City Council Meeting Agenda
August 8, 2022

California Task Force to Study and Develop
Reparation Proposals for African Americans

INTERIM REPORT
California Task Force to Study and Develop
Reparation Proposals for African Americans

INTERIM REPORT
Printed in the USA
June 2022
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

California Task Force to Study and Develop
Reparation Proposals for African Americans

INTERIM REPORT

GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING
This report contains discussions of racial discrimination, sexual assault, torture, lynching and other forms of extreme violence. The report contains unedited historical quotations and photographs of white supremacist hatred, torture, lynching, autopsy, and other forms of graphic violence.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 I . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 II . Enslavement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 III . Racial Terror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 IV . Political Disenfranchisement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 V . Housing Segregation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 VI . Separate and Unequal Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 VII . Racism in Environment and Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 VIII . Pathologizing the Black Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 IX . Control Over Creative Cultural and Intellectual Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 X . Stolen Labor and Hindered Opportunity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 XI . An Unjust Legal System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 XII . Mental and Physical Harm and Neglect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 XIII . The Wealth Gap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 XIV . Key Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 XV . Preliminary Recommendations for Future Deliberation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 Chapter 1 - Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33 I . California’s Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 II . The Task Force’s Charge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 III . Overview of Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36 IV . Structure of the Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 V . Immigration and Migration Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38 VI . State of Black California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39 VII . Terms Used Throughout the Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43 Chapter 2 - Enslavement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47 I . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47 II . The Origins of American Enslavement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48 III . The Transatlantic Trafficking of Enslaved People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50 IV . The Lives of Enslaved People During the Height of the Domestic Slave Trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 V . Northern Complicity in Enslavement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 VI . Slavery and American Institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 VII . Enslavement in California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 VIII . The U .S . Civil War and the End of Enslavement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 IX . Reconstruction and the Lost Cause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 X . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80 Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83 Chapter 3 - Racial Terror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93 I . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93 II . Objectives of Racial Terror: Social, Political, and Economic Oppression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 III . Perpetrators of Terror: Private Citizens, Government Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 IV . Forms of Racial Terror: Violent Tools of Social Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101 V . Legacy: Devaluing Black Lives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .116 VI . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .118 Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119 Chapter 4 - Political Disenfranchisement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .129 I . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .129 II . Political Demonization of African Americans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .130 III . Reconstruction and the Constitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .131 IV . Devices Used to Suppress Black Political Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 V . Voting Rights Legislation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 VI . Effects of Restrictions on Black Political Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .149 VII . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .152 Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .153 Chapter 5 - Housing Segregation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .161 I . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .161 II . Constitutionally Sanctioned Housing Discrimination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 III . The End of the Civil War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .163 IV . The Great Migration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 V . Exclusion or Destruction of Black Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .164 VI . Freedmen’s Town . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .165 VII . City Planning for Segregation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .167 VIII . Eminent Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .170 IX . Public Housing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .175 X . Redlining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .178 XI . Racially Restrictive Covenants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 XII . Racial Terrorism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 XIII . Housing Segregation Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 XIV . Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .187 XV . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .192 Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Chapter 6 - Separate and Unequal Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .205 I . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .205 II . Denial of Education During Slavery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .206 III . Unequal Primary and Secondary Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .209 IV . Unequal Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .224 V . Teaching Inaccurate History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 VI . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .231 Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .233 Chapter 7 - Racism in Environment and Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .247 I . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .247 II . Substandard Housing and Overcrowding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .248 III . Environmental Pollutants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .249 IV . Climate Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .252 V . Infrastructure and Public Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254 VI . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .261 Chapter 8 - Pathologizing Black Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .267 I . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 II . Enslavement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .268 III . Black Families from Emancipation to the Civil Rights Era, 1865 to 1960 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .271 IV . The Moynihan Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276 V . The Welfare System: Assistance to Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278 VI . Foster Care Systems and Other Forms of Child Welfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .280 VII . Criminalization of Black Youth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .283 VIII . Domestic Violence in Black Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .286 IX . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287 Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .289 Chapter 9 - Control Over Creative, Cultural & Intellectual Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .297 I . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 II . Discrimination Against Black Artists and Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .298 III . Anti-Black Narratives in Arts and Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .302 IV . Racist Censorship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .306 V . Deprivation of Black Intellectual Property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 VI . Discrimination Against Black Athletes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .309 VII . Restraints on Black Leisure and Recreation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .312 VIII . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313 Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .315 Chapter 10 - Stolen Labor and Hindered Opportunity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .321 I . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .321 II . Enslavement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .323 III . Government Support of Private Discrimination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .324 IV . Discrimination in Government Employment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347 V . Effects Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353 VI . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .354 Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .355 Chapter 11 - An Unjust Legal System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .367 I . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .367 II . Criminalization of African Americans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .368 III . Policing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .374 IV . Trial and Sentencing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .380 V . Incarceration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .383 VI . Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .386 VII . Discrimination in the Civil Justice System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .389 VIII . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .391 Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .393 Chapter 12 - Mental and Physical Harm and Neglect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .405 I . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .405 II . Pseudoscientific Racism as Foundation of Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .406 III . Health and Healthcare during Slavery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .407 IV . Reconstruction Era . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .411 V . Racial Segregation Era . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .411 VI . Post-Civil Rights Act Era . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415 VII . Medical Experimentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419 VIII . Medical Therapies, and Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .420 IX . Mental Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421 X . Reproductive and Gender Identity Responsive Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .425 XI . Child and Youth Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427 XII . Public Health Crises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .429 XIII . Impact of Racism on Black Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .432 XIV . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .435 Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .437 Chapter 13 - The Wealth Gap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .449 I . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .449 II . The Contemporary Racial Wealth Gap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .450 III . Historical Causes of the Racial Wealth Gap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .453 IV . Drivers of the Wealth Gap Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .466 V . Effects of Wealth Gap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470 VI . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473 Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .475

THIS PAGE INTENTIONALL Y LEFT BLANK
Acknowledgements
Task Force Members
Senator Steven Bradford
Dr. Amos C. Brown, Vice Chair
Dr. Cheryl Grills
Lisa Holder
Assemblymember Reginald B. Jones-Sawyer, Sr.

