Reparations advocates push for payments to Black Americans despite budget and legal challenges

From Fox News:

The future of reparations in California appears to be precarious as well after Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected several bills to avoid legal issues and none of his potential successors appear to champion reparations in the gubernatorial race. One of the candidates outright rejected the notion of direct cash payments, which is often associated with reparations efforts.

Lisa Holder, a civil rights attorney and a former member of the state’s Reparations Task Force, reportedly said that advancing reparations would be a long process while advocates search for a champion of the cause. “You can’t legislate yourself out of 400 years of inequality and injustice. You have to do an entire body of laws to change the systems that have been disparately affecting black folks for decades,” Holder told KQED on Jan. 19. 

“You now have to put many, many laws in place to change practically every system, whether you’re talking about systems of finance, housing. Laws that require equitable treatment, laws that require affirmative hiring sometimes in industries where Black people were affirmatively not hired.”

Cash payment reparations was implemented in Evanston, Illinois. Evanston was the first city in the nation to pass a reparations plan, pledging $10 million over a decade to Black residents in November 2019. 

Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, told Fox News Digital earlier this month it filed a lawsuit against Evanston, to stop the city from paying Black residents reparations. The $25,000 payments to Evanston residents are intended to cover housing expenses. The city committed to focus on housing because the issue is “the strongest case for reparations.” 

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