California Reparations Task Force

The California Reparations Task Force was a non-regulatory state agency in California established by California Assembly Bill 3121 in 2020 to study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans, especially those who are descendants of persons enslaved in the United States. It was the country's first statewide reparations task committee[1] and was created to study methods to resolve systemic racism against African Americans resulting from slavery's enduring legacy.[2] The task force was designed to recommend ways to educate the California public of the task force's findings and to propose remedies.

Five members were appointed by the governor, two members were appointed by the president pro tempore of the Senate, and two members by the speaker of the Assembly.[3] The members voted to limit their study to exclusively address redress for descendants of antebellum slavery in the United States, rather than a broader application to people of general Black African descent who live in the United States.

After almost three years of fact-finding, reports, and public hearings, California’s first-in-the-nation reparations task force on Thursday, June 29th, 2023, released its final report to state lawmakers with recommendations for how the state should atone for its history of racial violence and discrimination against Black residents.[4]

  1. ^ Arango, Tim (May 16, 2023). "Can Reparations Bring Black Residents Back to San Francisco?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 17, 2023.
  2. ^ Lyngaas, Sean (May 9, 2023). "FBI disrupts Russian hacking tool used to steal information from foreign governments | CNN Politics". CNN. Retrieved May 9, 2023.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference yes was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Clayton, Abene (January 29, 2023). "'California's first-in-nation reparations taskforce to release final report': The document could serve as a national blueprint for how states atone for their history of racial violence against Black residents". The Guardian.