Thread by @KamilahVMoore

California has undertaken the nation’s most sweeping effort yet to explore some concrete restitution to Black citizens to address the enduring economic effects of slavery and racism. #CRTF #ReparationsNow
nytimes.com/2022/12/01/bus… via @nytimes @kurtisalee

A THREAD 🧵:

1. “A nine-member Reparations Task Force has spent months traveling across California to learn about the generational effects of racist policies and actions.”

#AB3121 #CRTF #ReparationsNow

2. “The group, formed by legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020, is scheduled to release a report to lawmakers in Sacramento to next year outlining recommendations for state-level reparations.”

#AB3121 #CRTF #ReparationsNow

3. “In a preliminary report this year, the task force outlined how enslaved Black people were forced to California during the Gold Rush era…”

Read Chapter 2 of the task force’s interim report, on enslavement here: Oag.ca.gov/ab3121

#AB3121 #CRTF #ReparationsNow

4. “Californians eligible for reparations, the task force decided in March, would be descendants of enslaved African Americans or of a “free Black person living in the United States prior to the end of the 19th century.”

#AB3121 #CRTF #ReparationsNow

5. “The task force has identified five areas — housing discrimination, mass incarceration, unjust property seizures, devaluation of Black businesses and health care — in discussions for compensation.”

#AB3121 #CRTF #ReparationsNow

6. “For example, from 1933 to 1977, when it comes to housing discrimination, the task force estimates compensation of around $569 billion, with $223,200 per person.

Final figures will be released in the report next year [June 2024].” twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

7. “A blight law from 1945, the task force’s interim report explains, paved the way for officials to use eminent domain to destroy Black communities, including shuttering more than 800 businesses and displacing 4,700 households in San Francisco beginning in the 1950s.” #CRTF

8. After work on Interstate 210 began later that decade, the report goes on, the freeway was eventually built in the path of a Black business district in Pasadena, where city officials offered residents $75k— less than the minimum cost to buy a new 🏡 in the city— for their old🏡

9. “Gloria Moore grew up in Russell City, Calif., an unincorporated parcel near San Francisco Bay that was bulldozed in the 1960s through eminent domain.

After their home was taken for about $2,200, the family members struggled to regain the financial stability and community…”

10. The California Reparations Task Force meets again, in two weeks! Join us in person, on Wed. and Thurs. Dec. 14-15 at @Oakland City Hall from 9am-5pm PT.

Meeting topics: 1) residency requirements 2) final proposals 3) local reparations

Info: oag.ca.gov/ab3121/meetings

End 🧵.