Over the next eight years, the Bush Foundation will give up to 800 descendants of slaves living in Minnesota and the Dakotas a total of $50 million to help them heal, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.
The money will come from the Open Road Fund, a partnership between the Bush Foundation and Nexus Community Partners.
At least half of the grants will go to Minnesota, which has a larger black population than either of the Dakotas.
"When we have access to an abundance of resources, we can cultivate healing, safety, care and liberation on our own terms," says Nexus CEO Repa Mekha.
The program is believed to be the first of its kind in Minnesota and one of the first large-scale programs nationwide that ties grants to the descendants of slavery, the Star Tribune reports.
Georgetown University in Washington, DC, for example, is offering scholarships to descendants of 272 slaves it sold in 1838, and lawmakers in California are pushing for financial reparations for descendants of slavery.
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