A first-in-the-nation task force in California to study and recommend reparations for African Americans held its inaugural meeting Tuesday, launching a two-year process to address the harms of slavery and systemic racism despite the federal government's inaction, abcnews reports.
The nine members of the task force, appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders, include the descendants of slaves who are now prominent lawyers, academics and politicians. The group's newly elected chair is a young lawyer who specializes in intellectual property, and their vice-chair is a longtime civil rights activist arrested with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at a lunch counter sit-in in 1961.
“I’m so thankful to my ancestors, who survived so much trauma, so much pain, so much tragedy, so much brutality, so that I could live,” said Lisa Holder, a civil rights attorney in Los Angeles. “And I am ready to fight to deliver them - our ancestors - justice.”
Tuesday's meeting of the first state reparations committee in the U.S. came as President Joe Biden commemorated the lives of hundreds of Black people killed by a white mob in what was then a thriving African-American community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a century ago. It also comes just over a year after George Floyd, a Black man, was murdered by a white police officer in Minnesota.
Critics have said that California did not have slaves as in other states and should not have to study reparations - or pay for it. But Weber said the state is an economic powerhouse that can point the way for a federal government that has been unable to address the issue. It would not replace any reparations agreed to by the federal government.
Some people who called into the virtual meeting implored the group to come up with targeted proposals and cash payments to make whole the descendants of Black slaves specifically.
“This is really about lineage, it's not just about color. The government owes a debt that's long overdue,” said Harriet Barton, a longtime resident of San Fernando Valley in Southern California.
The task force's duties include summarizing discrimination against Black people in law, and in the private and public sectors; calculating compensation and educating the public on its findings; and crafting an apology.
Newsom, a Democrat, issued a formal apology to Native American tribal leaders in 2019. He also announced the creation of a council to examine the state's role in campaigns to exterminate and exploit indigenous people in the state.
