SAN FRANCISCO — California’s first-in-the-nation reparations task force meets in person Wednesday, the first time members have gathered face-to-face since their inaugural meeting nearly a year ago and mere weeks after the group voted to limit restitution to descendants of enslaved Black people.
The two-day event will be held at Third Baptist Church in San Francisco’s historic Fillmore district, a neighborhood once thriving with African American night clubs and shops until government redevelopment forced out residents. Its pastor is Rev. Amos Brown, task force vice chair and president of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation creating the two-year reparations task force in 2020, making California the only state to move ahead with a mission to study the institution of slavery, educate the public about its findings and develop remedies. Reparations movement at the federal level has not gone anywhere, but cities and universities across the country are taking up the issue.
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