On Thursday, the California State Assembly voted to issue an apology for the state’s involvement in slavery, despite its entry as a “free state” in 1850.
The bill, AB 3089, authored by Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles), passed amidst a legislative focus on various “reparations” bills.
The measure recognizes California’s initial ban on slavery but highlights the state’s implementation of a fugitive slave law and other racially discriminatory practices. Bay Area Public Radio station KQED explained:
In 1852, the state Assembly enacted California’s fugitive slave law, permitting enslavers to recapture formerly enslaved individuals they had brought to California before its statehood and forcibly return them to slaveholding states in the South.
A leading proponent of the fugitive slave bill in the state Senate, Sen. James Estill, owned fourteen slaves on his Solano County farm.
Additionally, in 1854, the state Legislature endorsed a non-binding resolution supporting the Kansas-Nebraska Act, a contentious federal law that allowed the national expansion of slavery into U.S. territories.
The text of the state’s apology states:
(a) The State of California recognizes and accepts responsibility for the atrocities and harms committed by the state, its representatives, and entities under its jurisdiction that promoted, facilitated, enforced, and permitted the institution of chattel slavery and its enduring legacy of systemic discrimination. (b) The State of California apologizes for perpetuating the harms African Americans faced through racial prejudice, segregation, public and private discrimination, and unequal distribution of state and federal funding. It declares that such actions will not be repeated. The State acknowledges the work of the Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans, particularly focusing on descendants of enslaved persons in the United States. This task force, established by Assembly Bill 3121 (2020), highlighted the harms faced by African Americans in California and offered numerous legislative recommendations, including this formal apology. The State of California reaffirms its role in protecting the rights of descendants of enslaved people and all Black Californians. California commits to ending ongoing harm and pledges to take restorative actions beyond this apology.
If the State Senate approves the bill, the apology will be displayed on a plaque in the Capitol and at the state archives.
