A California task force has released a list of preliminary recommendations that could set the blueprint for Black Americans receiving reparations across the country, including free college tuition for every Black high-school graduate and allowing prisoners to vote.
The 492-page report was released Wednesday by the state’s Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals, which was set up by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020 to look into possible reparations for descendants of early African migrants, according to the Associated Press.
“The foundation of America’s wealth was built upon trafficked African peoples and their descendants—built by their forced labor and their bodies as they were bought and sold as commodities,” the landmark report says. “American government at all levels allowed or participated in exploiting, abusing, terrorizing, and murdering people of African descent so that mostly white Americans could profit from their enslavement.”
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The interim report paints a harrowing picture of the discrimination suffered by African descendants who migrated to the United States prior to the 20th century. The U.S. relied on oppressing these people and their descendants in order to prosper, it notes, explaining in astonishing detail how American industries benefited from enslavement and racist tactics that historically—and currently—target Black Americans.
California still plays a role in discrimination, the report adds, in professional spheres, healthcare, education, housing and home ownership, the environment, incarceration, legal and political systems, and police brutality.
With white supremacy influencing so many facets of life, the task force provided a long list of groundbreaking recommendations it said were essential in order to close the racial disparity gap.
Several recommendations are born out of what the task force called modern “slavery in California,” or the penal system. Those who have been incarcerated should not lose their status as citizens, should be paid a “fair market rate” for labor, given mental health support, and allowed to maintain trauma-free relationships with visiting family members, it says.
“Pass legislation that makes education, substance use and mental health treatment, and rehabilitative programs the first priority for incarcerated people,” the task force recommends. “Allow people who are incarcerated to continue to exercise their right to vote.”
The task force also recommended providing funding for voter education and outreach for Black California residents, creating a genealogical division to help Black Americans trace their ancestry, offering free college tuition for every Black high-school graduate, and legislating mandatory classes from kindergarten through high school on African American history, and mandatory cultural training for teachers.
The report also addresses housing retribution, recommending Black Americans receive lower interest rates in contrast with traditionally excessively high rates due to lack of property ownership and redlining, which has been used to segregate Black residents from potential white neighbors.
In addition, the task force advised an overhaul on how Black Americans interact with the legal system.
“Allow individuals with felony convictions to serve on juries and prohibit judges and attorneys from excluding jurors solely for having a criminal record,” the report recommends.
The report also recommends the state “implement a detailed program of reparations for African Americans” yet does not outline or recommend a specific financial plan.
Though California was a free state when it joined the union in 1850, the report details how the state utilized enslavement, Black Codes, and Jim Crow laws to help its growing economy. Black people were not considered whole citizens and didn’t receive the same benefits as their white counterparts. The Golden State didn’t ratify the 14th Amendment—which declared in 1866 that anyone born on U.S. soil was a citizen—until 1959.
“Under international law, a government is responsible where its wrongful actions or negligence caused injury to a specific group of people,” the task force argues.
The report’s detailed history of American slavery and how it shaped almost every part of American life paves the way for groundbreaking changes in California but is likely to inflame the bitter debate that has taken hold in the U.S. over the issue of Critical Race Theory, the doctrine taught in law schools and at a graduate-school setting that explores how race and ethnicity affect people’s daily livelihoods.
“I hope that the report is used not just for awareness but as an organizing tool, a sort of rallying call,” task force chair Kamilah Moore told NBC News. “The harm against the African American community has been so extensive that reparations are pretty much overdue.”
A finalized version of the reparations report will be issued by July 2023.
