Black Families In California Fight For Land, Call For Reparations

The practice of eminent domain has been the source of recent pushes for Black people to receive reparations, or repayment for the wrongs done to them by their state or federal governments.

Black families in Coloma, California, a small town of around 300 people, are fighting to receive restitution for land that they say was denied to their ancestors by the State of California in order to create a state park. Coloma, historically, is one of the places where the Gold Rush of the 19th Century was kicked off, and among those who came to California seeking the opportunity to strike it rich were free and enslaved Black Americans.

According to CBS News, roughly 100 years after the Gold Rush, California took lands from inhabitants, likely using eminent domain law, for the creation of the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, which opened in 1942. The California State Park Department is aware that the land of some Black people was taken in order to create the park, and lists information about property that was historically owned by Black families at the site of the park.

According to two sets of descendants of Nelson Bell, a formerly enslaved Black man from Virginia who settled in the area, they believe his land was stolen through the machinations of the legal system. According to a document CBS News procured from the El Dorado History Museum, a judge determined that since Bell had no heirs living in California at the time of his death in 1869, his estate would go on the auction block, allowing whoever wanted the property to bid for and purchase it.

Elmer Fonza, a retired brewery worker who moved to Nevada from California, and the third-great grandson of Bell, is not sure what happened to the property after it went up for auction, but testified at the final meeting of California’s state reparations task force that he believed the family should still have ownership of the land.

“We rightfully believe that we have been denied the generational wealth that our family may have been entitled to if given our rightful inheritance — the land once owned by Nelson Bell.” Fonza said at the meeting.

Another family who claims to be descended from Bell, but not related to Fonza, is the Burgess family. That family, who also claims Rufus Morgan Burgess, a Black writer who was brought to the city along with his enslaved father as an ancestor, told CBS News that if the land cannot be returned to the families it was originally stolen from, then they should be compensated.

Jonathan Burgess, the co-owner of a barbeque catering business and a Sacramento resident, told the outlet, “We have to bring forth the truth, because that’s reconciliation. And then once we bring forth the truth, which I’ve been doing in speaking the whole time, we’ve got to make it right.”

The discrepancy between the two family kinships is an illustration of the kind of work that is in front of Black families if California declares that as a condition of receiving reparations they have to produce and document their lineage, which is often a difficult task for Black families due to the practice of family separation during enslavement and documents which outright erased them from records.

California lawmakers are currently considering reparations proposals in the California State Legislature, including a bill that would create the California American Freedmen Affairs Agency, which would assist Black residents in researching their sometimes fragmented family histories. The legislature is also weighing another proposal, which is similar to Burgess’ argument. That piece of legislation would entitle Black Californians who had their land taken by the government using racially discriminatory means or methods to compensation for the lost lands or the return of the property.

The practice of eminent domain has been the source of recent pushes for Black people to receive reparations or repayment for the wrongs done to them by their state or federal governments. In June 2023, Michael Jones, a 63-year-old resident of Huntsville, Alabama, told The New York Times that his family’s fight was really about the erasure of their ability to build and create wealth.

“For our family and others, it’s not just about the taking of the land; it’s about the taking of our ability to build wealth,” Jones said.