Reparations proposals for Black residents are advancing in the California Senate, per the Associated Press.
On Tuesday (May 21), lawmakers passed legislation that would create an agency for Black residents to research their family lineage and confirm their eligibility for potential restitution. More bills that would create a fund for reparations programs and compensate Black families for property that the government unjustly seized were also passed. The set of reparations proposals are now heading to the state Assembly.
In a statement, State Sen. Steven Bradford (D) said California “bears great responsibility” to compensate its Black residents for past injustices.
“If you can inherit generational wealth, you can inherit generational debt,” Bradford said. “Reparations is a debt that’s owed to descendants of slavery.”
The proposals were inspired by recommendations made by California’s reparation task force. The first-in-the-nation committee spent years determining how California could compensate Black residents for its history of racism and discrimination.
Some reparations advocates were frustrated with lawmakers declining to introduce a proposal that would provide widespread payments to descendants of enslaved Black people.
Chris Lodgson of the Coalition for a Just and Equitable California, a reparations-advocacy group, said the proposals were “a first step” toward passing wider reparations laws.
“This is a historic day,” Lodgson said in a statement.
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