Dr. Jovan Scott Lewis
Kamilah Moore, Chair
Councilmember Monica Montgomery Steppe
Donald K. Tamaki
Executive Staff
Damon M. Brown, Special Assistant Attorney General Catherina Nou, Director of the Office of Community Awareness, Response, and Engagement (CARE)
Management and Supervision
Michael L. Newman, Senior Assistant Attorney General,
Civil Rights Enforcement Section
Sarah Belton, Supervising Deputy Attorney General,
Civil Rights Enforcement Section
Interim Report Writers and Editors
Xiyun Yang, Deputy Attorney General, Lead Editor
Francisco V. Balderrama, Deputy Attorney General
Brian Bilford, Deputy Attorney General
Lisa Ehlrich, Deputy Attorney General
Laura Faer, Deputy Attorney General
Robin Goldfaden, Deputy Attorney General
Edward Nugent, Deputy Attorney General
Srividya Panchalam, Deputy Attorney General
James Richardson, Deputy Attorney General
Lee Sherman, Deputy Attorney General
Dr. Jannie Scott, Research Program Specialist I
Jasleen Singh, Deputy Attorney General
Kanwalroop Singh, Deputy Attorney General
Rishi Khalsa, Press Secretary
Interim Report Supporting Contributors
Marie A. Armenakian, Legal Secretary
Anita Alem, Law Clerk
Angelique Ajala, Law Clerk
Caroline Wilson, Deputy Attorney General
Tanya Koshy, Deputy Attorney General
Jessica Barclay-Strobel, Deputy Attorney General
Callie Bruzzone, Law Clerk
Katy Chu, Law Clerk
Luke Churchill, Law Clerk
Jazmine Cortez, Legal Secretary
Kyle DaSilva, Law Clerk
Nimrod Elias, Deputy Attorney General
Vince Ghazzawi, Special Deputy Attorney General
Elizabeth Gorman, Law Clerk
Mara Greenwald, Law Clerk
Ketakee Kane, Deputy Attorney General
Hanna Kim, Law Clerk
Tanya Koshy, Deputy Attorney General
Joseph Lake, Deputy Attorney General
Christopher Lapinig, Deputy Attorney General
Clarissa Limón, Deputy Attorney General
Everth Mandujano, Legal Support Supervisor
Kristin McCarthy, Deputy Attorney General
Caitlan McLoon, Deputy Attorney General
Alejandro Mojarro, Legal Secretary
Megan Nakao, Law Clerk
Sarah Nealon, Law Clerk
Janice Park, Legal Secretary
Roma Patel, Deputy Attorney General
Alex Ramsey, Law Clerk
The Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans would like to thank the following staff from the California Department of Justice for their assistance and contributions to this report:

Testifying Witnesses – June 2021-April 2022
Secretary of State Dr. Shirley N.

Weber
Enola Aird
Jessica Ann Mitchell Aiwuyor
Adjoa Aiyetoro
Erika Alexander
Samone Anderson
Brett Andrews
Dr. Bruce Appleyard
Deborah Archer
Paul Austin
Mehrsa Baradaran
Dr. Rachel Barkow
Dawn Basciano
Dr. Mary Frances Berry
Douglas Blackmon
Roy Brooks
Chad Brown
Kevin Brown
Jon Burgess
Tony Burroughs
Susan Burton
Dr. Gregory Carr
Cerise Castle
Marcus Champion
Erwin Chemerinsky
Maisie Chin
Dr. C.N.E. Corbin
Dr.Thomas Craemer
Dr. Joy De Gruy
Dr. Terrance Dean
Arianne Edmonds
Deadria Farmer-Paellman
Kellie Farrish
Hollis Gentry
Dr. Joseph Gibbons
Damien Goodmon
Debra Gore-Mann
Bertha Gorman
Brandon Greene
Kevin J. Greene
Dr. Kristee Haggins
Dr. Darrick Hamilton
Dr. Antonette Harrell
Aaron Harvey
Thomas Harvey
Tasha Henneman
Dorothy Hines
Dr. Etta Hollins
Kamm Howard
Katherine Hubbard
Lynn Hudson
Dr. Darnell Hunt
Sylvia Drew Ivie
Dr. Theopia Jackson
Jacob Jackson
Dr. Alison Rose Jefferson
Dr. Rucker Johnson
Geneviéve Jones-Wright
Dr. Jacqueline Jones
Melissa Jones
Zerita Jones
Helen Kang
Dr. Joan Kauffman
Kika Keith
Dr. Joyce King
Dr. Chris Kuzawa
Vinhcent Le
Lawrence Lucas
Mirelle Raza, Deputy Attorney General
Alexandra Reyna, Law Clerk
Danielle Roybal, Law Clerk
Maribel Santillan, Legal Secretary
Elizabeth Sarine, Deputy Attorney General
Mary-Claire Sei, Law Clerk
Jake Seidman, Law Clerk
Jennifer Smith-Eisenberg, Law Clerk
Ruby Strassman, Law Clerk
Elleasse Taylor, Law Clerk
Chelsy Velis, Legal Secretary
Jenna Waldman, Law Clerk
Callie Wilson, Deputy Attorney General
Hunter Wolff, Law Clerk
Expert Consultants
Dr. Marne Campbell A. Kirsten Mullen
Dr. William A. Darity Jr. Dr. Stacey Smith
Administrative and Technical Support
Aisha Martin-Walton, Retired Annuitant
Alecia Turner, Senior Legal Analyst
Doreathea Johnson, Parliamentarian
Noel Garcia, Legal Analyst
Trini Hurtado, Associate Governmental
Program Analyst
Tricia Morgensen, Graphic Designer III
Mike Kimsey, Staff Services Manager II
Christopher Taylor, Audio-visual Specialist
Lupe Zinzun Diez, Associate Governmental
Program Analyst
Curtis Dao, Information Technology Specialist
Rod Somera, Information Technology Associate
Timm Le, Information Technology Associate
Cynthia Montoya, Legal Analyst
Acknowledgements
3 Acknowledgements
Dr. Isaac Martin
Max Markham
Dr. Evelyn McDowell
Stephen Menendian
Eric Miller
Yeshimabeit Milner
Nkem Ndefo
Dr. Safiya Noble
Dr. Pedro Noguera
Darrell Owens
Dr. John Parman
Dr. James Pitts
Nicole Porter
John Powell
David Price
Dr. Daina Ramey Berry
Charles Ramsey
Dr. Carolyn Roberts
Anthony Rogers-Wright
Cynthia Roseberry
Dr. Tina Sacks
Robin Semple
Dr. Stacey Smith
Kawika Smith
Dr. William Spriggs
Dr. Howard Stevenson
Nkechi Taifa
Dr. Shawn Utsey
Kavon Ward
Isabel Wilkerson
Dr. Angelo Williams
Joseph Williams
Brandon Woods
Darris Young
Additional Acknowledgements
Clarence Caesar
Takiesha Chestnut
Chris Garmire
Nick Fletcher
Sarah Harrington
Tamara Martin
Myla Rahman
Darlene Roberts
Monica Stam
Brenda Stevenson
Teja Stephens
Dominick Williams

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5 I . Introduction
In 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation
Proclamation, and, in 1865, the 13th Amendment to
the U .S . Constitution commanded that “[n]either slav - ery nor involuntary servitude . . . shall exist within the United States .” 1 In supporting the passage of the 13th Amendment, its co-author Senator Lyman Trumbull
of Illinois said that “it is perhaps difficult to draw the precise line, to say where freedom ceases and slavery
begins…” 2 In 1883, the Supreme Court interpreted the 13th Amendment as empowering Congress “to pass all
laws necessary and proper for abolishing all badges and incidents of slavery in the United States .” 3
However, throughout the rest of American history, in -
stead of abolishing the “badges and incidents of slavery,” the United States federal, state and local governments, including California, perpetuated and created new it -
erations of these “badges and incidents . ” The resulting harms have been innumerable and have snowballed
over generations .

This interim report is a general survey of these harms, as part of the broader efforts of California’s Task Force to Study and Develop Reparations Proposals for African
Americans (Reparations Task Force) . The Reparations
Task Force was established under Assembly Bill 3121 (S .

Weber) in 2020 and a report of the Task Force is due to the Legislature by June 1, 2022 . A final report will be is - sued before July 1, 2023 . The law charges the Reparations Task Force with studying the institution of slavery and its lingering negative effects on society and living African Americans . The law requires the Reparations Task Force to recommend appropriate remedies of compensation,
rehabilitation, and restitution for African Americans
with a special consideration for descendants of persons enslaved in the United States . This executive summary
synthesizes many of the preliminary findings and rec -
ommendations of the Reparations Task Force .

