LOS ANGELES — If California is to make reparations to Black residents whose families have been harmed by slavery and its ongoing economic repercussions, how should the program be structured?
Should reparations be given as cash payments to individuals? Or should they come in other forms of government assistance in Black communities? What legal challenges exist?
These and many other questions were the subject of a two-day hearing by California's Reparations Task Force, a first-in-the-nation panel established in 2020 to develop proposals for potential reparations for Black families — who have been harmed for generations by enslavement, segregation, redlining and other racist state policies and laws.
