Sacramento, CA — California reparations advocates are pressing for broader compensation and policy changes after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a new law requiring large corporations to disclose historical ties to slavery.
Assembly Bill 2599 requires companies doing business in California with more than $100 million in annual worldwide revenue to examine historical records and disclose whether they or related entities participated in slaveholding, financing, insurance or other slavery-related transactions.
Kristin Nimmers of the California Black Power Network said advocates view the disclosure law as only one step toward reparations. She argued that compensation should be based on specific historical harms rather than limited to a single payment.
California’s reparations debate remains far from settled. The state’s Reparations Task Force issued an extensive report in 2023 recommending numerous remedies involving housing, education, health, discrimination and economic inequality, but lawmakers have not approved the large-scale direct cash payments that generated the most national attention.
Advocates themselves also disagree over eligibility. Some groups argue reparations should primarily benefit descendants of people enslaved in the United States, while others favor a broader approach covering Black residents who experienced later forms of government-sanctioned discrimination.
Newsom has generally supported reparations-related studies and targeted reforms while remaining cautious about costly direct-payment proposals.
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