Amid the Trump administration’s full throated attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion, Black lawmakers in California introduced a package of reparations bills to start the new legislative session.
Black legislators say these attacks on racial equity make it even more imperative to implement reparations in California, the first state in the US to undertake such a process, which has become a blueprint for other state-level reparations programs.
“With the constant attacks on civil rights and the rolling back of decades of progress, it is essential that we continue the fight for justice,” said the state senator Akilah Weber Pierson, chair of the congressional Black caucus.
The bills, which are based on recommendations from the California reparations taskforce’s landmark 2023 report, include measures that could give priority in public university admission for descendants of enslaved people, update the public elementary and high-school curriculum to include the “impacts of segregation, slavery, and systemic discrimination”, and require government agencies to conduct racial equity analysis.
It’s the second package of reparations legislation introduced by the Black caucus. Last year, only seven of the 16 reparations bills introduced were signed into law. Most notable among them was a formal apology for the state’s role in perpetuating slavery. Internal division, as well as a veto from Gavin Newsom, the state governor, led to three of the caucus’ signature bills – including one that could have created the mechanism for cash payments – being defeated.
Now, in addition to a political climate that’s becoming increasingly hostile to any attempts at advancing racial equity, the Black caucus faces a growing chorus of frustration from reparations advocates who are demanding even more ambitious policy proposals and swift implementation.
“We are very confident in our package, which includes bills that have bipartisan support,” Weber Pierson said. “The fact that Republicans support our efforts shows that, even in the current political climate, the need to repair the centuries of harm imposed on Black Americans goes beyond political affiliations – it is a moral obligation.”
Advocates push back
One of the main points of contention between the Black caucus and some reparations advocates is around the proposal to create – and fund – an agency to oversee statewide reparations programs.
In the final days of the last legislative session, bowing to pressure from Newsom’s office, which wanted to see additional genealogy studies to determine eligibility included in the bill, the caucus pulled the package entirely. Dozens of advocates rushed to the state Capitol to protest in a heated standoff against legislators.
Last month, the caucus reintroduced a version of this bill that, to the frustration of advocates, includes additional research requirements to determine eligibility for recipients.
Even Kamilah Moore, the former taskforce chair, has been critical of this strategy. “They created a different agency that’s dependent on an additional study on genealogy,” she said. “I think it was a mistake.”
The taskforce made more than 100 recommendations in its 1,000-page report, Moore said, and the caucus should use those as its North Star. Yet she says they have “deviated” from the course.
Now, Moore and a group of reparations advocates are collaborating with an unlikely ally, Republican assembly member Bill Essayli – a Trump supporter who has expressed support for reparations in the past – to introduce a different version of the bill.
While it draws on the Black caucus’ original proposal that was pulled from a vote at the last minute, Essayli’s version calls for the creation of a body called the Freedmen’s affairs agency that would be modeled after the federal program that supported formerly enslaved people after the civil war.
This agency could place fewer conditions on eligibility for reparations programs and payments.
“We already did a study, called the California reparations taskforce,” said organizer Chris Lodgson, who works with the reparations advocacy group Coalition for a Just and Equitable California (CJEC). He also helped to draft the Freedmen affairs agency with Essayli. “What we’re interested in is actual implementation.”
Another criticism leveled against the Black caucus is how it’s spending the $12m Newsom included in last year’s state budget for reparations implementations. None of the money has been used yet, Weber Pierson’s office told the Guardian. The proposed genealogical research alone would cost an estimated $6m.
Advocates are frustrated that the money has still not been used, and that if a large chunk is spent on additional research, it could be siphoned away from any reparations programs, including any cash programs that groups such as CJEC have been pushing. Cash reparations were a central feature of the taskforce’s recommendations and could be part of the compensation both agencies would be tasked with considering.
When asked about cash reparations, a spokesperson for the Black caucus said that “substantial economic resources must be granted to Black Californians to correct the generational harms that were inflicted”.
Newsom has shied away from addressing the issue directly, saying only that reparations are “about much more than cash payments” in an interview with Fox News after the release of the report. His office told the Guardian his position has not changed.
Essayli told the Guardian his bill “is not about cash reparations, it’s about recognition and real opportunity to realize the American dream”.
An ‘engineered onslaught’ against racial equity
Meanwhile, as the Trump administration attempts to remove DEI measures in federal programs, firing personnel and weakening civil rights protections, a broader movement against racial equity is gaining momentum. (Trump himself hasn’t specifically addressed California’s reparations agenda since taking office again.)
The supreme court’s ruling in 2023 banning the use of affirmative action has impacted Black enrollment rates at some elite universities, and the University of California system was sued earlier this month for allegedly continuing to use affirmative action policy.
Nearly 70 anti-DEI cases have been filed since 2024, according to a tracking database compiled by NYU School of Law. This list includes the lawsuit filed against the Evanston municipal reparations program by a conservative legal group, which argues the program is unconstitutional because it discriminates based on race.
It’s been an “engineered onslaught” of these legal cases, said attorney Lisa Holder, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. About a year ago, Holder co-founded a coalition of law firms and civil rights attorneys to fight back. The goal is to “defend, protect and advance policies along the spectrum of diversity, equity, inclusion, to repairing the harm”, she said.
“This work for justice is a marathon,” said lawyer Areva Martin, who helped to negotiate a $5.9m settlement with the city of Palm Springs for a group of survivors and descendants that were forcibly evicted from their homes in the 1960s. The predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood, called Section 14, was razed by the city to make way for urban renewal projects.
“States have to stand up and be the voice of resistance, be the voice for marginalized people,” she said.
On a federal level, legislation to study and develop reparations programs, HR 40, which was first introduced by the late representative John Conyers in 1989, was reintroduced in February by representative Ayanna Pressley.
Pressley described the present moment as a “painful inflection point” in an interview with NBC News, and vowed to keep working to “blunt the assaults from a hostile administration”, especially when it comes to civil rights.
‘Helping movements across the nation’
California leads the way nationally as both a bulwark for civil rights protection and advancing racial equity, but also as an example for what a state reparations process can look like.
“California has a lot of eyes on it, and so what happens here is really informing a lot of places,” said organizer Kristin Nimmers, who works with the group California Black Power Network. “California organizers are helping different movements across the nation.”
Both New York and Illinois are in the process of developing their own reparations legislation, and New Jersey has created a community-run reparations council.
The New York reparations commission, formed by the governor last year, is expected to release its report sometime this year. And the Illinois African descent-citizens reparations commission is expected to release a harm report in early 2026.
“California has provided incredible inspiration,” said New York City-based reparations organizer Trevor Smith, co-founder of the community organization BLIS Collective.
“New York has the opportunity to build off that foundation, while taking a unique approach that reflects our own history,” he said.
The work of California’s congressional Black caucus “sets a framework for the rest of the country on how to repair historical harms”, Weber Pierson said.
“It transcends who is in office. It is something that must be done, and will get done.”
