SACRAMENTO, California — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday signed an official apology for harms caused by slavery and hundreds of years of discrimination against Black Californians.
“Healing can only begin with an apology,” said Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, who authored the apology bill, in a statement. “The state of California acknowledges its past actions and is taking this bold step to correct them, recognizing its role in hindering the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness for Black individuals through racially motivated punitive laws.”
Newsom also approved a handful of other bills enacting policies developed by the state’s reparations task force — which he helped create four years ago — to address issues such as maternal health disparities.
Other states — including Colorado, New York, and Massachusetts — have created reparations task forces or commissioned studies, and a number of states have issued apologies for slavery.
California task force members devoted months of research and public hearings to studying how centuries of racism affected descendants of enslaved people in the state. They issued a report last year detailing their findings.
The Legislative Black Caucus used the hundreds of recommendations from that report to draft legislation, though lawmakers did not advance a proposal for cash reparations. Caucus members expect to spend years writing those proposals into law.
The governor also approved legislation that would make public the list of books the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has banned in prison and would further protect Californians from being discriminated against due to their hair style or texture.
Black Caucus Chair Lori Wilson called the legislation Newsom approved “a meaningful foundation to address the historic injustices faced by Black Californians.”
The governor signed the bills just weeks after he faced backlash from some reparations advocates for amendments they claim stalled two related pieces of legislation. The Black Caucus on the last night of the legislative session opted to block bills from state Sen. Steven Bradford that would have created a Freedmen Affairs Agency and a reparations fund, saying they needed additional work.
Newsom’s team had sought major amendments to the Freedmen Affairs Agency bill. A set of proposed changes reviewed by POLITICO would have sent $6 million to California State University to study the implementation of task force findings instead of establishing the agency. Bradford rejected those changes.
Newsom yesterday vetoed a bill from Bradford that would have created a process for Californians who had their land unjustly seized through eminent domain to see it returned or seek compensation. In his veto message , he cited the lack of a state agency needed to implement the policy.
Local News
