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California legislators could soon approve billions of dollars in reparations for Black residents, but past restitution programs in the state suggest that those efforts can be challenging to execute.
On Monday, the California Reparations Task Force released the first monetary estimates that Black residents could receive from the state as compensation for the state's history of slavery and reparations. Amounts could range from $2,300 to $77,000 a person, based on calculations of specific racial harms and the duration of time that an individual has lived in California.
The task force, which is the first of its kind, is expected to vote on the proposal Saturday. If approved, their recommendations would be sent to the state Legislature, which would draft a new bill and head to Governor Gavin Newsom's desk if it passes.
In 2021, California became the the third state to approve reparations for survivors who were sterilized under state eugenics laws, following North Carolina and Virginia, and the first state to approve such compensations for those who were sterilized while incarcerated in the state's women's prisons.
Newsom approved a $4.5 million budget request to provide reparations for an estimated 600 people who remain alive today and who were sterilized by California's government without their knowledge, paying each at least $15,000 in restitution.
Since 1909, the state sterilized roughly 20,000 people, making California's forced sterilization program the nation's largest. The program disproportionately targeted Latinas, Blacks, poor populations and those with disabilities.
Applications under Newsom's initiative began in January 2022, but as of January, a year into the search for eligible claimants, only 51 people received a payment. The state denied 103 applications and were still processing 153 others. The numbers suggest that the majority of survivors who are eligible for reparations have yet to apply for those payments. Applications will only be accepted up to the end of this year, so the window to find all those individuals is closing.
The struggle to pay out those reparations shows the challenges of such programs.
North Carolina faced its own issues after conflicts arose over who would be eligible for restitutions from the $10 million fund. In 2013, the state denied claims from relatives of victims who had died, while others were turned away for not meeting the criteria of being sterilized by the state eugenics program. Some were sterilized by county welfare offices.
One of the most famous U.S. reparation programs were the two that Congress awarded to Japanese-Americans who were sent to internment camps during World War II.
The Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act of 1948 paid out $37 million to 26,000 claimants. Forty years later, Congress voted to pay an additional $20,000 to each internment camp survivor in 1988, distributing $1.6 billion to more than 82,000 eligible claimants.
Japanese-American groups have been among the most supportive proponents of the Black reparations movement.
In March 2020, John Tateishi, who was a key figure in the campaign for Japanese-American reparations, told NPR that while the two situations are "very different" and he had no answers to the question of reparations for victims of slavery, "I can't think of any group that has suffered racism to the degree that black Americans have."
There have been states and cities that have already approved reparations for Black residents.
In 1994, Florida issued $2.1 million in compensation to survivors of the 1923 Rosewood massacre, during which a racist mob attacked Black residents after there was an allegation that a Black man had assaulted a white woman.
More recently, in 2015, the city of Chicago approved $5.5 million in reparations for 57 Black prisoners who had been subjected to torture by police in order to obtain false confessions.
About the writer
Katherine Fung is a Newsweek senior reporter based in New York City. She has covered U.S. politics and culture extensively. ... Read more