Commission publishes report on future development of reparations programme

A Los Angeles city commission on Wednesday outlined several proposals that could be implemented to address the historical and current harm faced by Los Angeles' black residents. The full report is expected to be released next month.

The Los Angeles Civil + Human Rights and Equity Department and its Reparations Advisory Commission released a 56-page summary of their report, titled “An Examination of the Experiences of African Americans in Los Angeles,” on Tuesday. The report is intended to guide the development of a future reparations program for Los Angeles.

As part of the report, researchers from Cal State Northridge and the committee conducted a study that included survey responses and original historical research, covering the period from 1930 to 2022.

A total of 618 people who identified as Black or multiracial participated in the survey. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 97, with the majority being between 50 and 69 years old.

“Many people ask, 'What does slavery have to do with Los Angeles? What does reparations have to do with Los Angeles?'” Capri Maddox, general manager of the Civil Rights Division, said Tuesday at a news conference in the student union at Cal State Northridge.

“The dehumanization of people through Jim Crow and other policies like redlining has led to some of the problems we face in Los Angeles today.”

Khansa Jones-Muhammad, the commission's vice-chair, gave an overview of the report and noted that the full 400-page report is expected to be published next month.

The report identifies twelve “areas of harm” experienced by black residents of Los Angeles, including the effects of slavery, racist terror, psychological and physical harm and neglect, environmental and infrastructural racism, an unjust legal system, housing segregation, stolen land and limited opportunities, separate and unequal education, political disenfranchisement, the pathologization of the black family, control over creative, cultural and intellectual life, and the wealth gap.

“The impact of historical injustices dating back to slavery has affected the opportunities and outcomes of generations of Black people in Los Angeles,” the report said.

Muhammad spoke about the injustices that black residents have faced for decades.

The report described how the city was a “major center” of Ku Klux Klan activities between 1923 and 1935, with both Los Angeles Police Department officers and public officials playing a key role.

In the 1950s, the city's drug wars disproportionately targeted black communities, resulting in police harassment and arrests, Muhammad added. William Parker, chief of the LAPD from 1950 to 1966, used drug campaigns to “justify aggressive policing and racial segregation,” the report said.

“Over 65% of study participants reported that they or their families experienced police harassment between 1865 and 1968. From the post-civil rights period through the Black Lives Matter movement beginning in 2013, 68% of black Los Angeles residents surveyed reported experiencing excessive police presence,” the report said.

Muhammad later addressed the challenges that black residents of Los Angeles continue to face today, such as barriers to purchasing apartments and homes, health disparities compared to whites and other racial and ethnic groups, lack of opportunity and other obstacles.

The report highlights three recommendations for each of the 12 areas of harm that could be implemented, but the Commission said many more were included in the full report.

For example, to repair the consequences of slavery, the commission recommended that the city of Los Angeles issue an official “acknowledgement and apology” for the injustices of slavery and Jim Crow laws, document the history of slavery in the city, and fund studies to ensure that African American history is not erased.

California was admitted to the United States as a free state in 1850 and fought on the side of the Union in the Civil War. Legal racial segregation, which was practiced in the South until the 1960s, did not exist in California.

Addressing the impact of an unjust legal system, the commission recommended that the city implement anti-racism and racial justice training, as well as de-escalation training. The commissioners also recommended that the city calculate the costs of excessive police presence, police harassment, and wrongful convictions and compensate Black residents of Los Angeles for them.

The commission was created in 2021 and is tasked with engaging the public and gathering scientific and participatory research to develop a reparations program. A final proposal is expected to be presented to City Council and Mayor Karen Bass in early 2025, according to the Civil Rights Division.

Last year, the Reparations Committee met in South Los Angeles to hear about the experiences of black Los Angeles residents and discuss their desires for a reparations program.

Michael Lawson, CEO and president of the LA Urban League, who also serves as chair of the commission, had previously described reparations as a “program to recognize, repair and end grave wrongs, supported by law and enforced by government agencies.”

In June, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a motion by Supervisor Holly Mitchell to implement local reparations initiatives based on the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparations Proposals for African Americans.

The report will include recommendations on actions that county boards can take to provide redress to eligible residents and will include suggested language for a board resolution acknowledging and apologizing to the Black community and their descendants “for the county’s role in structural racism, violence, and other such harms.”

Commission publishes report on future development of reparations programme

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Commission publishes report on future development of reparations programme

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