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A California reparations task force has voted to approve recommendations on one of the most significant reparations campaigns for African Americans in modern U.S. history.
The task force was established through a bill authored by then-Assemblymember Shirley Weber, currently California’s first African American Secretary of State, according to task force chair Kamilah Moore. The bill was signed into law in September 2020 by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
ABC News reports the task force’s next and final meeting will be on June 29 when the report will be released to the California legislator. Its supporters hope the report will be the foundation of a state bill, which could go to the legislature for a vote by the end of 2023 or early 2024.
Reparations Now!
The task force’s report follows the United Nations’ guidelines to remedy victims of international human rights violations, Moore told ABC News.
“The task force hasn’t necessarily endorsed any particular dollar amounts,” Moore said. “We just endorsed a methodology that the economists and public policy experts we hired used to calculate the total losses in the areas of health harms, the devaluation of black businesses, housing segregation, mass incarceration, and over policing and unjust property takings.”
Atonement includes “compensation, restitution, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition.”
According to Moore, the task force proposed for eligible Californians to receive atonement under international law’s five forms of reparations: compensation, restitution, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition.
Moore cited reparations for Japanese Americans who endured internment camps during World War II and remedies for Holocaust survivors in Germany as examples used in the task force’s proposal to state legislators.
She said all African Americans in California who can trace back an enslaved or freed ancestor in the United States dating back to the late 19th century would be eligible.
Moore said $1.2 million is the most economists determined a resident could get if they were at the life expectancy mark of 71 years of age, or older, and endured more acute forms of racism for longer periods of time.
Rep. Cori Bush advocates for Black Americans to get their back pay
On the federal level, Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri announced a nationwide reparations bill on Wednesday that calls for $14 trillion to help close the wealth gap between African Americans and white Americans.
When asked how the government would pay out the sum of $14 trillion, Bush said she is engaged in talks to find the answer, according to ABC News.
“We’re still having those kinds of conversations,” the congresswoman said at a press conference at the US Capitol Thursday. “We’re working with this administration, we’re talking with other members of Congress… but I’ll say this, if we can continue to fund these endless wars, or we can continue to put trillions of dollars into forever wars… we’re talking about things that are happening now.”
“The United States has a moral and legal obligation to provide reparations for the enslavement of Africans and its lasting harm on the lives of millions of Black people.”