By Ray Richardson
Contributing Writer
LOS ANGELES — Organizers of a reparations initiative for Black residents in Los Angeles and their descendants are seeking compensation for decades of an unjust legal system, police harassment, political disenfranchisement and other discriminatory practices.
Details of the plan were highlighted in a 56-page executive summary released Aug. 27 by the Los Angeles Department of Civil Rights, a document designed to move the agency, the city and Los Angeles County closer to the development of a formal reparations program.
The city Department of Civil Rights created a Reparations Advisory Commission in 2021, along with a research team at Cal State Northridge, to generate data for a final proposal to be submitted to Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council in early 2025.
“This is not just about the money,” said former Los Angeles Urban League President Michael Lawson, a member of the Department of Civil Rights’ Reparations Advisory Commission. “This is about us finding a way to bring our entire community back to where it should be.”
Among the 12 “areas of harm” identified by researchers are an unjust legal system, stolen land and hindered opportunities and political disenfranchisement.
The Reparations Advisory Commission has conducted the Black Experience Study since 2021 to gather data that will be included in a 400-page report that makes the case for reparations.
Survey participants, ranging in ages 18 to 97, were asked to respond to questions dealing with situations from 1930 to 2022. Several questions were related to a trend of discriminatory treatment of Blacks by the Los Angeles Police Department dating back to the 1950s.
The Reparations Advisory Commission’s report will be finalized in September and distributed to members of the City Council and the County Board of Supervisors.
Reparations supporters are hopeful of having a definitive plan in place in 2025 to put a program in motion, that identifies eligible recipients and determines restitution amounts.
A reparations motion submitted in June by County Supervisor Holly Mitchell was approved by the Board of Supervisors. The motion paves the way for the board to implement local initiatives based on a California task force that was created to “study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans.”
“This has been an uphill battle, but there’s an unshakeable commitment to do what’s right,” said Ninth District City Councilman Curren Price, who attended the Aug. 27 forum at Cal State Northridge where the executive summary was released. “We’re all a part of history with this project. This could have a ripple effect around the country. Nobody is doing this like we are in L.A.”
Reparations movements are underway in Minneapolis-St. Paul and Denver, but Los Angeles appears to be further along than any other city.
Efforts in Los Angeles have also attracted the attention of California’s state lawmakers. Several bills regarding reparations are making their way through the state Legislature.
The other nine “areas of harm” identified by researchers in the city’s report include slavery, racial terror, mental and physical harm and neglect, racism in environment and infrastructure, housing segregation, separate and unequal education, pathologizing the Black family, the wealth gap and control over creative cultural and intellectual life.
“When we talk about reparations, we have to get the stories and bring them to the surface,” Lawson said. “We have to dig deep into the history of our parents and grandparents to fully understand what we’ve gone through.”
A key component of the reparations proposal presented by the Department of Civil Rights is a request for a formal apology by the city of Los Angeles and county Board of Supervisors, along with assurances that the history of Black residents in Los Angeles and their ancestors will not be erased.
“People have been asking ‘What does reparations have to do with Los Angeles’?,” said Capri Maddox, executive director of the Department of Civil Rights. “Because of red-lining and housing discrimination, those things have a lot to do with where we are today. We have to right some of the wrongs.”
Khansa Jones-Muhammad, the commission’s vice chair, led an overview of the report,
“The effects of historical injustices stemming from slavery have impacted opportunities and outcomes for generations of Black people in Los Angeles,” the report said.
Muhammad spoke on the injustices Black residents faced going back decades.
The report described how the city was a “major center” for Ku Klux Klan activity between 1923 to 1935, with significant involvement from Los Angeles Police Department officers and other public officials.
By the 1950s, drug wars in the city disproportionately targeted Black communities, escalating police harassment and arrests, Muhammad added. William Parker, the LAPD’s chief from 1950 to 1966, used drug campaigns to “justify aggressive policing and racial segregation,” according to the report.
“Over 65% of study participants reported that they or their families experienced police harassment between 1865 and 1968. From the post-civil rights movement through the wake of Black Lives Matter movement, starting in 2013, 68% of Black Los Angelenos surveyed indicated that they were impacted by over-policing,” according to the report.
Muhammad later reviewed challenges Black Angelenos face to date, such as barriers to housing and home ownership, health disparities compared to whites and members of other racial groups, lack of opportunities, among other obstacles.
The Department of Civil Rights is planning at least three more “community workshops” to give residents more opportunities to provide input in the reparations process.
A workshop on Repairing Stolen Labor and Housing is scheduled for Sept. 10. Another workshop on Health and Environmental Outcomes is scheduled for Sept. 12.
Check the Department of Civil Rights website for details, locations and future workshops: www.civilandhurmanrights.lacity.gov.
Ray Richardson is a contributing writer for The Wave. He can be reached at rayrich55@gmail.com. City News Service also contributed to this story.
