What we're watching: The Charles Mitchell & George Washington Bush Study on Reparative Action

Dr. Ashley Gardner answers questions about the completion of the Reparation Study during an info session on October 9, 2026.

What we're watching: The Charles Mitchell & George Washington Bush Study on Reparative Action 

The Charles Mitchell and George Washington Bush study on Reparative Action (the Reparations Study) will have an interim report publicly available in advance of the upcoming state legislative session.  

The Reparations Study was funded in 2025 by the Washington State Legislature for $300,000 to examine the historical and enduring harms resulting from United States chattel slavery. The study’s name honors two African American pioneers who faced racism in Washington’s early history. Charles Mitchell was enslaved as a child in the Washington Territory and escaped to Canada in the mid-1800s, documenting slavery’s early impact in the Northwest. While George Washington Bush was among the earliest permanent Black settlers in the territory. 

The study has three primary goals:  

1) To better understand harms experienced by victims of chattel slavery in the territory now known as Washington.  

2) To better understand how the long impacts of slavery continue to harm the descendants of victims of chattel slavery.  

3) To offer community-informed recommendations of reparations for the Washington State Legislature to consider in 2028 and beyond. 

“Since February, researchers have reviewed state archival collections, historical records, and other primary sources to document the experiences of victims of chattel slavery, their descendants and broader historical context surrounding their communities,” said Dr. Ashley Gardner, principal project director and community research lead who is also an assistant professor at Temple University.  

The preliminary report was published on June 29th, 2026, and the interim report is due to the Legislature in December. Truclusion, the contracted consulting firm, must submit its report to the WA Dept. of Commerce this month. As they wait for Commerce to publish the report, Truclusion will continue historical and genealogical research. As an inductive research project, the researchers have been collecting their data in phases, and as they analyze it, they develop frameworks and theories to explain their findings.    

In an information session on October 9th, Dr. Gardner noted that “each of our project teams have been putting their heads down" as they are writing and preparing the Interim report.  

While September was the cutoff for collecting data used in the interim report, Dr. Gardner invited anyone interested in giving additional input to reach out to her and her team. Between December 2026 and June 2027, there may still be opportunities to provide input into this project between the publishing of the interim and final reports.  The Reparations Study is expected to be completed on June 30, 2027.  

Contact: Ashley.gardner@truclusion.com