The San Francisco chapter of the NAACP is calling on the city’s board of supervisors to adopt the recommendations of the city's Reparations Advisory Committee.
Among the recommendations is a $5 million lump sum payment to any eligible Black resident of the city.
The committee has been working on its recommendations since June 2021 and the latest draft report is 60 pages and includes a history of Black people in the U.S. and California. It also outlines a legacy of mistreatment over the last two centuries starting with enslavement,and continuing with modern day institutional racism, like redlining and the targeting of Black people by police.
"America, California, and San Francisco, it's time for you to make amends and pay back," said Rev. Amos Brown, SF’s Reparations Committee member and NAACP president.
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On page 29 of the report, it does point out that California and San Francisco never participated in the organized slave trade of Black people.
But the report concludes San Francisco has a history of policies that enforced segregation and white supremacy.
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It recommends that the city issue a formal apology for its past harms along with 110 other financial and social justice recommendations, beginning with the one-time lump sum payment to each eligible Black person in San Francisco. And an income supplement to anyone who qualifies for reparations and is part of a low-income household.
Daniel Landry leads the policy sub-committee of the reparations group.
"Our job is not to figure out the formulas, the mathematics of anything dealing with numbers and figures and values. Our job is to present this city with a plan," he said.
While the committee does not make recommendations on how to pay for these programs, page 30 does include a list of ways to qualify -- including being at least 18 and identifying as Black or African American for at least 10 years.
Rev. Brown notes that the $5 million proposal has been controversial but says he still supports it - outright.
"If we were paid back, if we were paid back, even the $5 million wouldn't be that much," said Brown.
In 2021, Evanston, Illinois became the first U.S. city to offer reparations by distributing $25,000 housing grants.
The full San Francisco Board of Supervisors will be presented with the local reparations report - on March 14.
