The ACBA Board of Directors has passed the following resolution endorsing the mission and overall efforts of the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans.
On the 25th of May, 2020, George Floyd’s murder, captured in an horrific 9 minutes and 29 seconds of video, triggered the largest protests in American history, and moved the Legislature to pass Secretary Shirley Weber’s bill creating the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans.
On June 1, 2022, the Task Force published a sweeping, nearly 500-page Report drawing a through-line from the harm of 250 years of slavery and racial terror, 90 years of Jim Crow exclusion, and decades more of continuing discrimination resulting in today’s outcomes which are at once shocking, but not surprising:
America is as segregated today as it was in the 1940’s. The historic exclusion of African Americans from equal education, employment, the benefits of the New Deal, federally insured home loans, access to suburbia, and other opportunities that created America’s middle class has resulted in White households having 9 times more assets than Black households, and huge disparities that persist in housing, homelessness, healthcare, policing, and criminal justice, and in almost all other aspects of American life.
California is the first and so far, the only state to shine a light on the cumulating and compounding consequences of this multi-generational harm.
Check out the Reparations Reports page here, with links to the Full Interim Report, the Executive Summary, Key Findings, and Preliminary Recommendations.
ACBA RESOLUTION RELATED TO THE CALIFORNIA TASK FORCE TO STUDY AND DEVELOP REPARATION PROPOSALS FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS
WHEREAS, California Assembly Bill 3121 (AB 3121) was enacted on September 30, 2020, and established the Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans (Task Force or Reparations Task Force). AB 3121 charges the California Department of Justice with providing administrative, technical, and legal assistance to the Task Force.
WHEREAS, The institution of slavery is inextricably woven into the establishment, history, and prosperity of the United States. Constitutionally and statutorily sanctioned from 1619 to 1865, slavery deprived more than four million Africans and their descendants of life, liberty, citizenship, cultural heritage, and economic opportunity.
WHEREAS, Following the abolition of slavery, government entities at the federal, state, and local levels continued to perpetuate, condone, and often profit from practices that brutalized African Americans and excluded them from meaningful participation in society. This legacy of slavery and racial discrimination has resulted in debilitating economic, educational, and health hardships that are uniquely experienced by African Americans.
WHEREAS, AB 3121 charged the Reparations Task Force with studying the institution of slavery and its lingering negative effects on living African Americans, including descendants of persons enslaved in the United States, and on society. Additionally, the Task Force will recommend appropriate remedies of compensation, rehabilitation, and restitution for African Americans, with special consideration for descendants of persons enslaved in the United States. By statute, the Task Force will issue a report to the Legislature by June 1, 2022, which will be available to the public.
WHEREAS, On June 1, 2022, the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans released its Interim Report providing an in-depth overview of the cumulative, cascading, and continuing harms inflicted on African Americans resulting from 246 years of enslavement, 90 years of Jim Crow, and decades more of systemic discrimination.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Board of Directors that the Alameda County Bar Association endorses the mission and overall efforts of the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Board authorizes our organization to be listed publicly as an endorsee; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Board encourages staff/designated person to share our endorsement on our website, social media accounts, newsletter, and other such places where our supporters can learn about our position on this issue.