California Bill Would Create Genealogy Office to Determine Reparations Eligibility

A California bill that would set up a genealogy office to determine reparations eligibility has cleared a state Senate committee. Senate Bill 1403, authored by Sen. Steven Bradford, would establish the California American Freedmen Affairs Agency to help implement policies recommended last year by the state’s reparations task force. The agency’s genealogy office would oversee eligibility for potential reparations payments and services for descendants of slaves and of free black persons living in the United States prior to the end of the 19th century. “This bill is foundational to California’s successful implementation of the Reparations Task Force’s final recommendations,” Mr. Bradford said in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Legislative analysis. “The creation of a state level agency is one of the task force’s key recommendations and essential in administering policies that do not fit into an already existing department or agency.”...