More than two years after the police killing of George Floyd, the nine-member Reparations Task Force estimates that Black Californians could accept more than $223,000 in reparations for the ongoing economic effects of racism and slavery.
Aggressive Push to Compensate Black Californians
According to the five-member economic consultant team of the California Reparations Task Force, eligible Black residents in the state could receive $223,200 per person under the proposal.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has pushed the reparations program. His Reparations Task Force received projections from a consulting panel indicating that California may need to pay more than $200,000 per person to Black residents if the state is to fulfill commitments of reparations for past discrimination in housing, a source posted.
The California Reparations Task Force confirmed that the $559 billion figure refers to a work scope document presented to the Task Force during a September public hearing in Los Angeles.
Newsom pushed hard to compensate Black Californians for the hardships they endured due to racism and slavery.
Reparations Task Force Effort
A federal slavery reparations bill, known colloquially as H.R. 40, has been dormant in Congress since its introduction in 1989. It passed out of the House Judiciary Committee in 2021, but most believe it will not move forward.
Newsom established the task force through legislation approved in 2020. It voted in March to limit the potential reparations to descendants of free or enslaved Black people in the country at the end of the nineteenth century rather than all Black people, as many reparations activists have argued.
According to Chair Kamilah Moore, a 500-page report from the Reparations Task Force is the first government-commissioned study on dangers to the Black community since President Lyndon Johnson’s 1968 Kerner Commission report.
