Newsom Pledged $12 Million for Racial Justice in California. What Now?

In June 2024, Gov. Gavin Newsom set aside $12 million to spend on reparations legislation, a historic move by the state to atone for its legacy of racism and discrimination against Black residents.

While the dispersal of the money is still being decided in the state Legislature, disagreements over how it should be used have surfaced between politicians, academics and reparative justice advocates.

With the state budget deadline approaching, some restorative justice advocates see an opportunity to advance the movement — despite efforts by the Trump administration to curtail conversations about race and accountability. Three bills backed by reparative justice advocates — and based on recommendations from the California Reparations Task Force — are set to be voted on this year, with a recently passed bill creating a new state agency to oversee restitution for descendants of enslaved people.

KQED spoke to lawmakers, academics and advocates to figure out what is happening with the $12 million, how we got here and what the future holds for the reparations movement.

• Jump to: What does the future of reparations in California look like?

What is the $12 million for?

The $12 million is coming from the state’s general fund. It’s a small slice of the fiscal year’s $297.9 billion budget, approximately 0.004%, but the state is grappling with a projected shortfall of billions of dollars and proposed cuts to services such as health care for undocumented people.

As former state Sen. Steven Bradford, who was on the task force, said to NPR last year, the $12 million does not “come close to healing or addressing all the massive wrongs and continued vestiges of slavery and discrimination,” but “it lets folks know that we’re serious about it.”

“It’s a beginning,” he said.

Will there be cash payments?

Reparations are often associated with direct payments to individuals.

After the abolishment of slavery in the United States, a government program promised to provide “40 Acres and a Mule” to formerly enslaved people. But the promise was never fulfilled. The few Black families who were given property had it swiftly taken away after President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, according to an investigation by Mother Jones, the Center of Public Integrity and Reveal.

“Reparation was never about a check. It was about land. It was about property ownership,” Bradford, who was also the vice chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus, said. “But if it were to be a check, the minimum it should be is [around $350,000], because that was clearly identified through leading economists of what the wealth gap is between African American families and their white counterparts. That should be the floor, not the ceiling.”

“I don’t think this state — or this nation — can ever fully compensate those descendants of slavery who built this country,” Bradford added. “It’s not enough money in our coffers to do so, but we can make amends and provide some kind of level of recognition.”

The government has doled out cash payments for reparations before. In 1988, demand pushed the United States government to distribute reparations to around 82,000 people for the mass incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry during World War II. In 2024, some Californian women who were forcibly sterilized in prison received payments from the state.

One of the top recommendations from the California Reparations Task Force was direct cash payments — totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars — to descendants of enslaved people.

But the idea of payments has been difficult to get support from political figures, like Newsom, who cite budgetary issues.

The $12 million has been allotted for “the implementation of reparations legislation that is enacted into law,” meaning any bills or proposals that pass through the state government.

“The intent is for the Administration to work with the Legislature on the allocation of these funds,” a spokesperson for the California Department of Finance said in a statement to KQED.

The spokesperson said that there are no requirements for the bill at present, and there is no specific timeline associated with appropriation of the money.

The Bay Area will see a glimpse of how reparations can work when invested in public infrastructure. In East Oakland, a collective of nonprofits called Rise East unlocked a $50 million grant from Blue Meridian Partners, a national philanthropic organization, by raising a matching $50 million. The money will be used for Rise East’s 10-year plan to address decades of harm.

How did we get here?

Although California entered the union as a free state in 1850, it did not ratify the 14th and 15th Amendments — granting citizenship and voting rights, respectively — for more than a century. After the abolishment of slavery, attacks on Black people continued. In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan had a sizable presence in California, and discriminatory housing laws and redlining dismantled neighborhoods like San Francisco’s Fillmore District.

As the reparations task force noted in its report, the life expectancy gap between Black Californians and their white counterparts can be “interpreted as the cumulative effect of unequal treatment.”

