California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed Assembly Bill 2599, the Truth in Disclosure Act, requiring large corporations doing business in the state to search their historical records for ties to chattel slavery and make any findings public. The law applies to companies with more than $100 million in gross revenue operating in California.
Advocates who pushed for the bill say it is only a first step. Kristin Nimmers, policy and campaign manager for the California Black Power Network (CBPN) and the Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation, and Truth, told Fox News Digital that corporate disclosure must be followed by direct financial compensation.
“We really focus on a harm-based approach, so whoever was harmed should be entitled to that repair,” Nimmers said. “Compensation for slavery, unpaid labor, for the 40 acres and a mule that were promised after the end of slavery — that should go to folks who have lineage and are descendants of people who were enslaved, because that is the harm that is being repaired.”
Nimmers argues that harm did not stop with the abolition of slavery. “Black Americans were denied wages. We were denied property. We were denied access to capital. We were denied access to equal education — all of that over hundreds of years,” she said. “And so a single check is not going to holistically repair our communities.”
CBPN served as an official community anchor during the multi-year run of the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans, created under Assembly Bill 3121. The coalition organized listening sessions across the state that fed into the task force’s 1,100-page final report, issued in 2023.
Despite that groundwork, direct cash payments remain politically stalled at the state level. Newsom signed the disclosure bill but has repeatedly declined to back large-scale cash restitution, vetoing related financial measures pushed by progressive lawmakers. His office did not respond to a request for comment on CBPN’s cash-payment position.
A Divided Movement
The reparations movement is also split internally over who should qualify. The U.S. Freedmen Project, a grassroots group of self-identified “Foundational Black Americans,” rejects broad, harm-based eligibility. The group argues that only Americans who directly descend from people enslaved in the United States should qualify, and that recent immigrants should be excluded. It contends that left-leaning advocates are using slavery’s legacy to fund a wider social agenda.
Nimmers rejects a lineage-only standard. “If you are a Black person — maybe a Black immigrant who came here in the 1950s before the Civil Rights Act was passed — then you also experienced segregated schools,” she said. “If you experienced segregated schools, if you experienced redlining, and we are coming up with some sort of policy or some sort of form of repair for those things, then you should also be included in the group that is repaired. It isn’t really a lineage-based outlook, but more of a harm-based approach.”
Local Action Moves Faster Than the State
While statewide cash proposals have stalled, at least one city has already acted. Earlier this year, the Reparations Committee in Evanston, Illinois, approved $25,000 housing grants for 44 Black residents. City officials pointed to historical redlining and discriminatory zoning as the clearest justification for the payments.
Nimmers says California advocates are still working toward a broader package combining direct payments with systemic policy change. “Reparations is not a handout. It is about acknowledging, addressing, and repairing harm,” she said. “What is the repair for that harm, and who fits within the group that was harmed? It’s necessary because we are owed that compensation for unpaid labor and historical harms.”
