To the Editor:
Last week, on February 5, New Jersey lawmakers convened a special commemorative session at Nassau Hall to honor the 250th anniversary of the New Jersey Legislature’s first meeting in Princeton. That milestone rightly recognized the birthplace of our state’s constitutional governance and highlighted Princeton University’s long partnership with New Jersey in education, innovation, and public service.
But community commemoration should also embrace community reflection.
As we honor 250 years of democratic life, it is vital to acknowledge that our shared history includes not only progress, but also profound injustice. Our state, and many Princeton institutions, were deeply implicated in systems that denied liberty and equality to Black New Jerseyans — including slavery, segregation, and long-term economic exclusion. Understanding these histories does not diminish our celebration; it enriches it and gives us a path to repair the harms.
Our community and our state are uniquely positioned to advance a narrative that moves from history toward repair. In that spirit, we highlight two important efforts:
The New Jersey Reparations Task Force bill (A1665/S2838), a bipartisan legislative proposal to research and recommend how the state can address the historical and ongoing harms of slavery and racial discrimination through concrete policy options.
The New Jersey Reparations Council’s report “For Such a Time as This: The Nowness of Reparations for Black People in New Jersey,” njisj.org/print/njrcreport.pdf, which charts a forward-looking path after generations of enslavement, Jim Crow apartheid, and systemic discrimination, and documents a staggering $643,000 Black-white racial wealth gap in our state.
These efforts invite thoughtful, inclusive public engagement — not just in Trenton, but here in Princeton, where history was made. They show that repair is not abstract, but rooted in data, policy, and moral responsibility.
By tying together the commemoration of New Jersey’s constitutional origins at Princeton, honest engagement with the state’s entanglements with racial injustice, and current work on reparative policy, we honor history not by mythologizing it, but by learning from its complexities and taking reparative actions.
That is the kind of liberty and prosperity that can truly belong to all New Jerseyans — not just in memory, but in the lives we shape together.