Figuring out who would be eligible for reparations is expected to be a complicated process. 

The task force in March 2022 voted to limit potential compensation to descendants of free and enslaved Black people who were in the United States prior to 1900. To qualify, a person would have to trace their lineage. The reparations panel narrowly rejected a proposal to include recent immigrants. The eligibility debate dominated the task force’s first year of work and highlighted a cultural schism within the Black community. 

The task force also voted to recommend the Legislature create a California American Freedmen’s Affairs Agency — an updated version of the Freedmen’s Bureau instituted by the federal government in 1865, after the Civil War, to assist formerly enslaved people. The new agency would help California residents trace their lineage. 

Efforts to establish this agency through legislation fell short during the last legislative session, but now there are dueling measures. The proposed bill backed by the Black Caucus would establish the Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery within state government.  Another bill was brought by Assemblymember Bill Essayli, a Republican from Corona, who has publicly opposed taxpayer-funded reparations. Essayli resigned on April 1 to become the interim U.S. Attorney in Southern California under the Trump administration, leaving his bill’s future uncertain. The measure would establish the California American Freedmen Affairs Agency, and has the support of some reparations advocates. 

Kamilah Moore, chairperson of the task force, said nearly 80% of California’s 2.8 million Black residents would be eligible for reparations. 

Some task force members predicted a large percentage of Black Californians would have trouble proving eligibility, including children in the state’s welfare system, incarcerated people and those suffering mental illness or homelessness.

“Our most vulnerable could be left out,” said task force member Cheryl Grills.