Alameda County reparations report approved. Now the real work begins
Alameda County supervisors voted Tuesday to create a permanent reparations committee for Black residents, moving a sweeping set of recommendations from study to the harder question of implementation.
Commissioned in 2023, the Alameda County Reparations Commission’s report examines the historical and ongoing effects of racial discrimination against the Black population. It outlines recommendations to address those inequalities while providing a framework for reparations that other municipalities can follow.
"Alameda County is having a moment," Reparations Commission Chair Debra Gore said. "This will provide a platform for the cities to stand on. Alameda is the tip of the spear."
A permanent committee will seek to implement the Reparations Commission's recommendations, which call for down payment assistance, investments in physical and mental healthcare, and cash payments to former Russell City residents, whose homes were systematically deemed "blighted" by the county in the 1960s.
The Board of Supervisors’ decision does not immediately authorize payments, instead it creates a committee to implement the plans over a five-year timeline, according to report.
Following the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020, Alameda County issued a resolution seeking the public's support for reparations. Supervisor Nate Miley and former Supervisor Keith Carson seized on the resolution as the basis to create the commission.
"It remains abundantly clear that localities must do more," a 2023 resolution to establish the commission stated.
The 15-member Reparations Commission - which includes volunteers like James Knowles, a former Russell City resident - was tasked with research, community outreach, and identifying recommendations to address the racial inequality faced by Alameda County's Black residents.
The action mirrors similar efforts in the state. California established a Reparations Task Force, San Francisco developed the African American Reparations Advisory Committee, and the city of Hayward launched the Russell City Reparative Justice Project. While each group published a report documenting both broad and specific instances of racial discrimination, Alameda County went further and created a redress fund to be used to support the Black community.
As interest increased, so did the number of community listening sessions, growing from six to more than 22 meetings, Gore said. The result was a 233-page report that is part case study, part legal history, and part policy roadmap.
The report cites the pioneering of modern zoning in 1916 out of Berkeley, which "created eight land use zones - with explicitly racial reasoning, like seeking to exclude Asian and Black business."
By confining Black residents to segregated neighborhoods through redlining, Black-owned property was systematically devalued, according to the report. In Alameda County today, 54.2% of Black households were rent burdened, compared with 39.1% of white households, the report stated.
"For the vast majority of that history, African Americans - citizens of this country – have been treated as second-class and third-class citizens in a democracy they helped build," said Alameda County Reparations Commissioner Brandon Sass. "The future we shape can be one that finally reflects the promise of America for everyone."
To address disparities, the report calls for short-term and long-term initiatives that target 12 major issues. Whether or not they can produce results, remains in question.
"There's no guidelines or requirements, or who gets what, when and where," said Knowles. "They want to do it before the Russell City elders pass on, because we don't know if those rights can be transferred."
Within the next year, the new committee will seek housing and economic justice through down payment assistance for homes and support for Black-owned businesses, the report states.
Over the next three years, the report calls for institutional changes, including investments in reparative justice initiatives and investments in Black-owned businesses with the goal of asset ownership, community wealth, and long-term economic stability, according to the report.
Recommendations beyond three years call for civic and environmental equity through better representation on Alameda County governing bodies and investments to clean up the environmental pollution that was often concentrated in Black communities, the report states.
As Sass reflected on the work of the Reparations Commission, he thought of his time as a youth in Fremont. There were not many Black people living there at the time, and he remembers the verbal and physical assaults he faced. The report, he said, was a promise to continue pushing for progress.
"As we wind down this work on this commission, we must be clear, this is not the end of the task, it is the beginning," Sass said. "Here in Alameda County, we have an opportunity to take the reins and begin a real path toward equality."
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