So thoroughly have the effects of slavery infected every aspect of American society over the last 400 years, that it is nearly impossible to identify every “badge and in - cident of slavery,” to include every piece of evidence, or describe every harm done to African Americans . In
order to address this practical reality, this interim re - port of the Reparations Task Force describes a sample
of government actions and the compounding harms
that have resulted, organized into 12 specific areas of systemic discrimination .

In order to maintain slavery, government actors adopt - ed white supremacist beliefs and passed laws to create
a racial hierarchy and to control
both enslaved and free African
Americans . 4 Although the U .S .
constitution recognized African
Americans as citizens on paper, the
government failed to give them the
full rights of citizenship, 5 and failed
to protect —and often sanctioned
or directly participated—African
Americans from widespread terror
and violence . 6 Along with a derelic-
tion of its duty to protect its Black
citizens, direct federal, state and lo -
cal government actions continued
to enforce the racist lies created to
justify slavery . These laws and gov -
ernment supported cultural beliefs
have since formed the foundation of
innumerable modern laws, policies,
and practices across the nation . 7
More Than 50 percent of U.S. Presidents from 1789 to 1885 enslaved African Americans The first twenty-one Presidents seated together in The White House. The enslavers are shaded in red.

COURTESY OF JOHN PARROT/STOCKTREK IMAGES VIA GETTY IMAGES Executive Summary
6 Executive Summary
Today, 160 years after the abolition of slavery, its badges and incidents remain embedded in the political, legal,
health, financial, educational, cultural, environmen -
tal, social, and economic systems of the United States of America . 8 Racist, false, and harmful stereotypes created to support slavery continue to physically and mentally
harm African Americans today . 9 Without a remedy
specifically targeted to dismantle our country’s racist foundations and heal the injuries inflicted by colonial and American governments, the “badges and incidents
of slavery” will continue to harm African Americans in
almost all aspects of life .

II . Enslavement
Nationally
The foundation of America’s wealth was built upon traf- ficked African peoples and their descendants—built by
their forced labor and their bodies as they were bought and sold as commodities . 10 American government at all levels allowed or participated in exploiting, abusing,
terrorizing, and murdering people of African descent
so that mostly white Americans could profit from
their enslavement . 11
After the War of Independence, the United States built
one of the largest and most profitable enslaved labor
economies in the world . 12
The federal government politically and financially
supported enslavement . 13 The United States adopted a national constitution that protected slavery and gave
pro-slavery white Americans outsized political power in the federal government . 14 Half of the nation’s pre-Civ - il War presidents enslaved African Americans while in
office, 15 and throughout American history, more than
1,700 Congressmen from 37 states, once enslaved Black
people . 16 By 1861, almost two percent of the entire bud - get of the United States went to pay for expenses related to enslavement, 17 such as enforcing fugitive slave laws . 18 Enslavers made more than $159 million between 1820 and
1860 by trafficking African Americans within the U .S . 19 Charles Ball, an enslaved man who was bought by slave
traffickers in Maryland and forced to march to South
Carolina, later remembered: “I seriously meditated on
self-destruction, and had I been at liberty to get a rope, I believe I should have hanged myself at Lancaster . . . I had now no hope of ever again seeing my wife and children,
or of revisiting the scenes of my youth . ” 20
Historians have argued that many of today’s financial
accounting and management practices began among
enslavers in the U .S . South and the Caribbean . 21 In order to continually increase production and profits, enslavers regularly staged public beatings and other violent acts and provided deplorable living conditions . 22
Historians have also found evidence that enslavers raped and impregnated enslaved women and girls, and prof -
ited from this sexual violence by owning and selling
their own children . 23 President Thomas Jefferson, who enslaved four of his own children, wrote that the “labor of a breeding [enslaved] woman” who births a child ev - ery two years is as profitable as the best enslaved worker on the farm . 24
In the census of 1860, the last census taken before the Civil War, of the about 12 million people living in the 15 slave-holding states, almost four million were enslaved . 25 In order to terrorize and force this enormous popula -
tion to work without pay, the colonial and American
governments created a different type of slavery .

Unlike in what historians call the pre-modern era, slav - ery in America was based on the idea that race was the
sole basis for life-long enslavement, that children were The American colonial Slave Codes
created a new type of slavery that
was different than the slavery which
existed in pre-modern times.
• Babies were enslaved at birth, for their entire
lives, and for the entire lives of their children,
and their children’s children .
• These laws denied political, legal and social
rights to free and enslaved Black people alike in
order to more easily control enslaved people .
• These laws divided white people from Black
people by making interracial marriage
a crime .

Some of these laws survived well into the 20th century.

The Supreme Court only declared that outlawing in -
terracial marriage was unconstitutional in 1967 .
7 Executive Summary
enslaved from birth, and that people of African descent were naturally destined to be enslaved . 26 Colonists in North America claimed and passed laws 27 to maintain a false racial hierarchy where white people were naturally superior . 28 Colonial laws effectively made it legal for en- slavers to kill the people they enslaved . 29 In some states, free nor enslaved African Americans could not vote or
hold public office . 30 Enslaved people could not resist a white person, leave a plantation without permission, or gather in large groups away from plantations . 31
After the War of Independence, the American gov -
ernment continued to pass laws to maintain this false
racial hierarchy which treated all Black people as less than human . 32 After the Civil War, the federal govern - ment failed to meaningfully protect the rights and lives of African Americans . 33 When Andrew Johnson became
president after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, he proclaimed in 1866, “[t]his is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a gov - ernment for white men[ .]” 34
The Slave Codes were reborn as the Black Codes, and
then as the Jim Crow laws segregating Black and white
Americans in every aspect of life . 35 Although many of these laws were most prominent in the South, they re -
flected a national desire to reinforce a racial hierarchy based in white supremacy .

California
Despite California entering the Union in 1850 as a free state, its early state government supported slavery . 36 Proslavery white southerners held a great deal of pow - er in the state legislature, the court system, and among California’s representatives in the U .S . Congress . 37 Some scholars estimate that up to 1,500 enslaved African Americans lived in California in 1852 . 38 Enslaved people trafficked to California often worked under dangerous
conditions, 39 lived in unclean environments, 40 and faced brutal violence . 41
In 1852, California passed and enforced a fugitive slave law that was harsher than the federal fugitive slave law, and this made California a more proslavery state than
most other free states . 42 California also outlawed non- white people from testifying in any court case involving white people . 43
California did not ratify the Fourteenth Amendment un-
til 1959, which protected the equal rights of all citizens, and the Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibited states
from denying a person’s right to vote on the basis of race, until 1962 . 44
III . Racial Terror
Nationally
After slavery, white Americans, frequently aided by
the government, maintained the badges of slavery by
carrying out violence and intimidation against African
Americans for decades . 45 Racial terror pervaded every aspect of post-slavery Black life and prevented African Americans from building the same wealth and political
influence as white Americans . 46
African Americans faced threats of violence when they
tried to vote, when they tried to buy homes in white
neighborhoods, when they tried to swim in public pools, and when they tried to assert equal rights through the
courts or in legislation . 47 White mobs bombed, mur - dered, and destroyed entire towns . 48 Federal, state, and local governments ignored the violence, failed to
or refused to prosecute offenders, or participated in the violence themselves . 49
Racial terror takes direct forms, such as physical as - sault, threats of injury, and destruction of property .

