Pecolia Manigo on Statement to Black Students speaks during a news conference at Oakland City Hall in Oakland, California, on February 9, 2022.
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MediaNews Group / The Mercury News / MediaNews Group via Getty Images
Pecolia Manigo on Statement to Black Students speaks during a news conference at Oakland City Hall in Oakland, California, on February 9, 2022.
MediaNews Group / The Mercury News / MediaNews Group via Getty Images
California’s first national reparation task force voted Tuesday to limit the amount of state compensation for the descendants of free and enslaved blacks in the United States in the 20th century. 19, narrowly rejected the proposal to include all Negroes regardless of race.
The vote was divided into 5-4, and the hour-long debate was sometimes intense and emotional. Near the end, Father Amos Brown, president of the San Francisco branch of the NAACP and vice president of the task force, pleaded with the committee to proceed with a clear determination of who would be eligible for a replacement.
“Please, please, please, I beg of us tonight, take the first step,” he said. “We have to get emergency treatment to where it’s needed.”
Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation creating a two-year redress task force in 2020, making California the only state to go ahead with a study and plan, with a mandate to study the institution of slavery and its effects. its harms and educate the public about its findings.
The statements at the federal level have yet to go anywhere, but cities and universities are addressing the issue. The mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, announced a city commission in February while the city of Boston was considering a proposal to create its own compensation committee.
The Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, became the first US city to make restitution for black residents last year, though some say the program did nothing wrong.
California task force members – nearly all of whom can trace their families back to their enslaved ancestors in America – are aware that their deliberation on a key question will shape discussions of compensation across the country. The members are appointed by the governor and the leaders of the two legislative houses.
Proponents of the lineage approach argue that compensation and replacement plans based on genealogy, not race, offer the best variation for surviving a legal challenge. They also opened the door to eligibility for free Negroes to immigrate to the country before the 20th century, given the possible difficulties in recording family history and the risk of becoming slaves in the country. at that moment.
Others on the task force argued that reparations should cover all Blacks in America who suffered systemic racism in housing, education and employment and said they determined eligibility too early in the process.
Civil rights attorney and task force member Lisa Holder proposed directing economists working with the task force to use California’s estimated 2.6 million Black residents to calculate compensation while they continue to listen to the public.
“We need to strengthen the base and that’s the Negroes,” she said. “We could not have gone into this compensation proposal without all of the African Americans in California behind us.”
But Kamilah Moore, an attorney and chair of the task force, said expanding eligibility would create its own cracks and fall outside the commission’s purpose.
“That would hurt victims of slavery, who are direct descendants of those enslaved in the United States,” she said. “It goes against the spirit of the law as written.”
The Commission is less than a year out of its two-year course and doesn’t have any compensation plans on the table. Longtime advocates have spoken of the need for multifaceted remedies for related but separate harms, such as slavery, Jim Crow laws, mass incarceration and relapse. development led to the displacement of Black communities.
Compensation could include free college, assistance with buying homes and starting businesses, and funding for churches and community organizations, advocates say.
Eligibility questions have been raised for the task force since its inaugural meeting in June, when viewers implored the nine-member group to come up with targeted proposals and cash payments. to turn all the descendants of those enslaved in America
Arthur Ward, a Chicago resident who called to the virtual meeting on Tuesday, said he was descended from people who were enslaved and had families in California. He supported compensation based solely on race and expressed frustration with the panel’s concerns about racial discrimination among Black immigrants.
“When it comes to some kind of justice, some kind of reparation, we have to step back and allow the Carribeans and Africans to take precedence,” Ward said. “To take so long to decide on something that wasn’t even a question in the first place is an insult.”
California Congressman Reginald Jones-Sawyer, who voted against restricting eligibility, said it didn’t matter that the descendants of slaves were a priority, but he said the task force also needed prevent ongoing harm and prevent future harm from racism. He said he wanted the panel to stop “squabbling” about how much money they don’t have and start discussing how to close the severe gap between rich and poor.
“We’re arguing about cash payments, which I certainly don’t believe is the be-all and end-all,” he said.
Critics claimed that California was under no obligation to pay because the state did not practice slavery and did not enforce Jim Crow laws that separated Blacks from whites in southern states.
But testimony provided to the commission showed that California and local governments were complicit in depriving Blacks of wages and property, preventing them from building wealth to pass on to their children. Their homes were razed for redevelopment, and they were forced to live in predominantly minority neighborhoods and were unable to obtain bank loans that would allow them to buy properties.
Today, Black residents make up 5% of the state’s population but are over-represented in prisons, prisons, and the homeless population. And black homeowners continue to face discrimination in the form of home appraisals significantly lower than if the home is located in a white neighborhood or the owner is white, according to the report. testimony.
A report will be completed by June with the proposed fix due in July 2023 for the Legislature to consider turning it into law.
