As funders and as a nation, we must examine the debt owed to the enslaved Africans and their descendants whose forced labor fueled the global economy for centuries and generated the wealth that built this country. The call for economic reparations for Black Americans has gone unanswered for centuries. Today, California can answer the call and atone for the unjust enrichment of this state from slavery together with the systematic and multi-generational exclusion of Black Americans from economic and social opportunities.