It also inflicts psychological trauma on those who wit - ness the harm and injury . 50 Many African Americans
were traumatized from surviving mass violence and by
the constant terror of living in the South . 51 Lynchings in the American South were not isolated hate crimes
“Hampton, Virginia. Slab-town” After the Civil War, African Americans lived in large, segregated refugee camps like Slabtown because there was nowhere else for them to go. Hospitals, dispensaries, and military camps were unable to serve the masses of enslaved people, Black soldiers, and other refugees who entered the North due to the Civil War. Escaped and abandoned formerly enslaved people settled near or within the Union Army’s military camps and battle lines.

The camps did not have adequate sanitation, nutrition, or medical care. One out of every four African American who lived in the camps died. (1864)

COURTESY OF LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
8 Executive Summary
committed by rogue vigilantes, but part of a systemat - ic campaign of terror to enforce the racial hierarchy . 52 Racial terror targeted at successful African Americans
has contributed to the present wealth gap between Black and white Americans . 53
While lynching and mob murders are no longer the social norm, scholars have argued that its modern equivalent
continues to haunt African Americans today as extra -
judicial killings by the law enforcement and civilian
vigilantes . 54 Racial terror remains a tool for other forms of discrimination and control of African Americans from redlining and segregated schools to disparate healthcare and denial of bank loans .

California
Supported by their government, ordinary citizens also
terrorized and murdered Black Californians . 55 The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) established local chapters all over the state in the 1920s . 56 During that time, California some - times even held more KKK events than Mississippi or
Louisiana . 57 Many of California’s KKK members were
prominent individuals who held positions in civil lead - ership and police departments . 58
For example, in 1920s Los Angeles, prominent and nu -
merous city government officials were KKK members
or had KKK ties, including the mayor, district attorneys, and police officers . 59 Violence against African Americans peaked in the 1940s, as more Black Californians tried to buy homes in white neighborhoods . 60
Today, police violence against and extrajudicial killings of African Americans occur in California in the same
manner as they do in the rest of the country . 61
IV . Political Disenfranchisement
Nationally
African Americans have pursued equal political partici - pation since before the Civil War, but the federal, state, and local governments of the United States have sup -
pressed and continue to suppress Black votes and Black
political power . 62 After the Civil War, the United States protected the voting rights of African Americans on pa - per, but not in reality . 63 During the 12-year period after the Civil War called Reconstruction, the federal govern - ment tried to give newly freed African Americans access to basic civil rights 64 and, by 1868, more than 700,000 Black men were registered to vote in the South . 65 During Reconstruction, over 1,400 African Americans held fed - eral, state, or local office, and more than 600 served in state assemblies . 66
However, that progress was short lived .

During the contested presidential election of 1876,
Republicans and Democrats agreed to withdraw fed -
eral troops from key locations in the South, effectively ending Reconstruction . 67 Southern states then willfully ignored the voting protections in the U .S . Constitution, and passed literacy tests, poll taxes, challenger laws, grandfather clauses, and other devices to prevent
African Americans from voting . 68 States also barred African Americans from serving on juries . 69
This targeted government action was extremely ef -
fective in stripping African Americans of what little
political power gained during the Reconstruction era .

For example, in 1867 Black turnout in Virginia was 90
percent . 70 After Virginia’s voter suppression laws took effect, the number of Black voters dropped from 147 ,000 to 21,000 . 71 During Reconstruction, 16 Black men held seats in Congress . 72 From 1901 until the 1970s, not a sin - gle African American served in Congress . 73
These government actions returned white suprema -
cists to power in local, state, and federal government . 74 Historians have argued that racist lawmakers elected
from the Southern states blocked hundreds of federal
civil rights laws 75 and rewrote many of the country’s most important pieces of legislation to exclude or dis - criminate against African Americans . 76
Rayfield Lundy, Republican candidate for the California 55th Assembly District inspects a burnt cross at 1816 East 122nd Street, Los Angeles, California. (1952)

COURTESY OF LOS ANGELES EXAMINER/USC LIBRARIES/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES 9 Executive Summary
For example the New Deal, a series of federal laws
and policies designed to pull America out of the Great
Depression, created the modern white middle class and
many of the programs that Americans depend upon to -
day, such as Social Security . 77 But the New Deal excluded African Americans from many of its benefits . 78
Historians have argued that southern lawmakers en -
sured that the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of
1944 (commonly known as the G .I . Bill) was adminis - tered by states instead of the federal government to
guarantee that states could direct its funds to white
veterans . 79 Similarly, in order to secure the support of white southern lawmakers, Congress included segre -
gation clauses or rejected anti-discrimination clauses
in the Hospital Survey and Reconstruction Act of 1946
(commonly known as the Hill Burton Act), which paid
for our modern healthcare infrastructure . The same
tactics were applied to the American Housing Act of
1949, which helped white Americans buy single family
homes . 80 These federal legislative decisions enshrined the government sanctioned discrimination of African
Americans for decades to come and perpetuates the ra -
cial hierarchy today .

