California Lawmakers Pass Bill Requiring Apology for Slavery
- Measure is first symbolic act in state’s new reparations drive
- Some lawmakers ask ‘why California?’ where slavery was illegal
The California State Capitol building in Sacramento.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
California lawmakers passed a bill mandating a formal apology for the ongoing harms of slavery, an institution that wasn’t legal but was tolerated after statehood in 1850.
The bill requires officials to sign and display a plaque in the state capitol that includes the following: “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.”