Chicago City Council Looks into Slave Reparations

• Originally published on 3/5/2004 on CBS@Chicago.com [here]
  

The highly charged issue of slave reparations took center stage at a Chicago City Council hearing on Friday. Alderman Dorothy Tillman accused mega-bank JP Morgan Chase of failing to disclose its past ties to slavery, as required by city law. "We will go back and get with our lawyers we will submit to the law department the reason as to why they lied," Tillman said.

A top executive with JP Morgan strongly denied Tillman's allegation.

"We've found no evidence to support the allegation that any of our predecessor institutions had issued, financed or underwritten slavery insurance," said Frederick Hill, executive vice president of JP Morgan Chase.

JP Morgan, which plans to merge with Chicago's Bank One has multi-million dollar bonds with the city for projects at O'Hare Airport and Skyway construction.

The testimony today provided no direct evidence that the bank profited from slavery.