California state legislature makes historic new strides towards reparations

This week the California state Legislature advanced a series of bills to confront the harm caused by slavery and that lay the groundwork to compensate families who had their property unjustly seized by the government. Los Angeles area legislators Senator Steven Bradford and Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer are at the forefront of this effort. They both served on the California Reparations Task Force, which spent two years studying the state’s historic injustices and provided policy recommendations that became the basis of the newly proposed laws. This week the state Assembly passed Jones-Sawyer’s AB 3089, which would require the state to issue a formal apology for its role in supporting slavery. The bill now heads to the state Senate for a vote. “Even though our state entered the union as a free state, every branch of government has a hand in perpetuating the oppression of Black folks,” Jones-Sawyer said before the Assembly. “This bill is an opportunity to confront those tough truths in a meaningful way. It is long past time to acknowledge its role and responsibility for the atrocities that promoted and facilitated the institution of slavery.” Over in the state Senate, legislators advanced three of Bradford’s bills which would collectively...