Corporations in California were enriched by slavery. They should tell the truth

In 2024, the California Legislature unanimously passed Assembly Bill 3089 to acknowledge and formally apologize for the role the state played in perpetuating and profiting from the enslavement of Black people.  

As part of that historic law, the Legislature declared that “California industries benefited from ill-gotten gains based on chattel slavery” and recognized the importance of examining those gains to ensure that the evil of commodifying human beings for corporate profit never happens again. 

Now the Legislature is considering the Truth in Disclosure Act (AB 2599). Introduced by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan and co-sponsored by the Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation & Truth, the bill would compel major corporations doing business in California to examine their own history of “ill-gotten gains” so the state can compile and publicly disclose the true story of how corporations profited from slavery.  

The reality is these ill-gotten profits were foundational in building corporate wealth.

Many of today’s corporations — including those in the textile, railroad, shipping, agriculture, prison, insurance and financial industries — are tied to profits gained from enslaved labor. The legacy of slavery continues to shape California’s and the nation’s social and economic structures and deeply influences patterns of health, economic, educational and social inequities that persist, impacting the lives of millions of Black Californians. 

California is no stranger to enacting transparency measures, and AB 2599 would build on a legal framework already on the books. Existing law going back decades requires similar kinds of disclosure. This includes the Slavery Era Insurance Policies Law of 2000, which generated public reports that revealed major companies operating today — or their predecessor companies — treated human beings as cargo or goods, to be insured as property. 

California also passed the 2010 California Transparency in Supply Chains Act in response to public demand that major retailers and manufacturers doing business in California do what’s right and moral and disclose the truth about modern day slavery and human trafficking in their supply chains, to serve the state’s goal to eradicate these crimes against humanity. 

As these and existing state disclosure laws in other areas — like climate protection and fair labor — show, California has long been a leader on corporate disclosure and accountability.  Clearly California has both the ability and the imperative to pass AB 2599.   

The bill follows the findings and recommendations of the California Reparations Task Force Report and the United Nations principles, which hold that reparation is incomplete without acknowledgement and public disclosure. The truth and disclosure that the bill requires carries the weight of the UN resolution, overwhelmingly passed in March, that designated trafficking and racialized chattel enslavement of Africans as “ the gravest crime against humanity.” 

The Truth in Disclosure Act is not about punishment for the past. Viewing accountability for slavery as punishment runs counter to the maxim that people are not property. It runs counter to the state’s goal that enslavement be eradicated, never again to return. 

As the unanimously passed apology law demonstrates, these are non-partisan, fundamental, moral principles. In fact, AB 2599 presents an opportunity for corporations to demonstrate humanity and to embrace a basic moral standard.  

By requiring corporations to tell the truth, we can begin to acknowledge the enslaved people who companies or their predecessors commodified for commercial gain — people who in their lifetimes never saw the justice and repair they deserved.  

When corporations disclose whose enslavement and forced labor they benefited from, the public can finally reckon with the cost. This kind of truth-telling is not just about the past — it is about preventing continued harm and ensuring future generations inherit a state rooted in true equality.