Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) signed a bill into law on Friday, launching a process for California to administer reparations for descendants of slaves.
The governor gave the final green light to Senate Bill 518, which establishes a new state agency responsible for verifying eligibility, processing claims, and recommending forms of reparations for descendants of slaves.
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“This law reflects a critical acknowledgment of the historic injustices that have shaped the Black experience in California and across this country,” California Legislative Black Caucus chair Weber Pierson said in a statement celebrating the new law.
“For generations, Black Americans have faced exclusion, exploitation, and systemic barriers to opportunity. With SB 518, we lay the foundation for a future built on truth, equity, and repair,” she continued.
The Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery within the California Department of Justice comes after California became the first state to form a reparations task force in 2020. And the new agency comes almost exactly a year after Newsom issued a formal apology for California’s “historical role in the perpetuation of slavery and its enduring legacy.”
“The State of California accepts responsibility for the role we played in promoting, facilitating, and permitting the institution of slavery, as well as its enduring legacy of persistent racial disparities. Building on decades of work, California is now taking another important step forward in recognizing the grave injustices of the past – and making amends for the harms caused,” the governor wrote in September 2024.
Newsom, now widely viewed as a likely 2028 presidential contender, allocated $12 million to reparations bills, sparking criticism from Republican leaders as the state grappled with a budget deficit.
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“Slavery was a stain on our nation’s history, but I don’t believe it’s fair to try to right the wrongs of the past at the expense of the people today who did nothing wrong,” said Assembly Republican leader James Gallagher. “More than a quarter of Californians are immigrants — how can we look at those people, who are struggling as it is, and say it’s on them to make up for something that happened more than 150 years ago?”
The matter of reparations has appeared to stoke some division between Newsom and the California American Freedmen Affairs Agency, which slammed the governor last year for appearing to kill reparations bills. The CAFAA saw some support from Republicans in the debate, as conflict rose between the reparations agency and the state’s Black Caucus, which backed Newsom.