Last week, constituents of the State Legislature gave several members of the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparations Proposals for African Americans a standing ovation for their work over the previous 12 months.
Members of the Senate and Assembly took part in the gesture on June 16 at the start of the legislative sessions at the State Capitol in Sacramento, which took place at the same time as the start of the state’s official Juneteenth 2022 celebrations.
Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Gardena), chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus, said, “The task force, without a doubt, is arguably one of the most important task forces not only in the state but this nation dealing with the evils of slavery” (CLBC).
This task team “reflects California’s progressive leadership and nature, which made a promise to assist in bridging racial division and advancing equity.”
After fellow task committee panellist Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles) made similar statements in the Assembly chambers, Bradford, who was named to the task force by Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, spoke on the Senate floor.
The California Department of Justice (DOJ) personnel and seven of the nine task force members were honoured at the occasion.
Chairperson Kamilah V. Moore, a lawyer, reparations expert, and activist from Los Angeles; Vice-Chairman Dr Amos Brown, a respected Bay Area pastor and civil rights pioneer whose path to leadership began under Dr Martin Luther King Jr.’s tutelage in the 1960s; Dr Cheryl Grills, a professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles; and Lisa Holder, a well-known trial lawyer, were task force members present at the ceremony.
The lone non-Black member of the panel, attorney Don Tamaki, Esq., who is best known for his involvement in the Supreme Court case of Korematsu v. the United States, was also present.
The panel was briefly addressed by Atkins and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon.
Due to prior commitments, task force members Dr Jovan Scott Lewis, chair of the Department of Geography at the University of California Berkeley, and Monica Montgomery Steppe, a councilwoman from San Diego, we’re unable to travel.
The event, which coincided with the Assembly passing a resolution recognising the Juneteenth celebration, was attended by several CLBC members.
Supporting the task force members’ efforts were Assemblymembers Chris Holden (D-Pasadena), Mia Bonta (D-Alameda), Jim Cooper (D-Elk Grove), Lori Wilson (D-Suisun City), Akila Weber (D-La Mesa), Mike Gipson (D-Carson), and CLBC vice-chair Sen. Sydney Kamlager (D-Los Angeles).
On June 1, 2021, the Task Force met for the first time to investigate the long-term effects of prejudice against former slaves and their offspring.
The nine-member panel is mandated by Assembly Bill (AB) 3121, which was written by Shirley Weber, a former assemblywoman and current secretary of state of California, to make suggestions for how the state might recompense Black Californians who are decedents of enslaved African Americans.
A 483-page report created by the Civil Rights Enforcement Section of the California Department of Justice was made public by the task force on June 1st.
According to Grills, “the evidence in the interim report discloses unearthed facts about incidences that adversely and disproportionately harmed Black Californians in California for more than 170 years and the nation for the previous 400 years.”
“We are unable to comprehend who we are as a nation until we have a truthful reckoning. We will then have a chance for transformational change when we start to have that kind of reckoning, and I believe that the specific expression of the harm will be simpler to deal with.
According to Moore, the task force will concentrate its efforts over the coming 12 months on raising public knowledge of the interim report, encouraging community involvement, and developing a plan for how California should compensate its estimated 2 to 2.6 million Black Californians.
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Moore told CBM that the California Legislature needed to comprehend the significance of this endeavour. “We put forth a lot of effort over the past year.
I classified the following 12 months as the stage of development, during which the nine-member task force engages in in-depth and deliberate discussions about the nature of reparations.
