California urges scholarships for black teens to repay slavery debt

A 500-page report lists the damage of slavery that has lingered long after it was abolished in the 19th century.

Gavin Newsom created the reparations task force in 2020. Picture: AFP

Black teenagers in California should be given university scholarships to right the historic wrongs of slavery, a state taskforce has recommended.

A 500-page report listed the damage of slavery that has lingered long after it was abolished in the 19th century, including discrimination in housing, education and employment.

The reparations taskforce made sweeping recommendations, such as the creation of a state-subsidised mortgage program to guarantee low rates for qualifying black candidates and free healthcare to combat “discrimination”.

The report, released overnight Thursday, called for black students to get scholarships covering four years of education.

It also recommended significant prison reforms.

While black people make up nearly 6 per cent of California’s population, they comprise 28 per cent of its prisoners. The report said inmates should be allowed to vote and prisoners should not be forced to work. If they do, they should be paid fair market wages.

The committee called for the creation of a cabinet-level position to oversee an African-American affairs agency with branches for education, social services and legal affairs.

“Segregation, racial terror, harmful racist neglect and other atrocities in nearly every sector of civil society have inflicted harms, which cascade over a lifetime and compound over generations,” the report said.

California Governor Gavin Newsom created the reparations taskforce in 2020.

The committee voted in March to limit reparations to the descendants of black people who were in the US in the 19th century, ignoring pleas to expand the compensation. The latest report said black people in California were more likely to be poor than white residents and less likely to own a home.

California’s black population rose from 124,000 in 1940 to more than 1.4 million in 1970 as workers migrated from the southern states after the Second World War. Official figures show that about a third of the state’s homeless population in 2019 were black.

Those opposed to reparations say California did not have plantations or the same segregation as the South. But the report said the state, despite being “free”, brought in racist laws, the legacy of which still linger.

The Ku Klux Klan once flourished in California, with members holding positions in city government and the police, while black families were forced to live in segregated areas.

“California was not a passive actor in perpetuating these harms,” stat Attorney-General Rob Bonta said. His office assisted the taskforce.

“This interim report is a historic step … to acknowledge the insidious effects of slavery and ongoing systemic discrimination, recognise the state’s failings and move toward rectifying the harm,” Mr Bonta said.

The committee said the report should offer other cities, states and ultimately the federal government a blueprint for seeking reparations.

Justin Hansford, a law professor at Howard University in Washington, said. “The big question is: What are they going to do with it? The danger here is that everyone reads it and nods their heads and waits on the taskforce to initiate the response. We need to have universities, local governments, businesses and others working together to do their part to address … the recommendations offered in the report.”

The Times