California
California also passed and enforced laws to prevent
Black Californians from accumulating political power . 81 California passed a law prohibiting non-white witness - es from testifying against white Californians . 82 This law shielded white defendants from justice . 83 The California Supreme Court explained that any non-white person
to testify “would admit them to all the equal rights of citizenship, and we might soon see them at the polls,
in the jury box, upon the bench, and in our legislative halls,” a prospect that the court viewed as an “actual and present danger .” 84
California did not allow Black men to vote until 1879 . 85 The state also passed many of the voter suppression laws that were used in the South . California prohibited indi- viduals convicted of felonies from voting, 86 added a poll tax, 87 and put in place a literacy test . 88
V . Housing Segregation
Nationally
America’s racial hierarchy was the foundation for a sys - tem of segregation in the United States after the Civil War . 89 The aim of segregation was not only to separate, but also to force African Americans to live in worse con - ditions in nearly every aspect of life . 90
Government actors, working with private individuals,
actively segregated America into Black and white neigh - borhoods . 91 Although this system of segregation was
called Jim Crow in the South, it existed by less obvious, but effective means throughout the entire country, in - cluding in California . 92
During enslavement, about 90 percent of African
Americans were forced to live in the South . 93 Immediately after the Civil War, the country was racially and geograph- ically configured in ways that were different from the way it is segregated today . 94 Throughout the 20th century, American federal, state, and local municipal governments expanded and solidified segregation efforts through zon- ing ordinances, slum clearance policies, construction of parks and freeways through Black neighborhoods, and
public housing siting decisions . 95 Courts enforced ra - cial covenants that prevented homes from being sold to
African Americans well into late 1940s . 96
The federal government used redlining to deny African
Americans equal access to the capital needed to buy a
single-family home while at the same time subsidizing
white Americans’ efforts to own the same type of home . 97 As President Herbert Hoover stated in 1931, single-family homes were “expressions of racial longing” and “[t]hat
our people should live in their own homes is a sentiment deep in the heart of our race .” 98
The passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968 outlawed
housing discrimination, but did not fix the structures
put in place by 100 years of discriminatory government
policies, and residential segregation continues today . 99 The average urban Black person in 1890 lived in a neigh- borhood that was only 27 percent Black . 100 In 2019, America is as segregated as it was in the 1940s, with the average urban Black person living in a neighborhood
that is 44 percent Black . 101 Better jobs, tax dollars, mu - nicipal services, healthy environments, good schools,
access to health care, and grocery stores have followed white residents to the suburbs, leaving concentrated
poverty, underfunded schools, collapsing infrastruc -
ture, polluted water and air, crime, and food deserts in segregated inner city neighborhoods . 102
10 Executive Summary
California
In California, the federal, state, and local government created segregation through redlining, zoning ordinanc- es, decisions on where to build schools and highways and discriminatory federal mortgage policies . 103 California “sundown towns,” (a term derived from municipal
signs announcing that African Americans must leave by
dusk) like most of the suburbs of Los Angeles and San
Francisco, prohibited African Americans from living in
entire cities throughout the state . 104
The federal government financed many whites only
neighborhoods throughout the state . 105 The federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation maps used in redlin -
ing described many Californian neighborhoods in
racially discriminatory terms . 106 For example, in San Diego there were “servant’s areas” of La Jolla and several areas “restricted to the Caucasian race .” 107
During World War II, the federal government paid
to build segregated housing for defense workers in
Northern California . 108 Housing for white workers gen - erally better constructed and permanent . 109 While white workers lived in rooms paid for by the federal govern - ment, Black wartime workers lived in cardboard shacks,
barns, tents, or open fields . 110
Racially-restrictive covenants, which were clauses in
property deeds that usually allowed only white residents to live on the property described in the deed, were com- monplace and California courts enforced them well into
the 1940s . 111
Numerous neighborhoods around the state rezoned
Black neighborhoods for industrial use to steer white
residents towards better neighborhoods 112 or adopted zoning ordinances to ban apartment buildings to try and keep out prospective Black residents . 113
State agencies demolished thriving Black neighborhoods
in the name of urban renewal and park construction . 114 Operating under state law for urban redevelopment,
the City of San Francisco declared the Western Addition blighted, and destroyed the Fillmore, San Francisco’s
most prominent Black neighborhood and business
district . 115 In doing so, the City of San Francisco closed 883 businesses, displaced 4,729 households, destroyed
2,500 Victorian homes, 116 and damaged the lives of near- ly 20,000 people . 117
The city then left the land empty for many years . 118 VI . Separate and Unequal Education
Nationally
Through much of American history, enslavers and the
white political ruling class in America falsely believed it was in their best interest to deny education to African Americans in order to dominate and control them . Slave states denied education to nearly all enslaved people,
while the North and Midwest segregated their schools
and limited or denied access to freed Black people . 119 After slavery, southern states maintained the racial hi - erarchy by legally segregating Black and white children, and white-controlled legislatures funded Black public
The image on the left shows a redlining map of Oakland, CA made by the Home Owners Loan Corporation during the 1930s. The red portions are non-white neighborhoods deemed by the federal agency to be a credit risk. The map on the right shows the Center for Disease Control’s Social Vulnerability Index scores for census tracts today. The Social Vulnerability Index is widely used to assess a community’s capacity to prepare for, respond to, and recover from human and natural disasters. The red portion indicates the highest level of vulnerability to disasters.

COURTESY OF “NOT EVEN PAST: SOCIAL VULNERABILITY AND THE LEGACY OF REDLINING”/ HTTPS://DSL.RICHMOND.EDU/SOCIAL VULNERABILITY 11 Executive Summary
schools far less than white public schools . 120 An Alabama state legislator stated in 1889, “[e]ducation would spoil a good plow hand .” 121 Black teachers received lower wages, and Black children received fewer months of schooling
per year and fewer years of schooling per lifetime than white children . 122
Contrary to what Americans are taught, the U .S .

Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 case, Brown v. Board of
Education , which established that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional, did not mark the end of segregation . 123
After Brown v. Board, many white people and white-dom-
inated school boards throughout the country actively
resisted integration . 124 In the South, segregation was still in place through the early 1970s due to massive resis - tance by white communities . 125 In the rest of the country, including California, education segregation occurred
when government sanctioned housing segregation
combined with school assignment and siting policies . 126 Because children attended the schools in their neigh -
borhood and school financing was tied to property
taxes, most Black children attended segregated schools
with less funding and resources than schools attended
by white children . 127
In 1974, the U .S . Supreme Court allowed this type of school segregation to continue in schools if it reflected residential segregation patterns between the cities
and suburbs . 128 In part, as result of this and other U .S .

Supreme Court decisions that followed to further un -
dermine desegregation efforts, many public schools in
the United States were integrated and then resegregat - ed, or never integrated in the first place .

California
In 1874, the California Supreme Court ruled segregation in the state’s public schools was legal, 129 a decision that predated the U .S . Supreme Court’s infamous “separate but equal” 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson by 22 years . 130 In 1966, as the South was in the process of desegregating, 85 percent of Black Californians attended predominant-
ly minority schools, and only 12 percent of Black students and 39 percent of white students attended racially bal - anced schools . 131 Like in the South, white Californians fought desegregation and, in a number of school dis -
tricts, courts had to order districts to desegregate . 132 Any progress attained through court-enforced desegrega -
tion was short-lived . Throughout the mid- to late-1970s, courts overturned, limited, or ignored desegregation or- ders in many California districts, as the Supreme Court and Congress limited methods to integrate schools . 133 In 1979, California passed Proposition 1, which further limited desegregation efforts tied to busing . 134
In the vast majority of California school districts, schools either re-segregated or were never integrated, and thus segregated schools persists today . California remains the sixth most segregated state in the country for Black students . 135 In California’s highly segregated schools, schools mostly attended by white and Asian children
receive more funding and resources than schools with
predominately Black and Latino children . 136
VII . Racism in Environment and Infrastructure
Nationally
Due to residential segregation, African Americans have
lived in poor-quality housing throughout American
history, exposing them to disproportionate amounts
of lead poisoning and increasing risk of infectious dis - ease . 137 Segregated Black neighborhoods have more
exposure to hazardous waste, oil and gas production,
automobile and diesel fumes, and are more likely to
have inadequate public services like sewage lines and
drinking water pipes . 138 African Americans are more vul- nerable than white Americans to the dangerous effects
of extreme weather patterns such as heat waves, made
worse by the effects of human consumption and indus -
trial degradation of the environment . 139
California
National patterns are replicated in California . Black
Californians are more likely than white Californians
to live in overcrowded housing, and near hazard -
ous waste . 140 Black neighborhoods are more likely to lack tree canopy 141 and suffer from the consequenc - es of water 142 and air pollution . 143 For instance, Black Californians in the San Joaquin Valley were excluded
Nationally, nonwhite school districts get
than predominantly white districts
$23 Billion LESS
12 Executive Summary
from most urban areas with access
to clean water as a result of redlin -
ing policies, racial covenants, and
racially-motivated violence . 144
In Tulare county, the largely Black
community of Teviston had no
access to sewer and water infra -
structure, while the adjacent white
community of Pixley did . 145 This
discrimination continued until recently: the town of
Lanare, formed by Black families fleeing the Dust Bowl, had no running water at all until the 1970s, and was
subjected to dangerous levels of arsenic in the water
even after wells and pipes were drilled . 146 The town’s res- idents did not get access to clean drinking until 2019 . 147 VIII . Pathologizing the Black Family
Nationally
Government policies and practices—at all levels—have
destroyed Black families throughout American history .

