Sacramento is studying reparations for Black residents. How you can help

The City of Sacramento is taking small steps toward creating a reparations plan for Black residents in an an effort that mirrors one unfolding at a statewide task force.

Mayor Darrell Steinberg launched the project in 2021 when he joined 11 other mayors around the country in creating a coalition – Mayors for Organized Reparations and Equity (MORE) – committed to researching harms inflicted upon Black residents.

Since then, his office has researched reparations programs in other cities and supported a grant-funded project that compiles personal narratives of African American families.

His office has not yet asked the City Council to spend money on the endeavor.

“Our role over the last year and a half (has been) better understanding, reviewing and doing all the work without necessarily spending city money yet,” said Kelly Fong Rivas, senior adviser to Steinberg.

The city’s research is taking place as the California Reparations Task Force completes its charge to study discrimination against Black residents and to recommend remedies. Last year, it released an interim report that recommended cash reparations for descendants for enslaved people and descendants of African Americans who can trace their ancestry to 19th century California.

The City of Sacramento – along with other local municipalities – has been sharing updates on its planning with the California Reparations Task Force Committee at public hearings. San Francisco’s reparations advisory committee last month released a report urging payments of up to $5 million for certain residents.

Fong Rivas said the city wants to determine what local government agencies have done to exclude Black residents from access to resources and opportunities through urban planning, design, or other policy decisions.

She said it could take months or longer to develop the project before bringing it to the council.

Her office is looking to build support through relationships, research, resources, transparency, accountability, trust, and culture change.

“We wanted to engage the community through a process of informing them, engaging with them and then empowering them,” said Chinua Rhodes, Sacramento’s director of community engagement. “We are pragmatically positioning our city to make sure that we are doing with our community, not to our community.”

What’s being done so far

The mayor’s office has been connecting with advocates and national experts, as well as looking at what other cities are doing.

Sacramento model a program off of Evanston, Illinois, where Fong Rivas visited two years ago to learn from their process of developing municipal level reparations.

Two years ago, the City Council of Evanston, Illinois, voted to pay $25,000 to qualifying Black households for home down payments or repairs. That city pledged to spend $10 million on the program over the next 10 years.

“Different cities are approaching it differently,” said Fong Rivas. “We’re getting the benefit of learning from each of those jurisdictions – what to do and what not to do, pros and cons – as we listen to our community in terms of what they would like to see.”

Meanwhile, Sacramento’s Preservation Division partnered with the Center for Sacramento History to provide workshops on how to trace genealogy.

Sacramento has received grants specifically for graduate students and academic partners to research historic sites, gather information and provide insight to historical experiences of Black residents.

So far, nearly a half million dollars in grants has been raised to support the development of a municipal commission, research programs, and culturally sensitive support services.

Sacramento asks for help

Through different grant-funded projects like the African-American Experience call for the assistance of community members in Sacramento.

The city is compiling detailed historical research by collecting oral history and historical documents in the production of a thematic historic context that documents the historical African American experience and contributions in Sacramento.

Longtime Sacramento residents who can trace their history are asked to provide copies of their families’ artifacts, newspaper clippings, family photos, and other relevant documentation to contribute to their research.

Sacramento Community Engagement Manager Lynette Hall said the purpose of those meetings is to create a historic context statement that could help leverage additional funding for further research.

“We’re collecting oral histories for African-Americans to tell their own story so that generations in the future will know Sacramento’s challenges that came about when they put freeways that went through cities and separated neighborhoods,” said Hall.

Hall said there’s been a number of people involved, but more is needed.

“We want people in the community to tell us what’s right, what’s wrong, and what’s missing,” said Hall.