The San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee just released a comprehensive proposal that would provide eligible Black residents with a one-time lump sum payment of $5 million dollars for reparations.
Although there’s no need to pack your bags and head out West just yet—the draft recommendation would require eligible recipients “to be at least 18 years old and have identified as ‘Black/African American’ in public documents for at least 10 years,” on top of meeting two other criteria out of the following list, which is subject to change: “being born in or migrating to San Francisco between 1940 and 1996 and living in the city for least 13 years; being displaced from the city by urban renewal between 1954 and 1973, or the descendant of someone who was; attending the city’s public schools before they were fully desegregated; or being a descendant of an enslaved person.”
This resulted after Gavin Newsom, Governor of California, “created a statewide reparations task force,” and subsequently “San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, led by Supervisor Shamann Walton, created the 15-member African American Reparations Advisory Committee in late 2020,” which occurred in the wake of the George Floyd’s murder.
Predictably, members of the GOP have been critical of the proposal, and San Francisco Republican Party chair John Dennis criticized the $5 million lump sum payments, citing them as impractical, stating “This conversation we’re having in San Francisco is completely unserious. They just threw a number up, there’s no analysis…It seems ridiculous, and it also seems that this is the one city where it could possibly pass.”
Eric McDonnell, reparations committee chair, did indicate that while “[t]here wasn’t a math formula… It was a journey for the committee towards what could represent a significant enough investment in families to put them on this path to economic well-being, growth and vitality that chattel slavery and all the policies that flowed from it destroyed.”
The plan discussed the fact that, “[w]hile neither San Francisco, nor California, formally adopted the institution of chattel slavery, the values of segregation, white supremacy and systematic repression and exclusion of Black people were legally codified and enforced.”
What were some of the other original submitted recommendations by the reparations committee? Per the Associated Press, “[t]he elimination of personal debt and tax burdens, guaranteed annual incomes of at least $97,000 for 250 years and homes in San Francisco for just $1 a family” also were on the list.”
There is no deadline for San Francisco to make a decision, although the final report from the committee is due this June. Of note is the lack of authority from the committee to implement any of its recommendations.
But those in favor of reparations policies believe this is a step in the right direction, following on the heels of several progressive cities across the country that have begun to tackle this hot button issue, including Evanston, a suburb of Chicago, who funded reparations and became the first U.S. to do so, “giving money to qualifying people for home repairs, property down payments, and interest or late penalties due on city property.”
If this California initiative is successful, San Francisco would become the first major city in the country to fund a reparations policy.