After the Civil War, southern state governments re-en - slaved children by making them “apprentices” and
forcing them to labor for white Americans, who were
sometimes their former enslavers . 148 In the past century, state and federal government financial assistance and
child welfare systems have based decisions on racist be - liefs created to maintain slavery and which continue to operate today as badges of slavery . 149
Government issued financial assistance has excluded
African Americans from receiving benefits . In the early 1900s, state governments made support payments ev -
ery month to low income single mothers to assist them
with the expenses incurred while raising children . 150 Black families were generally excluded, despite their
greater need . 151
Scholars have found that racial discrimination exists at every stage of the child welfare process . 152 The data show that when equally poor Black and white families are com- pared, even where both families are considered to be at equal risk for future abuse, state agencies are more likely to remove Black children from their families than white children . 153 As of 2019, Black children make up only 14 percent of American children, and yet 23 percent of chil- dren in foster care . 154 Studies have shown that this is likely not because Black parents mistreat their children more
often, but rather due to racist systems and poverty . 155 In the 2015-16 school year, Black
students were arrested at three
times the rate of white students,
while only comprising 15 percent
of the population in schools . 156 This
disparity widens for Black girls, who
make up 17 percent of the school
population, but are arrested at
3 .3 times the rate of white girls . 157
Meanwhile, the criminal and ju -
venile justice systems have intensified these harms to
Black families by imprisoning large numbers of Black
children, thereby separating Black families . 158
California
California trends in the child welfar e, juvenile justice and disciplinary action in schools match those in the rest of the country . Recent California Attorney General investiga - tions have found several school districts punish Black
students at higher rates than students of other races . 159 Investigations at the Barstow Unified School District,
the Oroville City Elementary School District, and the
Oroville Union High School District showed that Black
students were more likely to be punished and/or sus -
pended, and were subjected to greater punishments,
than similarly-situated peers of other races . 160
A 2015 study ranked California among the five worst
states in foster care racial disparities . 161 Black children in California make up approximately 22 percent of the
In the 1950s, a developer in Milpitas, CA tried to build a housing development for both white and Black homebuyers. In response, the Milpitas City Council increased the sewer connection fee more than tenfold to thwart the development.
14% 23%

AFRICAN AMERICANS

IN THE UNITED STATES

BLACK CHILDREN IN

FOSTER CARE
2019
13 Executive Summary
foster population, while only six percent of the general child population . 162 far higher than the national per - centages . 163 Some counties in California—both urban
and rural—have much higher disparities compared to
the statewide average . In San Francisco County, which
is largely urban and has nearly 900,000 residents, the
percentage of Black children in foster care in 2018 was more than 25 times the rate of white children . 164
IX . Control Over Creative Cultural and Intellectual Life Nationally
During slavery, state governments controlled and dic -
tated the forms and content of African American artistic and cultural production . 165 Advocates argue that this is still true today . 166 After the Civil War, governments and politicians embraced minstrelsy, which was the popular
racist and stereotypical depiction of African Americans through song, dance, and film . 167 Federal and state gov - ernments failed to protect Black artists and creators
from discrimination and simultaneously promoted dis -
criminatory narratives . 168
Federal and state governments allowed white Americans
to steal Black art and culture with impunity—depriving
Black creators of valuable copyright and patent protec - tions . 169 State governments denied Black entrepreneurs and culture makers access to the leisure sites, business licenses, and funding for lifestyle activities that were offered to white people . 170 State governments built monuments to memorialize the Confederacy as just
and heroic through monument building, while simul -
taneously suppressing the nation’s history of racism,
slavery and genocide . 171 States
censored cinematic depictions
of discrimination while also cen -
soring depictions of Black people
integrating into white society . 172
California
In California, city governments
decimated thriving Black neigh -
borhoods with vibrant artistic
communities, like the Fillmore in
San Francisco . 173 Local governments in California have discriminated against, punished, and penalized Black
students for their fashion, hairstyle, and appearance . 174 State-funded California museums have excluded Black
art from their institutions . 175 California has criminalized Black rap artists, as California courts have allowed rap lyrics to be used as evidence related to street gang ac - tivity . 176 California has been home to numerous racist monuments and memorials for centuries . 177
X . Stolen Labor and Hindered Opportunity
Nationally
It is undeniable that the labor of enslaved Africans built the infrastructure of the nation, produced its main agri- cultural products for domestic consumption and export,
and filled the nation’s coffers . 178 Since then, federal, state, and local government actions directly segregated and discriminated against African Americans . 179 In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson officially segregated much
of the federal workforce . 180 While African Americans have consistently served in the military since the very beginning of the country, the military has historically paid Black soldiers less than white soldiers and often
deemed African Americans unfit for service until the
military needed them to fight . 181
Federal laws have also protected white workers while
denying the same protections to Black workers, em -
powering private discrimination . 182 Approximately 85 percent of all Black workers in the United States at the time were excluded from the protections passed the
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938—protections such as
a federal minimum wage, the maximum number of
working hours, required overtime pay, and limits on
child labor . 183 The Act essentially outlawed child labor in There are estimates that racial violence accounts for 1,100 missing patents that should have been given to African Americans. Cyrus McCormick received a patent for the mechanical reaper, even though it was actually invented by Jo Anderson, a man who was enslaved by the McCormick family.
14 Executive Summary
industrial settings—where most white children worked—
and allowed child labor in agricultural and domestic
work—where most Black children worked . 184
Although federal and state laws such as the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the California Fair Employment
and Housing Act of 1959 prohibit discrimination, en -
forcement is slow and spotty . 185 Federal and state policies such as affirmative action produced mixed results or
were short lived . 186 African Americans continue to face employment discrimination today . 187
California
Several California cities did not hire Black workers
until the 1940s and certain public sectors continued
to avoid hiring Black workers even in 1970 . 188 The San Francisco Fire Department, for example, had no Black
firefighters before 1955 and, by 1970 when Black resi - dents made up 14 percent of the city’s population, only four of the Department’s 1,800 uniformed firefighters
were Black . 189 During the New Deal,
several California cities invoked city
ordinances to prevent Black federal
workers from working within their
cities . 190 Labor unions excluded
Black workers in California . 191 Today,
by some measures, California’s two
major industries, Hollywood and Silicon Valley, dispro - portionately employ fewer African Americans . 192
XI . An Unjust Legal System
Nationally
American government at all levels criminalized African
Americans for social control, and to maintain an econ - omy based on exploited Black labor . 193
After the Civil War, and throughout segregation,
states passed numerous laws that criminalized African
Americans as they performed everyday tasks, like enter - ing into the same waiting rooms as white Americans at
bus stations or walking into a park for white people . 194 In the South, until the 1940s, Black men and boys were
frequently arrested on vagrancy charges or minor vi -
olations, then fined, and forced to pay their fine in a new system of enslavement called convict leasing . 195 In the words of the Supreme Court of Virginia, they were
“slaves of the state .” 196
During the tough on crime and War on Drugs era, pol -
iticians continued to criminalize African Americans to
win elections . President Richard Nixon’s domestic policy advisor explained that by “getting the public to associ - ate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin,
and then criminalizing both heavily, [the Nixon White
House] could disrupt those communities… Did we know
we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did . ” 197 The criminalization of African Americans is an enduring badge of slavery and has contributed to over policing
of Black neighborhoods, establishment of the school-
to-prison pipeline, the mass incarceration of African
Americans, and numerous other inequities reaching
every corner of the American legal system . 198
It has also led to the retraumatization of African
Americans when both the police and mainstream media
refuse to accept African Americans as victims . Law en - forcement poorly investigates or ignore crimes against
African American women . 199 Violence against Black trans people are underreported, unresolved and under-in -
vestigated . 200 Black children on average remain missing longer than non-Black children . 201
The American criminal justice system overall physical - ly harms, imprisons, and kills African Americans more
than any other racial group relative to their percentage of the population . 202 While constitutional amendments 203 and federal civil rights laws 204 have tried to remedy these According to one meta-study, from 1989 to 2014, employment discrimination against African Americans had not decreased.

