slavery

Black Californians hope state reparations don’t become another broken promise

San Francisco resident Pia Harris hopes for reparations in her lifetime. But the nonprofit program director is not confident that California lawmakers will turn the recommendations of a first-in-the-nation task force into concrete legislation given pushback from opponents who say slavery was a thing of the past.

Californians Await Key Decisions from Reparations Task Force

Nearly two years into the California reparations task force’s work, the group still has yet to make key decisions that will be at the heart of its final report recommending how the state should apologize and compensate Black residents for the harms caused by slavery and discrimination.

Slavery on Ballot for Voters in 5 U.S. States

More than 150 years after slaves were freed in the U.S., voters in five states will soon decide whether to close loopholes that led to the proliferation of a different form of slavery — forced labor by people convicted of certain crimes.

Can Federal Lynching Law Help Heal America?

For three centuries lynching was a standard practice in the cruel treatment of Black men, women, and children in America. Even after slavery, Blacks from 1882 – 1959 were lynched on average every six days, totaling at least 4,733 brutal deaths, according to researchers at the Tuskegee Institute.

Meet the 29-Year-Old Activist and Atty Chairing California’s Reparations Task Force

In June, California launched the nation’s first Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans this year.   The nine-member committee was established to meet the requirements of Assembly Bill (AB) 3121, which California Secretary of State  Shirley Weber authored and introduced in 2020 when she served in the Legislature.  Gov. Newsom signed it into law in September 2020.  “This is a debt that is owed, just because it hasn’t been paid doesn’t mean it goes away,” said the newly elected chair of the California reparations task force Kamilah V. Moore.    At the task force’s first meeting on June

The Way West: Reparations Task Force Looks at Black Migration to California

During its third meeting, California’s Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans looked at reasons formerly enslaved Black people migrated to the Golden State — and detailed setbacks they faced after arriving.

During the period historians dub the “Great Migration”– which lasted from the early 1900s through the 1970s – approximately six million Black Americans relocated from Deep South states to Northern, Midwestern, Eastern and Western states. Significant numbers ended up in California, escaping Jim Crow laws and racial violence and seeking economic opportunity.

Bill to End “Slavery” in Prisons Advances in Cal Legislature

April Grayson, a policy associate for the Young Women’s Freedom Center and a formerly incarcerated Black woman, who spent 17 years behind bars, said she can’t wait to see the day when the language in Article 1, Section 6 of California’s Constitution is off the books.

Anatomy of Resurgent Racism: Some Sources of Its Savagery

  These conversations about resurgent racism bring to mind the Greek mythological many-headed snake-like monster that, if you cut off one of its heads, would grow back two more in its place. And only the god-like superhero, Hercules, could kill it. But racism is real, not a myth, in spite of fervent and faithful denials by its most devout, delusional and passionate practitioners.