“Reparations were never a handout,” Bradford said to KQED. “It was never charity. It was what was promised and what was owed and what’s 160 years overdue — whether it’s in the form of a check, continued education, ongoing health care, homebuyers assistance, tax exemptions for a period of time, business loans.

“It’s many ways that we can provide opportunities to folks who have been disenfranchised in this country simply because of the color of their skin.”

Reparations gained momentum across the United States after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis officers five years ago, as protests against police brutality and anti-Black racism blossomed in California and across the country.

The social upheaval from four years ago provided the legislative support for Assembly Bill 3121, which created the reparations task force — the first statewide body to study reparative measures for Black people.

In June 2023, after two years of research, the task force released a final report of more than 1,000 pages outlining policies to help close racial gaps in housing, education and health — including a K–12 Black studies curriculum, wellness centers in Black communities and free tuition at California public colleges and universities.

In addition to direct payments, another major recommendation was the creation of the California American Freedman Affairs Agency (PDF), which would administer reparations, offer legal services and operate a genealogy office.

How genealogy comes into play

One major point of contention the reparations task force addressed was determining who would be eligible for reparations. While some members of the task force were in favor of limiting restitution to those who can prove they are the descendants of an enslaved person, others argued for race-based eligibility. Under the latter, any Black person in the state would be eligible for reparations regardless of descendancy.

In 2022, the task force voted 5–4 to limit its compensation eligibility to people whose lineage can be traced to an enslaved person. While some of the recommendations in the task force’s final report addressed systemic issues that affect all Black Californians, the decision to limit eligibility for direct compensation was controversial.

Lisa Holder, a task force member and president of the Oakland-based Equal Justice Society, said she supports race-based reparations because the harm experienced by Black people did not end with the abolition of slavery.

Holder said decades of segregation in the United States, along with its history of colonization in Africa and the Caribbean, have denied many Black and African people the opportunities they should have had access to. Discriminatory practices in the educational system and the United States’ financial institutions, as well as abuses by law enforcement, have also perpetuated a continued cycle of race-based harm, she added.

“Black people throughout the diaspora have been harmed by anti-Black animus and anti-Black hate,” Holder said. “All Black people deserve repair.”

Other task force members and reparations advocates expressed concern that race-based reparations could be more vulnerable to legal challenges.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, said the Supreme Court has made it clear that it is hostile to policies that include “racial preference,” even those that are meant to remediate past instances of discrimination. They could be declared unconstitutional, he said.

Chemerinsky, who testified before the task force in 2022, said a reparations package based on lineage would be more likely to hold up in court because it avoids the kind of racial classifications that have undermined policies like affirmative action.

“Although most enslaved individuals were Black individuals, there were also individuals who were not Black who were enslaved,” Chemerinsky told KQED.

It’s not a matter of the greatest social good, but rather what will most likely survive judicial examination, he said. Racial considerations were used for recommendations that look at broader systemic change, according to Holder.

“It’s not just about a check in the mail,” Holder said. “It is about rehabilitating our systems.

“The reparations package and the 115 bills that we introduced as a task force toggle back and forth between direct payments and financial compensation and systemic repair. All Black people — frankly, all people — are eligible for that.”

What bills were on the table in 2024?

Last year, the California Legislative Black Caucus introduced a slate of bills incorporating many of the task force’s policy proposals.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed six of the 14 bills, including one that requires the state to issue a formal apology for its role in harming Black residents through racist and oppressive policies. Under Assembly Bill 3089, a plaque displaying the official apology is set to be installed in the State Capitol Building in Sacramento, though no action has been taken yet.

The Department of General Services requested $500,000 (PDF) for the plaque, which the Department of Finance said is separate from the $12 million. According to the Department of General Services, there is no timeline on the plaque until the item is approved by the state Legislature and the budget is signed.