The convict leasing system in the South re-enslaved thousands of Black men and boys by arresting and convicting them of trumped up charges. (1903)

COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
15 Executive Summary
injustices, academics, judges, legislators and advocates have argued that the U .S . criminal justice system is a new iteration of legal segregation . 205
California
Like the rest of the country, California stops, shoots, kills , and imprisons more African Americans than
their share of the population . 206 Data show that law enforcement most frequently reported taking no fur -
ther action during a stop with a person they perceived
to be Black, suggesting there may have been no legal
basis for the stop . 207 A 2020 study showed that racial discrimination is an “ever-present” feature of jury selec- tion in California . 208 The lingering effects of California’s punitive criminal justice policies, such as the state’s three-strikes law, have resulted in large numbers of
African Americans in jails and prisons . 209
XII . Mental and Physical Harm and Neglect
Nationally
The government actions described in this report
have had a devastating effect on the health of African
Americans . Compared to white Americans, African
Americans live shorter lives and are more likely to suffer and die from nearly all known diseases and medical con- ditions compared to white Americans . 210 When African Americans are hospitalized, Black patients with heart
disease receive older, cheaper, and more conservative
treatments than their white counterparts . 211
Researchers have found that by some measures, this
health gap has grown and cannot be explained by
poverty alone, 212 as middle- and upper-class African Americans also manifest high rates of chronic illness
and disability . 213 Researchers have linked these health outcomes in part to African Americans’ unrelenting ex - perience of racism in our society . 214 Research suggests that race-related stress may have a greater impact on
health among African Americans than diet, exercise,
smoking, or low socioeconomic status . 215
In addition to physical harm, African Americans ex -
perience anger, anxiety, paranoia, helplessness,
hopelessness, frustration, resentment, fear, lowered
self-esteem, and lower levels of psychological function - ing as a result of racism . 216 These feelings can profoundly undermine Black children’s emotional and physical
well-being and their academic success . 217
California
These national trends are similar in California . The life expectancy of an average Black Californian was 75 .1
years, six years shorter than the state average . 218 Black babies are more likely to die in infancy and Black moth - ers giving birth die at a rate of almost four times higher than the average Californian mother . 219 Compared with white Californians, Black Californians are more likely
to have diabetes, die from cancer, or be hospitalized for heart disease . 220
Black Californians suffer from high rates of serious
psychological distress, depression, suicidal ideation,
and other mental health issues . 221 Unmet mental health needs are higher among Black Californians, as com -
pared with white Californians, including lack of access to mental healthcare and substance abuse services . 222 Black Californians have the highest rates of attempted
suicide among all racial groups . 223
XIII . The Wealth Gap
Nationally
As described in further detail throughout this report,
government policies perpetuating badges of slavery
have helped white Americans accumulate wealth, while
overwhelmingly erecting barriers which prevent African
Americans from doing the same .

Federal and California Homestead Acts essentially gave
away hundreds of millions of acres of land almost for
free mostly to white families . 224 Today, as many as 46 million of their living descendants reap the wealth
benefits, approximately one-quarter of the adult pop -
ulation of the United States . 225 In the 1930s and 1940s, Compared to white Californian men,
Black Californian men are
to die from
prostate cancer 5x

MORE LIKEL Y
16 Executive Summary
the federal government created programs that subsi -
dized low-cost loans, which allowed millions of average white Americans to own their homes for the first time . 226 Of the $120 billion worth of new housing subsidized
between 1934 and 1962, less than two percent went to
non-white families . 227 Other bedrocks of the American middle class, like Social Security and the G .I . Bill, also mostly excluded African Americans . 228 The federal tax structure has in the past, and continues today, to dis - criminate against African Americans . 229
These harms have compounded over generations, re -
sulting in an enormous wealth gap that is the same today as it had been two years before the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 . 230 In 2019, the median Black household had a net worth of $24,100, while white households
have a net worth of $188,200 . 231 This wealth gap persists across all income levels, regardless of education level or family structure . 232
California
The wealth gap exists in similar ways in California . A 2014 study of the Los Angeles metro area found that the median value of liquid assets for native born African
American households was $200, compared to $110,000
for white households . 233
California’s homestead laws similarly excluded African
Americans before 1900 because they required a
homesteader to be a white citizen . 234 Throughout the 20th century, federal, state and local governments in
California erected barriers to Black homeownership
and supported or directly prohibited African Americans
from living in suburban neighborhoods . 235 In 1996,
California passed Proposition 209 in 1996, which pro -
hibited the consideration of race in state contracting . 236 One study has estimated that, as a result of Proposition 209, minority- and women-owned business enterprises
lost about $1 billion . 237
In 2019, white households owned
assets than Black households
9x
MORE $$$$$$$$$$
17 Executive Summary
XIV . Key Findings
• From colonial times forward, governments at all lev - els adopted and enshrined white supremacy beliefs
and passed laws in order to maintain slavery, a system
of dehumanization and exploitation that stole the
life, labor, liberty, and intellect of people of African descent . This system was maintained by, and finan -
cially benefited, the entire United States of America
and its territories .
• This system of white supremacy is a persistent badge
of slavery that continues to be embedded today in
numerous American and Californian legal, eco -
nomic, and social and political systems . Throughout
American history and across the entire country, laws
and policies, violence and terror have upheld white
supremacy . All over the country, but particularly in
the South during the era of legal segregation, feder -
al state and local governments directly engaged in,
supported, or failed to protect African Americans
from the violence and terror aiming to subjugate
African Americans .
• Government actions and derelictions of duty have
caused compounding physical and psychological
injury for generations . In California, racial violence against African Americans began during slavery,
continued through the 1920s, as groups like the
Ku Klux Klan permeated local governments and
police departments, and peaked after World War
II, as African Americans attempted to move into
white neighborhoods .
• After the Civil War, African Americans briefly won
political power during Reconstruction . Southern
states responded by systematically stripping African
Americans of their power to vote . Racist lawmakers
elected from southern states blocked hundreds of
federal civil rights laws and edited other import -
ant legislation to exclude or discriminate against
African Americans . These coordinated efforts at the
federal level harmed Black Californians, particularly
when coupled with discrimination at the state and
local levels .
• Government actors, working with private individu -
als, actively segregated America into Black and white
neighborhoods . In California, federal, state, and local governments created segregation through discrimi -
natory federal housing policies, zoning ordinances,
decisions on where to build schools, and discrimina -
tory federal mortgage policies known as redlining .

