Pastor on reparations task force hopes California will make amends for racist acts
SAN FRANCISCO – California's reparations task force is aimed at making amends for racist policies and actions against African-Americans. A San Francisco pastor who is on the panel, the first of its kind in the country, talks about how acknowledging the past is necessary to build a better future.
The Rev. Dr. Amos C. Brown is the great grandson of a former slave.
Brown grew up in segregated Jackson, Mississippi and is a longtime activist and pastor of the historic 3rd Baptist Church in San Francisco.
He's also a member of the California Reparations Task Force which is looking into ways to compensate African Americans for centuries of slavery, terror, and oppression.
"We must admit. Admit, that slavery was wrong. Number two, you should atone," Rev. Brown said. "What is atonement? Making amends, paying back for the wrong which you have done."
In 2020, California became the first state in the nation to set up a Reparations Task Force and much of what is done here could be the model for the rest of the country.
"An evil thing was done to African Americans with the enslavement of our ancestors," Rev. Brown said.
Slavery was one of the founding institutions of the United States.
It was abolished during the Civil War, but African Americans suffered many more decades of violence, voter suppression, segregation, and housing and job discrimination.
Although California was founded as a free state, Rev. Brown said the racism carried over here.
"In the areas of health, education, economic deprivation and the downright intentional efforts to do ethnic cleansing of us," Brown told KPIX.
But all that wasn't long ago and far away, it happened in the Bay Area in the 1960s.
"These tracks are significant because they represent the entry into what was Russell City," said Aisha Knowles, whose grandparents were property owners in a community of color that was literally wiped off the map.
Russell City was one of the few places in Alameda County where Blacks and Latinos were allowed to live. The unincorporated town had 12 square blocks, 1,400 residents, a school, churches, shops, and a lively Blues club scene that attracted performers like Ray Charles.
"It was an actual town. It was a community that had life and history and a lot of wonderful things going on in it," Knowles said.
But Alameda County never provided services like water, electricity, and sanitation.
By the late 1950s, the town was declared a blight; residents were forced to move and arsonists burned properties to the ground.
When the town was annexed into Hayward, the city used eminent domain to remove the last of the residents in 1966 to make way for the industrial park that still stands today.
"There is a lot of pain, I think, that comes with talking about the history of what happened families when they were forced out of this area, from the homes that they owned," Knowles said.
Aisha's grandparents and father lost a home and an auto repair business and were forced to accept minimal payments of a few thousand dollars.
Today, those properties would be worth millions.
Russell City is commemorated in a downtown mural, and Hayward has officially apologized for the policies that prevented people of color from owning homes and building wealth.
"This is a local example of why reparations are needed. This is needed to repair the harm that was done during that period of time," Knowles said.
The Task Force estimates that reparations for housing discrimination alone could top $560 billion.
Brown says the task force must decide how compensations will be made. There could be things like free tuition, community building programs or simply cash payments.
"Many are saying I'm just waiting for my check. I'm waiting to be paid," according to Rev. Brown.
Reverend Brown said besides admitting the wrong, and atoning for it, the third part of the plan for reparations should be taking action.
The reparations task force is expected to submit recommendations to the California legislature by July.
