The task force did not recommend specific payment amounts, but economists estimates say the state is responsible for more than $500 billion due to decades of excessive policing, mass incarceration and redlining that prevented black families from buying. homes in prized neighborhoods.
Damien Posey, 44, grew up in historically black neighborhoods in San Francisco, where he would hear gunshots at night and be bused to schools in neighborhoods that were not as welcoming to black children. He spent a decade in prison on a gun charge and then started a nonprofit organization called Us 4 Us Bay Area to educate youth and reduce gun violence.
Significant reparations would include an official apology from the state, public funding for nonprofit organizations that help Black residents and cash reparations for every eligible person for payment denied to their ancestors, who built this country with their labor, he said.
“And our people deserve it, honestly,” he said.
Compensation is a big part of state redress proposals because African-Americans «have been deprived of a lot of money» due to discriminatory policies, said Les Robinson, 66, associate pastor of Sanctuary Foursquare Church in Santa Clarita, a city about 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Los Angeles.
But money isn’t everything, Robinson said, and the task force’s other important work shouldn’t get lost in a fixation on dollar numbers alone. He pointed to efforts to retell California’s story through a different lens, one that examines the state’s role in perpetuating systemic racism despite its label as a «free» state.
Robinson was «hit by a tsunami of emotions» when he learned in 2017 that he was descended from a man who founded the first black church in California and played a pivotal role in the state’s pioneering African-American community.
He was disappointed that more people, including himself, were not being taught the story of Daniel Blue, his great-great-grandfather, who created what is now known as the historic Saint Andrews African Methodist Episcopal Church in Sacramento.
Robinson is skeptical that lawmakers will approve the repairs, if history is any indicator.
“People wonder why African Americans in general are angry,” he said. “Because they have lied to us. They have deceived us. For centuries, not decades, centuries.”
Like Robinson, former Black Panther Party member Joan Tarika Lewis has been researching her lineage and was proud to discover that several ancestors came to California in the mid-19th century and helped other black people escape slavery. .
Lewis, who became the party’s first female activist when she joined as a teenager, wants more black residents to learn about her heritage and for all Californians to know more about the contributions of black pioneers and civic leaders. Lewis, 73, also wants to raise more awareness about what the community has lost.
His father operated a boxing gym in West Oakland that served as a community space for the young to learn from their elders. But then government officials seized the land and built a highway and commuter line in its place. The family was paid a pittance for what would become valuable San Francisco Bay Area property.
Lewis is optimistic that state legislators can make the repairs happen if they have the political will.
So is Vincent Justin, a 75-year-old Richmond resident and retired bus driver who has fought for racial equity for decades. He marched in the 1960s with Martin Luther King Jr., Huey P. Newton, Stokely Carmichael, and other leading civil rights figures.
Although the fight has been long, he hopes that reparations will one day be approved at the federal level.
“I think we are going to come to a fair and just ending,” he said.