Massachusetts, and Asheville, North Carolina, to consider doing the same. Local reparations programs “cannot meet the bill for Black reparations,” they said. The organizers held demonstrations in front of a cannabis dispensary in Evanston, hosted webinars about reparations and lobbied city officials to halt the March 22 City Council vote on the Restorative Housing Program.