[The interim report surveys the ongoing and compounding harms
experienced by African Americans as a result of slavery and systemic
discrimination and includes a set of preliminary recommendations to
the CA legislature to remedy those harms.]
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CALIFORNIA REPARATIONS TASK FORCE RELEASES INTERIM REPORT DETAILING
HARMS OF SLAVERY AND SYSTEMIC DISCRIMINATION ON AFRICAN AMERICANS
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California Reparations Task Force
June 1, 2022
Office of the California Attorney General
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_ The interim report surveys the ongoing and compounding harms
experienced by African Americans as a result of slavery and systemic
discrimination and includes a set of preliminary recommendations to
the CA legislature to remedy those harms. _
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SACRAMENTO – As part of California’s historic Assembly Bill 3121
(AB 3121), the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation
Proposals for African Americans (Reparations Task Force) today
released an interim report providing an in-depth overview of the harms
inflicted on African Americans in California and across the
nation due to the ongoing legacy of slavery and systemic
discrimination. The interim report includes a preliminary set of
recommendations to the California Legislature and a final report
is expected to be issued in 2023. The Reparations Task Force is a
first-in-the-nation effort by a state government to study slavery,
its effects throughout American history, and the compounding harms
that the United States and Californian governments have inflicted
upon African Americans.
“Without accountability, there is no justice. For too long, our
nation has ignored the harms that have been — and continue to be —
inflicted on African Americans in California and across the
country,” SAID CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL ROB
BONTA. “California was not a passive actor in perpetuating these
harms. We must double down on our efforts to address discrimination in
our state and nation and take a hard look at our own history,
including at the California Department of Justice. This interim
report is a historic step by the State of California to acknowledge
the insidious effects of slavery and ongoing systemic discrimination,
recognize the state's failings, and move toward rectifying the
harm. I commend the Reparations Task Force for their commitment to
this effort and for being a model for partners across the nation. I
urge every American to read the task force’s report and join with us
in recommitting ourselves to justice.”
“It has been an honor and a privilege to supervise the release of
this monumental interim report,” SAID TASK FORCE CHAIR KAMILAH
MOORE. “A year-long effort, this 500+ page report chronicles the
harms against the African American community, starting with the
transatlantic slave trade, the institution of U.S. chattel slavery,
Emancipation and the broken promise of Reconstruction, genocidal Jim
Crow, to contemporary harms; it is the most extensive
government-issued report on the African American community since the
Kerner Commission in 1968. Thus, it is my hope that people in
California and across the United States utilize this report as an
educational and organizing tool, as this interim report exceeds
expectations in substantiating the claim for reparations for the
African American/American Freedmen community on the municipal, state
and federal level."
“It is a privilege to sit on a task force that has the moral
obligation of fulfilling the task of developing measures that will
right the wrongs which were collectively perpetuated against the
African American community solely on the basis of the color of our
skin,” SAID TASK FORCE VICE CHAIR DR. AMOS C. BROWN. "Other groups
that have suffered exclusion, oppression, and downright destruction of
human existence have received reparations, and we should have no
less."
The institution of slavery is inextricably woven into the
establishment, history, and prosperity of the United States.
Constitutionally and statutorily sanctioned from 1619 to 1865, slavery
deprived more than four million Africans and their descendants of
life, liberty, citizenship, cultural heritage, and economic
opportunity. Following the abolition of slavery, government entities
at the federal, state, and local levels continued to perpetuate,
condone, and often profit from practices that brutalized African
Americans and excluded them from meaningful participation in society.
This legacy of slavery and racial discrimination has resulted in
debilitating economic, educational, and health hardships that are
uniquely experienced by African Americans.
AB 3121 charges the Reparations Task Force with studying the
institution of slavery and its lingering negative effects on living
African Americans, including descendants of persons enslaved in the
United States and on society. The legislation, enacted on September
30, 2020, requires the task force to also recommend appropriate
remedies of compensation, rehabilitation, and restitution for African
Americans, with a special consideration for descendants of persons
enslaved in the United States. The Reparations Task Force’s work is
ongoing and the interim report primarily focuses on identifying and
summarizing the myriad badges and incidents of slavery. The interim
report builds on months of public hearings, hours of expert, public,
and witness testimony, and numerous records submitted to the task
force.
In the interim report released today, the Reparations Task Force —
over the course of 13 chapters — provides an accounting of many of
the harms of slavery and systemic discrimination in California and
across the nation. The interim report offers a synthesis of many of
the relevant issues, ranging from enslavement and government
sanctioned residential segregation to environmental injustice and
political disenfranchisement. Some of the key findings noted in the
interim report include:
* In order to maintain slavery, colonial and American governments
adopted white supremacy beliefs and passed laws in order to maintain a
system that stole the labor and intellect of people of African
descent;
* In California, racial violence against African Americans began
during slavery, continued through the 1920s, as groups like the Ku
Klux Klan permeated local governments and police departments, and
peaked after World War II, as African Americans attempted to move into
white neighborhoods;
* Due to residential segregation and compared to white Americans,
African Americans are more likely to live in worse quality housing and
in neighborhoods that are polluted, with inadequate infrastructure;
* American government at all levels, including in California, has
historically criminalized African Americans for the purposes of social
control, and to maintain an economy based on exploited Black labor;
and
* Government laws and policies perpetuating badges of slavery have
helped white Americans accumulate wealth, while erecting barriers
which prevented African Americans from doing the same. These harms
compounded over generations, resulting in an enormous gap in wealth
between white and African Americans today in the nation and in
California.
Additional information about the work of the Reparations Task Force
and the ongoing public hearing process is available
here: oag.ca.gov/ab3121 [[link removed]].
A copy of the interim report is available here
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* Full Interim Report
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* Executive Summary
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* Key Findings
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* Preliminary Recommendations
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* slavery
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* Systemic racism
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* racial discrimination
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* reparations
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* California
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