Officials in a Chicago suburb on Monday approved a first-of-its-kind reparations program that will provide housing grants to black residents as compensation for past municipal segregationist policies, with the money coming from donations and tax revenues from sales of recreational marijuana. City Council members in Evanston, Illinois, voted 8–1 to adopt the “Local Reparations Restorative Housing Program and Program Budget” resolution, setting in motion an initiative first approved in 2019 and that some argue could serve as a reparations template elsewhere in America. Under the measure, eligible black households in Evanston would receive $25,000 for home repairs or down payments on property. The money for the housing grants—initially totaling $400,000 and later expanding to $10 million within 10 years—is to come from donations and a 3 percent sales tax on marijuana. Qualifying residents must either have lived in or been a direct descendant of a black person who lived in Evanston …