City Council members offered positive comments about an Equity and Empowerment Advisory Board plan to make sure action follows an apology.
Roanoke appears poised to atone for the sins of 20th-century urban renewal.
But it may be more difficult here than elsewhere to provide financial reparations to the victims and descendants of policies that bulldozed the majority Black communities of Northeast and Gainsboro.
Angela Penn, who chairs the city’s Equity and Empowerment Advisory Board, on Monday presented a draft apology for urban renewal, after two years of stalled efforts. If approved, the apology would establish a reparations fund for individuals and their families who suffered financial losses as a result of urban renewal…