California Is The First State To Tackle Reparations For Black Residents. What That Really Means

Will reparations for Black residents in California become a reality? If not, are they likely to happen anywhere else in the United States?

All eyes are on California, long considered the nation’s test tube for progressive policies, and its pioneering reparations task force, which this week is giving the state Legislature its recommendations for repairing the damage of slavery and racism.

Reparations, a topic steeped in historical and contemporary significance, gained new momentum following the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd in 2020. That’s when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law establishing the first-in-the-nation state task force to study historic and systemic racism and develop recommendations to address it.

After two years of often-intense public hearings, the California Reparations Task Force task voted in May to approve a more than 1,000-page document, including more than 200 recommendations for how to undo centuries of unfair treatment for Black Californians, especially descendants of enslaved people. It recommended California formally apologize for its role in enabling slavery, and for the many tentacles of white supremacy in its history.

It also recommended the state make cash payments to those whose ancestors were enslaved. CalMatters’ reparations calculator, based on economic modeling in the task force’s report, estimates an eligible Black resident who has lived seven decades in California could be owed up to $1.2 million.

Advocates say reparations are not only a matter of justice but a necessary step toward healing deep-seated wounds. Critics counter that reparations are an impractical and divisive concept — questioning the fairness of determining eligibility, the cost, and the potential it would open the floodgates to other aggrieved groups to seek repayment for government-sanctioned harms.

A closer look at California's Reparations Task Force

The first state-appointed task force in the nation exploring how a state could make reparations to African Americans hurt by slavery and discrimination. It held close to 200 hours of public hearings and produced hundreds of pages of public documents.

The 9-member panel did not always agree, but its work likely will be considered historic and could serve as a blueprint for the rest of the nation.

The task force's work:

• 9 member panel
• 15 public meetings
• Close to 200 hours of public hearings
• More than 100 witnesses
• 1,000 pages of public documents
• At least 346 emailed public comments

Who is on the task force?

• Senator Steven Bradford
  State senator for the 35th district, Inglewood
  Senator Steven Bradford, representing the 35th District and vice-chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus, made history when he became the first African American elected to the Gardena City Council.
  
• Dr. Amos C. Brown, Vice-Chair
  Civil rights leader
  Amos C. Brown is a renowned civil rights leader who studied under Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was arrested with King at a lunch counter sit-in in 1961 and joined the Freedom Riders who protested segregation in the South.
  
• Dr. Cheryl Grills
  Clinical psychologist
  Cheryl Grills, Ph.D, is a Clinical Psychologist with a current emphasis in Community Psychology. On the faculty of Loyola Marymount University (LMU) for the past 34 years, she is a Professor of Psychology, Director of their Psychology Applied Research Center, and President’s Professor in their College of Liberal Arts.
  
• Lisa Holder
  Trial attorney and racial justice scholar
  Lisa Holder, Esq. is a nationally recognized, award-winning trial attorney, operating a civil rights practice that focuses on a wide array of legal services including police misconduct, workplace discrimination, and public school equity.
  
• Assemblymember Reginald Jones-Sawyer
  State assemblymember for the 57th district, Los Angeles
  Reggie Jones-Sawyer represents the 59th Assembly District and has a family legacy of involvement in the civil rights and social justice movements beginning with his uncle who was a part of the Little Rock Nine, the first group of Black students integrated into an all-white high school in Arkansas.
  
• Dr. Jovan Scott Lewis
  Economic anthropologist and geographer
  Jovan Scott Lewis, Ph.D. is an Economic Anthropologist and Geographer who researches reparations, and the political economy of inequality and race in the United States and the Caribbean.
  
• Kamilah Moore, Chair
  Reparatory justice scholar and attorney
  Kamilah Moore is a reparatory justice scholar and an attorney with a specialization in entertainment and intellectual property transactions.
  
• Councilmember Monica Montgomery Steppe
  San Diego city councilmember
  Councilmember Monica Montgomery Steppe represents the Fourth Council District in the City of San Diego where she strongly advocates for equitable practices in government, including better economic opportunities for people of color and better relationships between community members and police officers.
  
• Donald K. Tamaki
  Lawyer
  Donald K. Tamaki is known for his historic work serving on the pro bono legal team that reopened the landmark Supreme Court case of Korematsu v. the United States, overturning Fred Korematsu’s conviction for refusing incarceration during the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and providing a key legal foundation in the decades-long Japanese American Redress Movement.

What non-cash reparations did the task force propose?

The original caption written in 1940 reads: “Oakland, California. High School Youth. Two Negro Youngsters look over the shoulders a couple fortunate enough to own a model plane. The white boys can hope to become aviators.” Photograph by Federal Security Agency, National Youth Administration.

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Federal Security Agency

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National Youth Administration

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The task force recommends more than 100 programs or policies that do not involve direct cash payments. (They can be found on pages 19-24 of the interim report.) The policy recommendations generally fall under these categories: justice, voting, education, health, business or housing.

Some policy recommendations would have a defined cost while others, such as the recommendation that California apologize for slavery and systemic injustices, would not have a budgetary impact.

Other recommendations to the state:

• Delete language from California’s Constitution permitting involuntary servitude as punishment for crime

• Make it easier to hold law enforcement (including correctional officers) accountable for unlawful harassment and violence

• Consider legislation to prevent the dilution Black votes via redistricting

• Let people with felony convictions serve on juries and prohibit judges and attorneys from excluding jurors for having a criminal record.

• Identify and eliminate anti-Black housing policies and practices.

• Repeal Article 34 of the California Constitution, which requires public votes before “low-rent housing projects” can be developed, constructed, or acquired by public entities.

• Identify and eliminate racial bias in standardized tests, including statewide K-12 proficiency assessments, undergraduate and postgraduate assessments and professional career exams.