California releasing first ever government-commissioned reparations report today.
The state to act on "comprehensive reparations" and extensive reforms in housing, education and the justice system according to a report scheduled for release this week by first-in-the-nation reparations task force. The panel are also urging the creation of a special new office delegated with providing financial means for Black residents, according to a draft version of the report. The interim report outlines centuries of racial oppression from the start of slavery in the 1600s to present-day issues experienced by Black Americans in California, and the rest of the country as well. The report also includes recommendations for repairing the damage in more than a dozen categories.
Members say it is to be the first government-commissioned detailing of transgressions against Black Americans since the federal Kerner Commission report in 1968. The history of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation and other discriminatory events against Black Americans detailed in the report illustrates the reasons a reparations program is needed, task force member Lisa Holder said. "The depth, breadth and scope of the report is astounding," Holder said. "We are evaluating racism beginning in 1619 and going all the way to the present … and connecting (past) injustices to injustice that we are seeing today."