The Alameda County Board of Supervisors recently passed a set of reparations aimed at addressing what the county says is a history of racial inequity.
“Our expectation is the opportunities that exist for you are the same for everybody else—the ability to buy a home, to get the job, to get the training, to get healthcare,” Debra Gore, Chair of the Alameda County Reparations Commission, said, as per NBC Bay Area. “It’s shifting the way that it looks at the harms it does and the repairs to make,” Gore said. “That shift is overdue. It has to be done at the county level.”
Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley explained that the plan aims to set the stage for future legislation. “These collective efforts produce research, recommendations and a framework for repair that will inform county policy and contribute to ongoing efforts to remedy systemic inequities and improve outcomes,” Miley said.
Last year, Alameda County created a roughly $1 million “redress fund” for former residents of Russell City. The community was destroyed in the 1960s. “Let us be clear, the destruction of Russell City is an atrocity that cannot be undone,” Supervisor Elisa Marquez said at the time. “The displacement of homes, businesses, and livelihoods represent a profound injustice that continues to affect former residents, including the elders who are still alive and living in Alameda County.”
In 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom (D) issued a formal apology for the state’s role in slavery. He signed Assembly Bill 3089, which requires the state to issue a formal apology as well as create a plaque “memorializing this apology to be publicly and conspicuously installed and maintained in the State Capitol Building,” the bill’s text reads.
