California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a series of “reparations” bills on Thursday, including a formal apology for slavery, even though the state entered the Union as a free state in 1850.
The apology reads, in part:
Whereas, Well after California entered the Union and declared itself a free state outlawing slavery, more than 2,000 enslaved African people were brought to California from 1850 to 1860.
Whereas, the California Supreme Court enforced fugitive slave laws until 1865, stating that the antislavery law in the California Constitution was merely a “declaration of a principle.”
…
Resolved, The State of California apologizes for perpetuating the harms African Americans faced by having imbued racial prejudice through segregation, public and private discrimination, and unequal disbursal of state and federal funding and declares that such actions shall not be repeated.
Newsom signed several other bills passed by the state legislature and pushed by reparations activists. As Breitbart News noted, however, the bills did not include actual cash payments or a reparations fund, provoking protests.
The movement for reparations gained traction during the chaotic summer of 2020, when protests and riots spread across the country in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by police in Democrat-run Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Newsom signed legislation establishing a committee to study reparations. After it made recommendations that included massive cash payments and racially separate schools, legislators toned down the proposals. Newsom only included $12 million toward the reparations issue in his budget this year, which grappled with a near-$50 billion deficit.
The California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC) hailed the state’s apology, among other “significant Reparations-related legislation.” The hope is that California will inspire other states, and the federal government to do the same.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.