Lansing-Area Nonprofit’s Reparations Program Expanding to Provide Grants for Black-Owned Businesses
Five years after its birth in the wake of a national racial reckoning, the Justice League of Greater Lansing will soon provide grants to Black-owned businesses, a key benchmark the organization set for itself when it was founded.
East Lansing Info spoke with Prince Solace, president and co-founder of the Justice League, about the progress the group has made and what’s next. A nonprofit organization that began as a means of providing financial reparations to the Lansing-area Black community, the Justice League’s work is centered around three pillars: education, housing and entrepreneurship.
“The business growth grants are to help, Black-owned businesses that have been operating for a minimum of three years [and] have a minimum annual income of $20,000, and that reside within the Greater Lansing region,” Solace said.
The grant funds can be used for anything from building and infrastructure to finding more efficient ways to promote sustainability or marketing.
Solace said the group was advised by the Lansing Economic Area Partnership and held a meeting with 20-25 Black owners of area businesses to learn about the unique challenges they experienced.
“We had people there who were in the travel agency business,” he said, “some who were authors and bookstore owners, others who ran newly established daycare centers on the south side of Lansing. Just to hear the diversity in the industries that came out was great. There was another Black business owner who specialized in spa and salon wellness, for the past 20 years. [We had] a serious conversation on how effective do you think this amount of a grant could be for a business and I think the conversation was very, very fruitful.”
Two $11,250 grants are available, and eligible businesses can apply for the funds until Sept. 30. The grants were made possible through a partnership with the Stable Communities Foundation.
The Justice League is also making progress on its housing pillar, Solace said the organization is wrapping up its second home built in collaboration with the Eastside Community Action Center. The two homes neighbor each other in Lansing’s Potter Walsh neighborhood.
“They educate the potential homeowners by taking them through a course of budgeting and building their credit score, and helping them understand what type of budget they would need, say, if the water heater goes out,” he said.
The Justice League will host an open house Sept. 22 to welcome the new owner into their home.
For the third year in a row, the Justice League presented 10 scholarships worth $2,500 to students pursuing college, university or trade school, satisfying its final pillar of education.
Four of the recipients graduated from East Lansing High School.
Lundyn Elam of East Lansing is attending the University of Michigan this fall. She told ELi the scholarship represents someone believing in her future and the goals she is working toward.
Gabrielle Ferguson, who is attending North Carolina A&T State University, a historically Black university, said the scholarship is one of the first steps toward reparations in the United States.
“Although a few thousand dollars doesn’t completely erase or rectify the fact that America was built on the backs of our enslaved ancestors,” she said, “it represents that people of all races can come together and admit and recognize that our past is ugly at times and the path to freedom or equality was not a pretty one. This program also shows that In spite of that, we as the American people have every capability to work together towards a future where we honor the blood sweat and tears enslaved African Americans shed for our home. We can forgive, but we will never forget. This scholarship, in a way, is us saying “screw you” in a cool way to all the people that tried to deny us education in the not-so-distant past. I can’t wait to see just how much The Justice League will accomplish in the future.”