SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – San Francisco resident Pia Harris expects repairs in her lifetime. But the director of the nonprofit program isn’t confident California lawmakers will turn the recommendations of a first-in-the-nation task force into concrete legislation in the face of a push from opponents who say slavery is a thing of the past .
Harris, 45, finds it frustrating that reparations opponents fail to acknowledge that black lives did not improve with the abolition of chattel slavery in 1865. Black families have not been able to accumulate wealth by owning property and higher education. Black children and teenagers are still being told to watch out for law enforcement, and black businesses struggle to get loans, he said.
“I want them to stop acting like it’s so far away, and it’s not happening right now,” Harris said of the lingering effects of slavery and discrimination. “I want them to understand that we’re still going through things now as a community. It’s not, it’s not over for us.
Black Californians have watched closely as the state’s reparations task force progressed through a two-year study, finally signing off this month on a broad list of recommendations that will be presented to lawmakers. It’s unclear what lawmakers will do with the proposals, which include payments to descendants of enslaved people and a formal apology from the state.
The Associated Press interviewed a handful of advocates and black residents who followed the task force’s work, as well as those who have long been involved in the reparations conversation. Activists who fought for civil rights in the 1960s and young entrepreneurs echoed a common fear: They hope California’s exploration of reparations doesn’t become another example of the government offering false hope .
Proposals for reparations for African Americans date back to 1865, when Union General William Tecumseh Sherman ordered that newly freed people be given up to 40 acres (16 hectares) of land. That didn’t happen. In recent decades, Democratic lawmakers in Congress have tried to pass legislation to study federal reparations without success.
In 2020, California became the first state to approve the creation of a reparations task force, to study the state’s role in perpetuating systemic racism and find ways to atone. Although California entered the union as a “free” state, it did not enact laws guaranteeing the freedom of African Americans, according to a draft report from the task force.
The state faces a projected $31.5 billion budget shortfall, reducing the possibility of legislative support for some of the task force’s most ambitious recommendations, including direct payments to eligible residents and the creation of a new state agency to help these families research their ancestors and file claims.
The task force did not recommend specific payout amounts, but economists’ estimates say the state is responsible for more than $500 billion because of decades of overpolicing, mass incarceration and limitations that prevented the black families to buy houses in appreciated neighborhoods.
Damien Posey, 44, grew up in historically black neighborhoods in San Francisco, where he heard gunshots at night and was shuttled to schools in neighborhoods that weren’t as welcoming to black kids. He spent a decade in prison on a gun charge and later started a nonprofit called Us 4 Us Bay Area to mentor youth and reduce gun violence.
Meaningful reparations would include an official apology from the state, public funding for nonprofits that help black residents, and cash reparations to every eligible person for the pay denied to their ancestors, who built this country with the his job, he said.
“And our people deserve it, honestly,” he said.
Compensation is an important part of the state’s reparations proposals because black Americans “have been deprived of a lot of money” because of discriminatory policies, said Les Robinson, 66, associate pastor of the Sanctuary Foursquare Church of Santa Clarita, a city of about 30 years. miles (48 kilometers) north of Los Angeles.
But money isn’t everything, Robinson said, and the task force’s other important work shouldn’t be lost by simply fixing the dollar figures. He pointed to efforts to retell California’s story through a different lens, one that examines the state’s role in perpetuating systemic racism despite its label as a “free” state.
Robinson was “hit by a tsunami of emotion” when he learned in 2017 that he was descended from a man who founded the first black church in California and played a critical role in the state’s pioneering African-American community.
He was disappointed that more people, including himself, were not taught the story of Daniel Blue, his great-great-grandfather who created what is now known as the historic Saint Andrews African Methodist Episcopal Church in Sacramento.
Robinson is skeptical that the repairs will be approved by lawmakers, if history is any indicator.
“People wonder why African-Americans in general are angry,” he said. “Because they lied to us. They have deceived us. For centuries, not decades, centuries.”
Like Robinson, former Black Panther Party member Joan Tarika Lewis has been researching her lineage and was proud to discover that several ancestors came to California in the mid-19th century and helped other black people escape from slavery
Lewis, who became the party’s first female activist when she joined as a teenager, wants more black residents to learn about their heritage and for all Californians to learn more about the contributions of black pioneers and civic leaders. Lewis, 73, also wants to raise awareness of what the community has lost.
His father operated a boxing gym in West Oakland that served as a community space for young people to learn from their elders. But then government officials took the land and built a freeway and commuter line in its place. The family was paid a pittance for what would become valuable San Francisco Bay property.
Lewis is optimistic that state lawmakers can make repairs happen if they have the political will.
So is Vincent Justin, a 75-year-old Richmond resident and retired bus driver who has fought for racial equity for decades. He marched in the 1960s with Martin Luther King Jr., Huey P. Newton, Stokely Carmichael and other major civil rights figures.
Although the fight has been long, he hopes that repairs will one day be approved at the federal level.
“I think we will come to a fair and equitable end,” he said.
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Har reported from San Francisco. Sophie Austin is a staff member of the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a national nonprofit service program that places reporters in local newsrooms to report on undercover issues. Follow Austin on Twitter: @sophieadanna
