Los Angeles unveils reparations report on Black residents’ experiences since 1925

Researchers at Cal State Northridge this week unveiled the first city-sponsored report on potential reparations to Black residents for the discriminatory harms they faced over the last 100 years. Documenting Black Angelenos’ struggles from 1925 until today, “An Examination of African American Experiences in Los Angeles” is a 400-page report created by the Reparations Advisory Commission of the city’s Civil + Human Rights and Equity Department in collaboration with the university. Six CSUN researchers interviewed and held focus groups with hundreds of residents, past and present, and analyzed laws and public policy over the last century to ascertain the effect of racial discrimination on descendants of enslaved African Americans. “Despite the legal end of slavery, Black Angelenos continue to face systemic discrimination and inequity via legal segregation, enacted by both the state via the LAPD and the courts, as well as by the public, including groups like the Ku Klux Klan,” said researcher Marquita Gammage, a CSUN professor of Africana studies. Twelve types of harms were documented: vestiges of slavery; racial terror; mental, physical harm and neglect; racism in environment and infrastructure; an unjust legal system; housing segregation; stolen labor and hindered opportunity; separate and unequal education; political disenfranchisement; pathologizing...