Toward Solidarity: Reparations and Land Back on California’s Horizon – Non Profit News

Image credit: Liudmila Chernetska on iStock In the 1960s and ’70s, the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement (AIM)—two groups organizing against distinct yet interwoven histories of oppression—recognized their shared goals. They built an alliance grounded in reciprocity, mutual respect, and collective resistance to state oppression. As former AIM leader Dennis Banks reflected in Dodging Bullets: Stories from Survivors of Historical Trauma, “When they talked about their issues, we saw our issues.” This cross-community solidarity strengthened both movements, demonstrating that transformative change often emerges from understanding interconnected struggles. Now, another set of struggles is emerging, this time around the Indigenous Land Back and Black reparations movements. In response, California has created two state commissions—the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparations Proposals for African Americans and, for Indigenous communities, the California Truth & Healing Council. Despite the complexities and new forms of economic and social injustice that add layers of challenge to building solidarity, Dr. Kyle Mays, author of An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States, reminds us that “solidarity requires intention, and often, just showing up for your comrades in their fight against repression is good enough.” In the face of these enduring inequities, the looming question...