Other bills signed by Newsom last year include:

• Assembly Bill 1815: Prohibits discrimination based on certain traits associated with race, such as hair texture or style.
• Senate Bill 1089: Requires grocery stores and pharmacies to provide employees, county officials and surrounding communities with advanced notice of their impending closures.
• Assembly Bill 1986: Allows the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Office of the Inspector General to track and publicize which books are banned in state prisons.
• Assembly Bill 1929: Requires data tracking of who receives state technical education grants to be disaggregated by race.
• Assembly Bill 3131: Requires the state Department of Education to prioritize socioeconomically disadvantaged communities in historically redlined communities for career education grants.

Tensions rising

For many organizers and reparations advocates, it was not enough.

The reparations task force “did a really good job of working out the mechanics,” said Kamilah Moore, the former chair of the task force. “I’ve been trying to stay optimistic, but it is a bit disconcerting — even upsetting — given that the task force ended June ’23. It’ll be almost two years, and there hasn’t been much progress.”

Former state Sen. Steven Bradford introduced three bills last year that many in the movement saw as the centerpiece of the CLBC’s reparations package. All three failed.

Senate Bill 1403 would have created the California American Freedmen Agency to implement the reparations task force’s recommendations, while Senate Bill 1331 would have funded it. Both bills were ultimately pulled off the floor by members of the Black Caucus before they could be voted on after pressure from Newsom’s office, sparking backlash from reparations activists who criticized members of the Black Caucus.

Many were frustrated by what they felt was a unilateral decision to reject Bradford’s bills, despite what constituents were calling for.

“I’m living in Sacramento. There’s no Black Caucus member that represents the Sacramento area,” said Chris Lodgson, an organizer with the Coalition for a Just and Equitable California, or CJEC. “I can’t vote against them if I don’t like what they do.”

Senate Bill 1050, which would have provided compensation to people affected by racist land seizures, received approval from both legislative houses but was vetoed. According to Newsom, there is no existing agency that could implement the bill, though SB 1403 would have created one.

In May 2024, CalMatters reported that members of the CLBC sent a letter to Newsom asking that $6 million of the $12 million allocation be sent to the California Black Freedom Fund, a $100 million initiative dedicated to funding nonprofits that support Black communities and tackle anti-Blackness.

According to Moore, community organizations such as the ones supported by the fund can be difficult to track and oversee.

“We’re not denigrating the utility of nonprofits or the work that they’ve done for our communities,” Moore said. “But this is a reparations commission. … The state should not outsource the solutions to nonprofits.”

What are the bills in play right now in 2025?

While there is only one bill that seeks funding from the $12 million, there are several bills in session meant to address the harms of institutional racism that have attracted the attention of reparations activists.

Senate Bill 518 

Status: Passed

Who introduced the bill? State Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson (D-San Diego).

What does it do? This bill would create a Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery within the Department of Justice. The leader of the bureau would be appointed by the attorney general and confirmed by the Senate. The bureau would “determine how an individual’s status as a descendant would be confirmed.”

What is the discussion around it? Newsom signed the bill into law on Oct. 10.

“California is not just confronting the past. We are investing in the future,” Weber Pierson said in a news release. “With SB 518, we have created a model for how states can move from study to structure, from intention to action. This is about building something permanent that honors the truth and restores dignity to the descendants of those who endured generations of injustice.”

CJEC pushed back on the bureau’s language in June, saying the bill would open services to non-descendants of slavery.

“I don’t want to have to go to the state’s top law enforcement body to do my reparations claims. Or have my genealogy data sitting with the state’s top police,” Lodgson added. “That is crazy to me.”

Senate Bill 437

Status: In progress

Who introduced the bill? Weber Pierson (D-San Diego)

What does it do? It seeks $6 million to enable “the California State University to conduct research in furtherance of the recommendations of the task force, thereby making an appropriation.” Citing the task force, the guidelines of the bill would propose research to conduct and determine ways to confirm an individual’s status as a descendant of an enslaved person.

What is the discussion around it? Some critics argue that the bill is redundant. Last year, Newsom’s administration offered the same language as an amendment to one of Bradford’s bills, which he rejected, saying it recreated what the task force had already done.

