SAN FRANCISCO — A landmark California committee to study reparations for African Americans is meeting for the first time, launching a two-year process to address the harms of slavery and systemic racism.
Tuesday’s meeting of the first state reparations committee in the U.S. came as President Joe Biden commemorated the lives of hundreds of Black people killed by a white mob in what was then a thriving African-American community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a century ago. It also comes just over a year after George Floyd, a Black man, was murdered by a white police officer in Minnesota.
Secretary of State Shirley Weber, who as a state assemblywoman authored the legislation creating the task force, noted the solemnity of the occasion as well as the opportunity to right an historic wrong.
“Your task is to determine the depth of the harm, and the ways in which we are to repair that harm,” said Weber, whose parents were sharecroppers forced to leave the South because of a lack of opportunity.
Critics have said that California did not have slaves and should not have to study reparations. But Weber said the state is an economic powerhouse that can point the way for a federal government that has been unable to address the issue.
The task force will craft an apology and identify policies that contribute to ongoing racial disparities in education, the criminal justice system, generational wealth and other areas. Black people make up just 6% of California’s population yet constitute an overwhelming percentage of people in prison, the economically needy and those who are homeless.
The nine task force members, appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and leaders of the Legislature, include the descendants of slaves who are now lawyers, academics and politicians. Slavery may not have flourished in California, but African Americans were still treated harshly in the state. Their neighborhoods in San Francisco and Los Angeles were razed in the name of development.
“We have lost more than we have ever taken from this country. We have given more than has ever been given to us,” said state Sen. Steven Bradford, who is on the committee.
