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🏛️ From Sheriff's Sale to Sandbox ⛓️
One family's Sheriff's Sale. One nation's crypto law. A Detroit reparations fighter connects eviction, the CLARITY Act, and a path to decentralized justice.
Anita Belle
8/6/20265 min read
📅 Join Us Sunday: Lawsuit Update, Michigan Primary Recap, & Clarity
Reparations Labor Union will host NCOBRA-Detroit's monthly meeting is this Sunday, August 9, 2026 at 3:00 PM EDT, held virtually on Google Meet. This month we're covering two fast-moving fronts: the latest in the federal civil rights litigation against Wayne County and Detroit officials, and what Tuesday's Michigan primary results mean for reparations organizing going forward. We’ll also discuss the Clarity Act: Will it clear the U.S. Senate by tomorrow?
Registration Link: https://events.eventnoire.com/e/ncobra-detroit-virtual-meeting-15
All members and community allies are welcome. Bring your questions.
⚖️ Lawsuit Update
🏠 Federal Civil Rights Case — Belle et al. v. Wayne County et al.
The federal case (E.D. Mich. No. 2:26-cv-11509, Judge Mark A. Goldsmith) remains active thanks to your generous donations. The filing fee was paid and three defendants have been served/waived service. My Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order motion has been withdrawn due to my family being evicted from our home at 18437 Pennington Dr. The eviction took place exactly one week ago today, on July 30, 2026. The legal fight continues now for damages for violating civil rights under color of law and civil conspiracy.
📄 State Court of Appeals — Refiling as Individual Appellants
Following the July 28, 2026 dismissal of COA No. 381354 without prejudice, a Second Delayed Application for Leave to Appeal was filed with the Michigan Court of Appeals on August 3, 2026. This refiled case, Docket No. 381824, drops the two corporate co-appellants because Michigan Court Rules require non-individual entities to be represented by counsel. The appeal proceeds with Anita Belle and my sister and cousin as individual self-represented appellants.
Your generous donations helped pay for the transcript that was filed in this appeal, thereby including the July 22nd eviction hearing as part of the appeal.
🔍 FOIA Case — Public Hearing August 31
The FOIA appeal (Case No. 26-007668-AV) goes before Hon. Charlene Elder on Monday, August 31, 2026 at 10:00 AM, in Courtroom 1701 at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, 2 Woodward Ave., Detroit, MI 48226. The public is invited to attend.
At issue: three Wayne County officials submitted sworn affidavits stating there is no record of my father's fall at the Wayne County Treasurer's Office. Their affidavits are contradicted by the City of Detroit's own EMS Event Report documenting that fall, and against my father's medical records. A portion of those medical records — documentation of his hip surgery following the fall — was included as an exhibit in the federal First Amended Complaint. I no longer have the rest of the medical file; it was lost in the eviction. Come watch these officials explain why their affidavits should be believed over the City's own EMS records and my father's surgical history.
🗳️ Michigan Primary Recap — August 4, 2026
Michigan voters went to the polls Tuesday in primaries that will shape the ballot this November. A few results with direct relevance to Detroit and reparations organizing:
Governor: Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson won the Democratic nomination decisively over Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson. Rep. John James won the Republican nomination over Perry Johnson, setting up a Benson-James general election in November.
U.S. Senate: Progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic primary over Rep. Haley Stevens for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Gary Peters. The Republican candidate is Rep. Mike Rogers.
13th Congressional District (Detroit-based): State Rep. Donavan McKinney was projected to defeat incumbent Rep. Shri Thanedar in the Democratic primary — a result analysts note would mean a return of Black congressional representation to this Detroit-based, majority-Black district.
We'll discuss what these outcomes could mean for reparations advocacy at the state and federal level heading into November, and how NCOBRA-Detroit plans to engage candidates on our priorities.
🪙 Crypto Policy Watch: The CLARITY Act
For those of us building decentralized reparations infrastructure, this week's news out of Washington matters. The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act — the bill that would finally set clear federal rules for how digital assets like the ones in our DAO treasury are regulated — has been stuck on the Senate calendar since June 1 with no floor vote.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on August 3 that a vote would happen before the Senate leaves for its August recess. The Senate's last scheduled workday is tomorrow, August 7, with the state work period beginning August 10 — meaning this week is effectively the deadline. Multiple reports indicate that missing this window pushes comprehensive crypto legislation to the next Congress, with passage unlikely before mid-2027.
We'll touch on why this matters for the Global Reparations DAO Treasury Council and decentralized organizing more broadly.
🏖️ A Sandbox for Blockchain Reparations?
One provision worth watching closely: the bill includes a CFTC-SEC Micro-Innovation Sandbox and a provisional registration regime, designed to let smaller, purpose-built digital asset projects operate under reduced regulatory burden while regulators evaluate them — rather than requiring the full registration process a major exchange would face.
That's a meaningful opening for something like the Global Reparations DAO Treasury Council: a structured path to demonstrate a reparations-focused treasury to federal regulators on its own terms, as a distinct category from speculative trading platforms. It's worth exploring formally once the Act's fate is settled and implementing rules take shape — regulators estimate that could take up to 18 months even after passage, so this is a medium-term strategy, not an immediate fix.
Separately, the bill's proposed 'AI Innovation Labs' sandbox provision has drawn pushback: 78 civil rights and consumer-protection organizations wrote to Senate leadership on July 31 warning it could let institutions test AI systems with reduced consumer protections. That's a different provision from the Micro-Innovation Sandbox above, but worth knowing about given how much of our own advocacy work touches AI and algorithmic bias.
💭 A Thought Worth Sitting With
“Decentralized reparations means that the crypto remains even after my house doesn't. That's an accomplishment!”
Property can be seized. A Sheriff's Sale can move faster than the courts can protect you. But a decentralized treasury doesn't live in a county filing system — it lives on a ledger that outlasts any single eviction. That's the case for building reparations infrastructure outside institutions that have already shown where their loyalties lie.
🤝 Help Keep Us in Detroit — Legal Defense Fund
Wayne County has been invited to settle. Whether they take that offer before the August 31st hearing — or let three officials' affidavits face public scrutiny instead — remains to be seen.
Staying rooted in Detroit through this fight, through the hearing and beyond, takes real resources. The limits of tyrants, no matter their race or gender, are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress—Frederick Douglass, 1857. Be a part of my enduring and endearing resistance to tyrants. Donate now at:
🛡️ GoFundMe (legal defense fund): gofund.me/10a50a711
CashApp: $MotownAnita
Ethereum (anonymous): 0xa0220bb16843b55f892e3CDae60D58073abe33AC
This fund covers active litigation and relocation costs directly and is separate from the DAO treasury and reparations fundraising at givebutter.com/reparations — please don't conflate the three.
See you Sunday at 3:00 PM EDT.
In solidarity,
Anita Belle, J.D. — President of the Reparations Labor Union
Female Co-Chair, NCOBRA-Detroit
#Reparations #BlockchainReparations #CLARITYAct #Detroit