Global Courant
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California’s first slave redress task force in California wraps up its historic work Thursday with the official filing of a report two years in the making, one that documents the state’s role in continuing discrimination against black residents and suggests dozens of ways to do penance.
The report goes to legislators who will be responsible to translate policy recommendations into law. Reparations will not take place until lawmakers and Governor Gavin Newsom agree.
The recommendations include a formal apology to descendants of people enslaved in the US and financial compensation for harm suffered by descendants, such as overpolicing and housing discrimination. The panel also recommended that the state create a new agency to oversee reparations.
“It’s been a whirlwind, it’s been very laborious, but also very cathartic and very emotional,” said Kamilah Moore, 31, task force chairman and Los Angeles attorney. “We are in the shoes of our ancestors to essentially complete this sacred project.”
The nine-member panel convened in June 2021 after Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation establishing the task force in 2020. The panelists, chosen by Newsom and Senate and Assembly leaders, include the descendants of slaves who are lawyers, educators, elected officials and civil rights leaders.
Restoration efforts at the federal level have been stalled for decades, but cities, counties, school districts and universities have picked up the pace in recent years. A San Francisco advisory group has recommended that eligible black adults receive a A $5 million buyout, guaranteed annual income of at least $97,000 and cancellation of personal debt. Regulators in San Francisco will address the issue later this year.
New York could be the second state to create a commission to investigate state involvement in the institution of slavery and to address current gaps in economic and educational inequalities experienced by black people. The legislation, approved by lawmakers earlier this month, has not yet been signed into law by Governor Kathy Hochul.
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California joined the union as a free state in 1850, but in practice adopted slavery and adopted policies and practices that prevented black people from owning homes and starting businesses. Black families were terrorized, their communities were aggressively controlled and their neighborhoods exposed to environmental pollutants, according to a groundbreaking report released last year as part of the committee’s job of educating the public.
The panel did not recommend a set dollar amount for financial recovery, but endorsed economists’ methodologies for calculating what is owed for decades of overpolicing, disproportionate incarceration, and housing discrimination. Initial calculations put the potential cost to California at more than $800 billion — more than 2.5 times the state’s $300 billion annual budget — though a later report reduced that cost to $500 billion without explanation.
“Overall, we said we think there should be compensation, the elderly should be prioritized and it should be in installments,” Moore said.
For those elderly, for example, economists recommended nearly $1 million for a 71-year-old black person who has lived in California all their life — or $13,600 a year — for health disparities that have shortened their average lifespan.
Black people subject to aggressive police and persecution in the “war on drugs” from 1971 to 2020 each could receive $115,000 if they lived in California during that period or more than $2,300 for each year they lived in the state during that period.
The task force narrowly voted to restrict individual financial redress for residents who can document the lineage of black people who were in the US in the 19th century, excluding more recent immigrants.
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