By JANIE HAR
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — The slavery redress movement reached a turning point Wednesday with the release of a comprehensive report detailing California’s role in perpetuating discrimination against African Americans, an important step in educating the public and preparing the stage for an official government apology and a case for financial restitution. .
The 500-page document exposes the harm suffered by the descendants of enslaved people long after the abolition of slavery in the 19th century, through discriminatory laws and actions in all facets of life, from housing and education to employment and the legal system.
“Four hundred years of discrimination has resulted in a huge and persistent wealth gap between black and white Americans,” according to the interim report from the California Task Force to Study and Develop Remedial Proposals for African Americans.
“These effects of slavery remain entrenched in American society today and have never been sufficiently remedied,” the report says. “The governments of the United States and the state of California have never apologized or compensated African Americans for these damages.”
The Rev. Dr. Amos C. Brown, vice chair of the task force, pastor of the Third Baptist Church of San Francisco and president of the San Francisco branch of the NAACP, said the report details a litany of injustices that many are unaware of. associated with California.
“It puts in no uncertain terms the practices, the inequalities, the disparities,” Brown, a veteran of the civil rights movement who studied under Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and was arrested with him in 1961 at a food counter. -in, he said in an interview with the Bay Area News Group. “It gives the general public the facts. It is not invented, it is the facts.
The task force recommends creating a state-subsidized mortgage program to ensure low rates for qualifying African-American applicants, as well as free health care, free tuition to California colleges and universities, and scholarships for African-American high school graduates to cover four years of college education. .
The committee is also seeking a cabinet-level secretary position to oversee a Black Affairs agency with branches for civic engagement, education, social services, cultural affairs and legal affairs. It would help people research and document their lineage back to a 19th century ancestor so they could qualify for financial restitution.
Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation creating the two-year task force in 2020, making California the only state to move forward with a study and plan. Cities and universities have taken up the cause, with the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois becoming the first city to offer reparations to black residents last year.
The task force, which began meeting in June 2021, will publish a comprehensive plan for repairs next year. The committee voted in March to limit reparations to descendants of blacks who lived in the US in the 19th century, defeating advocates who wanted to extend compensation to all blacks in the US.
California is home to the fifth largest black population in the United States, after Texas, Florida, Georgia and New York, according to the report. An estimated 2.8 million black people live in California, according to the report, though it’s unclear how many are eligible for compensation.
African Americans make up nearly 6% of California’s population, but are overrepresented in jails, juvenile detention centers, and prisons. About 28% of those incarcerated in California are black, and in 2019, African-American youth made up 36% of juveniles ordered into state juvenile detention facilities.
Nearly 9% of people living below the poverty level in the state were African American and 30% of homeless people in 2019 were black, according to state figures.
Black Californians earn less and are more likely to be poor than white residents. In 2018, black residents earned just under $54,000 on average compared to $87,000 for white Californians. In 2019, 59% of white households owned their homes, compared to 35% of black Californians.
“This didn’t just happen,” Brown said. “It happened because of discriminatory practices, like the devaluing of Black property, the disproportionate arrest and lockup of Black people in the criminal justice system, the disenfranchisement of people, the existence of food deserts in our communities where we don’t we could get quality food, not have health services, not have our fair share of doctors. It has ripple effects.”
The task force makes general initial recommendations, including within the prison system: Incarcerated people should not be forced to work while in prison, and if they do, they should be paid fair market wages. Inmates should also be able to vote and people with felony convictions should serve on juries, according to the report.
Although California was a “free” state in the run-up to the US Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan flourished, with members holding positions in law enforcement and city government. African-American families were forced to live in segregated neighborhoods that were more likely to be contaminated.
Missouri native Basil Campbell, for example, was bought for $1,200 and forced to move to Yolo County in 1854, leaving behind his wife and two children. Campbell eventually paid the purchase price, married, and became a landowner. When his children petitioned for a share of his estate after his death, a California judge ruled that marriage between two enslaved people “is not a marital relationship.”
In 1958, a black school teacher, Alfred Simmons, rented a house from a white person in the Elmwood neighborhood of Berkeley, exclusively for whites. Berkeley’s police chief complained to the FBI, and the Federal Housing Administration told the white landlord that future mortgage applications would be denied because renting to a black person was an “unsatisfactory risk determination,” according to the report.
“California was not a passive actor in perpetuating these harms,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta, whose office assisted the task force.
Brown said that if the report “doesn’t change its mind, America is going down the drain.”
“As long as America is cruel, disrespectful and unfair to black people,” he said, “it will never recover.”
— Bay Area News Group staff writer John Woolfolk contributed to this report.
Reference-www.mercurynews.com