California task force takes on reparations for Black residents

With 2024 here, California lawmakers are set for an intense debate about economic reparations for Black residents descended from enslaved ancestors. In 2020, California became the first state to form a reparations task force. In June, that task force issued a nearly 1,100-page report for the state legislature to take up. Sen. Steven Bradford, a Democrat who was one of the nine members on that task force, introduced a bill in August that would create a state agency to carry out reparations, if they are approved. The bill, SB 490, could be voted on this year. The California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans spent three years studying and developing reparation proposals. Bradford believes a government agency is the next step in the process, before the California Legislature starts looking at exact dollar amounts or benefits. “That’s what makes it real, once you have a dedicated governmental entity that says, ‘OK, we’re charged with delivering, identifying who’s eligible and determining what reparations look like,” Bradford said. The agency would administer reparations as atonement for California’s history of slavery and the institutional racism that is illuminated by the task force’s report. For example, during the Gold...