“The task force studied reparations for two years,” Bradford said. “No disrespect to the CSUs … [but] they would just further meat on the bone, so to speak, on how it would be structured. But not the implementation of reparations. There are professional genealogists out there already.”

Lodgson agreed, saying that the task force’s recommendation to provide genealogy services is “very different from giving the CSU $6 million to research how to do genealogy.”

Assembly Bill 1315

Status: In progress

Who introduced the bill? Former Assemblymember Bill Essayli, who is currently the interim United States attorney for the Central District of California. The bill needs a new author, Lodgson said.

What does it do? This bill would create a California American Freedmen Affairs Agency within the state government. The leader of the agency would be appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate. The purpose of the agency is to “verify a resident’s status as an American Freedman, as defined, and create and maintain an accurate database registry of American Freedmen residents.”

What is the discussion around it? As described by Lodgson, the legislation is “in direct competition” with Weber Pierson’s bill and was brought to Essayli by the CJEC. Lodgson defended working with a Republican lawmaker, saying it follows what the task force recommended more closely. Moore agreed.

In mid-October, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed several reparations-related bills, arguing they were unnecessary, would strain state resources or posed legal risks. The measures included:

• AB 7, which would have allowed descendants of enslaved people to receive preference in university admissions, business licenses and first-time homebuyer loans.
• AB 57, which proposed setting aside 10% of funds in the California Dream for All Program for descendants of enslaved people.
• AB 62, which would have allowed residents who lost property through racist eminent domain policies to petition the state for compensation.
• AB 742, which sought to prioritize professional license applications for descendants of enslaved people.

What does the future of reparations in California look like?

For many racial justice advocates, the mass protests following George Floyd’s murder in 2020 marked a moment of racial reckoning for institutions across the United States.

Politicians and government agencies, media outlets and corporations responded with urgency, issuing statements of solidarity and introducing initiatives that would increase diversity, equity and inclusion.

“Some of it was meaningful,” Eric Garcia, co-director of Detour Productions in San Francisco, told KQED Arts. “A lot of it was reactive, short-lived and ultimately self-serving.”

Five years later, the political landscape in the United States has taken a sharp, rightward turn. As the Trump administration continues to condemn efforts to improve diversity and equity in both the public and private sectors, reparations advocates are searching for new ways to advance the racial justice movement.

“There is tremendous hostility from the White House to civil rights,” said Chemerinsky, the dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law. “It’s impossible at this moment to know how successful the Trump administration will be in undermining civil rights law, but there’s no doubt that they’re engaged in a concerted effort to do so.”

It has also impacted how policymakers approach racial justice policies. Black legislators in California, for example, have avoided using the term “reparations” in bills due to its association with direct cash payments, according to a report by Politico.

“I feel the California Legislative Black Caucus is very much committed to this issue and committed to staying with the issue for more than one legislative session,” said Holder. “This is not a one-and-done program. This is not about trying to fix 400 years of harm in 15 minutes. That’s unrealistic and that will be unsuccessful.”

She continued: “In this moment, when we are dealing essentially with an apex predator who’s attacking democracy and who has hijacked our federal government and our resources, we have to really be strategic.”

Lodgson argued that not much has changed for him, as the bills he supported failed under a Democratic administration.

“Democrats and Republicans — none of these administrations supported reparations at the federal level. None of them,” he said.

Bradford said California missed a critical opportunity last year to enact reparations.

“We first must understand the history and understand why, when it comes to African Americans, we always continue to have to take a back seat and say, ‘Get over it’ or ‘It’s not a priority,’” he said. “It’s still a priority. It still needs to be addressed.”

KQED’s Guy Marzorati contributed to this report.

What questions do you have?

At KQED News, we aim to publish guides that dispel confusion and answer burning questions.

If you have more inquiries about reparations or racial justice, please let us know, and we’ll do our best to answer. It will make our reporting stronger and will help us decide what to cover.