Panelists from local Black advocacy groups and community members urged for a commission for reparations at a hearing held by the City Council Committee on Civil Rights in efforts to repair and recompense the Black community.

The hearing, held virtually on October 26, on Docket #0734 was sponsored by City Councilors Julia Mejia and Kenzie Bok and featured Black community leaders from the NAACP and University of Massachusetts Boston, for example.

Reparations for Black Bostonians would include rehabilitation in areas like housing and education, verbal apologies and accountability and financial compensation, according to the order of the hearing.

The idea of a reparations commission was inspired by similar efforts in Evanston, Illinois, and San Francisco, California, in March and May of this year respectively.

The median net worth for white households in Greater Boston was $247,500 while Black households’ net worth was $8, according to a 2015 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

The reparations commissions have enacted financial compensation in the form of down payment and home repairs like in Evanston, which is one form of reparations that was echoed during the hearing.

“Looking at Evanston and in the reparations bill they put forward … are really testaments to what can happen when there’s a concerted effort to look at reparations and repositioning Black America,” said Michael Curry, the previous president of the Boston Branch of the NAACP.

The first recorded case of slavery in Boston was in 1638, and Massachusetts was one of the most significant slave trading colonies.

Although slavery was abolished in 1783 in Massachusetts, the effects of slavery have persisted in the area. Redlining of Black neighborhoods led to over-policing compared to white neighborhoods, and busing induced racist violence towards Black students across the city throughout the 1970s and 1980.

The first step in reparations is educating Bostonians of all races about the history of slavery and holding Boston responsible for its engagement in slave trade, said Jemadari Kamara, an Associate Professor of Africana Studies at UMass Boston.

“We’re speaking of accountability, accountability on facing the harm …” said Kamara. “Not only transactional action, but transformative action.”

The organizers of the hearing, four Black female panelists, advocated for reparations based on community support using models seen in the aforementioned cities.

However, many speakers stated that a comprehensive reparations plan needs to be federally directed, not just on a local or state level. In fact, estimates for reparations for Black Americans are around $11 trillion, said William Darity, a professor of economics and African American studies at Duke University.

No final decision was made at the hearing about specific reparations to be made, but every speaker agreed that establishing a commission would be necessary to set a precedent for other U.S. reparations commissions.

“Repair is due, and it’s a federal, multi-generational project,” said Khalil Saddin, a Greater Boston area citizen for over 20 years.