For the first time, this year advocates seeking reparations for the harms inflicted on Black people during centuries of slavery in America saw a movement for redress that elicits hope.
Many municipalities either started or are forming commissions to address compensation to the descendants of enslaved Africans.
California has made the most zealous effort. The state’s reparations task force spent two years researching the impact of the generational damage of the discriminatory practices and produced a 1,100-page report with comprehensive recommendations that it considers to be the blueprint for other cities and states — and the federal government — to follow.
The blockbuster file includes a method to calculate financial compensation for those eligible for redress. More than 400 organizations have signed on to support reparations in the country’s most populous state.
While Evanston, Illinois, became the first city in the country in 2021 to actually pay reparations to its eligible Black residents, and New York recently enacted a commission to study the effects of slavery there, California’s push represents a major swing in the decadeslong fight for reparations. Yet Californians are looking ahead to the next year to see if any of these recommendations will actually come to fruition — and if there is enough political will to make it so.
Indeed, the road to reparations remains arduous.
Opposition is significant. California’s efforts surpassed those of the federal government. And while many cities and states are creating reparation committees, they are far from getting money into people’s pockets.
And then there’s the underlaying reticence of a significant part of the population: “Public opinion — meaning white people and white politicians — is not sympathetic to our plight and how it is tied to slavery,” said Jonathan Wright,…
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