A month after Boston nixed a far-reaching report on the legacy of slavery in the city, the task force studying possible reparations for Black Bostonians discussed on Thursday withholding a second report from the public that covers the effects of systemic racism.
The report, written by experts at Northeastern University, details discrimination against Black Bostonians after 1940. City officials previously said that it was submitted months ago and would be publicly released in the fall.
The task force did not officially vote on withholding its release, but most members signaled their support to do so.
“Why put the cart before the horse? Why release part 2 when you haven’t seen one yet,” said Antonia Edwards, a member of the Reparations Task Force. “Originally we were going to combine the reports ... so why don’t we just give a complete package to the community?”
It’s unclear if the task force has the power to not release the report until much later or if Mayor Michelle Wu’s office would support that decision. The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The meeting was the first in more than a year for the task force, which has been trying to decide how to move forward with the work they were charged to do four years ago when the city passed an ordinance to study possible reparations. The city set a deadline then to release research by the end of 2023 — a deadline that has been extended multiple times since.
In that time, the task force has been criticized by the community for its plodding pace, disorganized and infrequent public meetings, and lack of communication over why the reports have been delayed multiple times.
City officials and task force members have said the delays are in part because the ordinance set out an ambitious timeline without taking into account the breadth of the work.
“Certainly it was our hope that we would have something to present for discussion,” by now, Joseph D. Feaster Jr., chair of the Boston reparations task force, said Thursday. “But unfortunately something happened that is beyond our control. Hopefully we will be able to get back on track.”
The city paid two separate teams $500,000 combined to research 400 years of slavery and racism, each assigned to produce reports spanning different time periods in Boston’s history.
One report was written by a Northeastern University team of experts from multiple disciplines — public policy, history, and law — and detailing discrimination against Black Bostonians from 1940 to 2020.
The second report, led by Tufts University researchers Kerri Greenidge, Kendra Field, and Kyera Singleton, would have covered slavery and its legacy in Boston from the early-17th century to the mid-20th century. It was due to the task force by the end of June. The city said the report was never completed.
The Tufts report came under question in July after The New York Times published a story on allegations made by other scholars that Greenidge had factual errors and mis-cited credits in her 2022 book about the Grimkes, a prominent slaveholding family from South Carolina whose family members were also abolitionists.
Tufts, it turns out, knew about the allegations since at least December 2022, about 13 months before Greenidge was selected by Boston to research reparations. But the revelations came as a surprise to Boston officials, who were left scrambling to figure out next steps.
The book, ”The Grimkes," was released in 2022 by Liveright Publishing, an imprint of W. W. Norton, and received glowing reviews, including from the Globe.
After a review of the allegations against Greenidge, Tufts officials alerted the book’s publisher and it was pulled off its website. Tufts officials would not say when they finished their review, or when they informed the publisher of their findings.
Greenidge, who was an associate professor in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora, was placed on leave in October 2025. She no longer works for Tufts.
In the meeting Thursday, the task force heard from five experts — historians, researchers, and an archaeologist — about other options for completing the research left vacant by the Tufts researchers. Rev. Mariama White-Hammond, the task force member leading those efforts, said they will create a new request for proposals for studying the same 320 years the Tufts team focused on.
“Every single expert has said, if you’re going to do reparations for slavery, you cannot not include the period in which slavery happened,” White-Hammond said. “There’s nothing methodologically sound that can be done by not going back.”
This story was produced by the Globe’s Money, Power, Inequality team, which covers the racial wealth gap in Greater Boston. You can sign up for the newsletter here.
Kris Hooks can be reached at kris.hooks@globe.com. Follow him @Captain_Hooks.