Funded by the federal government, the California
state and local government also destroyed Black
homes and communities through park and highway
construction, urban renewal and by other means .
• Enslavers denied education to enslaved people in
order to control them . Throughout American his -
tory, when allowed schooling at all, Black students
across the country and in California have attended
schools with less funding and resources than white
students . After slavery, southern states passed laws
to prevent Black and white students from attending
the same schools . Throughout the country, even af -
ter the U .S . Supreme Court held “separate but equal”
to be unconstitutional, children went to the school
in their neighborhoods, so education segregation
was further entrenched by residential segregation .

Many public schools in the United States never inte -
grated in the first place or were integrated and then
re-segregated . Today, California is the sixth most seg- regated state in the country for Black students, who
attend under-resourced schools .
• Due to residential segregation and compared to white
Americans, African Americans are more likely to live
in worse quality housing and in neighborhoods that
are polluted, with inadequate infrastructure . Black
Californians face similar harms .
• Government financial assistance programs and pol -
icies have historically excluded African Americans
from receiving benefits .
• The current child welfare system in the country and
in California, operates on harmful and untrue racial
stereotypes of African Americans . This has resulted
in extremely high rates of removal of Black children
from their families, even though Black parents do
not generally mistreat their children at higher rates
than white parents . Black children thus dispropor -
tionately suffer the loss of their families and the
additional harms associated with being in the child
welfare system .
• Federal and state governments, including California,
failed to protect Black artists, culture-makers, and
media-makers from discrimination and simulta -
neously promoted discriminatory narratives . State
governments memorialized the Confederacy as just
and heroic through monument building, while sup -
pressing the nation’s history of racism and slavery .
18 Executive Summary
• Federal, state, and local government actions, in -
cluding in California, have directly segregated and
discriminated against African Americans at work .

Federal and state policies like affirmative action pro - duced mixed results and were short lived . African
Americans continue to face employment discrimina -
tion today in the country and in California .
• American government at all levels, including in
California, has historically criminalized African
Americans for the purposes of social control, and
to maintain an economy based on exploited Black
labor . This criminalization is an enduring badge of
slavery and has contributed to the over-policing of
Black neighborhoods, the school to prison pipeline,
the mass incarceration of African Americans, a refus-
al to accept African Americans as victims, and other
inequities in nearly every corner of the American and
California legal systems . As a result, the American
and California criminal justice system physically
harms, imprisons, and kills African Americans more
than other racial groups relative to their percentage
of the population .
• The government actions described in this re -
port have had a devastating effect on the health of
African Americans in the country and in California .

Compared to white Americans, African Americans
live shorter lives and are more likely to suffer and
die from almost all diseases and medical conditions
than white Americans . Researchers have linked these
health outcomes in part to African Americans’ un -
relenting experience of racism in our society . In
addition to physical harm, African Americans expe -
rience psychological harm, which can profoundly
undermine Black children’s emotional and physical
well-being and their academic success .
• Government laws and policies perpetuating badges
of slavery have helped white Americans accumulate
wealth, while erecting barriers that have prevent -
ed African Americans from doing the same . These
harms compounded over generations, resulting in an
enormous gap in wealth between white and African
Americans today in the nation and in California .
19 Executive Summary
XV . Preliminary Recommendations for Future Deliberation Enslavement
• End legal slavery in California by doing the following:
» Deleting language from the California
Constitution that permits involuntary servi -
tude as punishment for crime by passing ACA
3 (Kamlager) .
» Repealing Penal Code Section 2700, which states
that the California Department of Corrections
and Rehabilitation (CDCR) “shall require of ev -
ery able-bodied prisoner imprisoned in any state
prison as many hours of faithful labor in each day
and every day during his or her term of impris -
onment as shall be prescribed by the rules and
regulations of the director of Corrections . ”
» Pass legislation that makes education, substance
use and mental health treatment, and rehabilitative
programs the first priority for incarcerated people .

In addition, allow incarcerated people to make
decisions regarding how they will spend their
time and which programs and jobs they will do
while incarcerated .
» Require that incarcerated people who are work -
ing in prison or jail be paid a fair market rate for
their labor .
» Prohibit for-profit prison companies from operat-
ing within the system (i .e . companies that control
phone calls, emails, and other communications) .
» Require that any goods or services available for pur- chase by incarcerated people and their families be
provided at the same cost as those goods and ser-
vices outside of prison .
» Allow people who are incarcerated to continue to
exercise their right to vote .
• Implement a comprehensive reparations scheme, as
will be detailed in the Task Force’s Final Report .
• Transmit the Task Force's Final Report and findings
to the President and the Congress with a rec -
ommendation that the federal government create a
Reparations Commission for African Americans/
American Freedmen through statute or executive action . • Request that the State of California and the U . S . fed- eral government facilitate data disaggregation for
Black/African racial groups .

Racial Terror
• Make it easier to hold law enforcement officers (in - cluding correctional officers) and their employing
agencies accountable for unlawful harassment
and violence, including 1) a provision overruling
the extratextual “specific intent” requirement that
California courts have read into the Bane Act; 2) a
provision eliminating state law immunities that
shield officer misconduct, and explicitly rejecting
protections analogous to qualified immunity under
federal law; and 3) a provision for additional special
damages when the unlawful conduct is shown to be
racially motivated .
• Create forms of expression, acknowledgment, and
remembrance of the trauma of state-sanctioned
white supremacist terror, possibly including me -
morials, and funding a long-term truth and
reconciliation commission .
• Estimate the value of Black-owned businesses and
property in California stolen or destroyed through
acts of racial terror, distribute this amount back to
Black Californians, and make housing grants, ze -
ro-interest business and housing loans and grants
available to Black Californians .

Political Disenfranchisement
• Create forms of acknowledgment and apology for
acts of political disenfranchisement .
• Pass legislation that is in alignment of the objec -
tives stated in AB 2576 (Aguiar-Curry) and establish
separate funding:
» for voter education and outreach
» to provide state funding and charge the Secretary
of State office with making grants to county
registrars for programs that integrate voter regis -
tration and preregistration with civic education for
programs that increase voter registration within
the county’s underrepresented communities and
high school students .
• Consider legislation to prevent dilution of the Black vote through redistricting .
• Require legislative policy committees to conduct racial impact analyses of all proposed legislation and require the Administration to include a comprehensive
20 Executive Summary
racial impact analysis for all budget proposals and
proposed regulations .
• Allow individuals with felony convictions to serve
on juries and prohibit judges and attorneys from
excluding jurors solely for having a criminal record .

Housing Segregation
• Identify and eliminate anti-Black housing discrim -
ination policies practices .
• Compensate individuals forcibly removed from their
homes due to state action, including but not limited
to park construction, highway construction, and
urban renewal .
• Prevent current banking and mortgage relat -
ed discrimination, including but not limited to
discriminatory actions as a result of artificial intel - ligence and automated data analytics .
• Repeal Article 34 of the California Constitution .
• Repeal or counteract the effects of crime-free hous - ing policies that disproportionately limit Black
residents’ access to housing .
• Establish a state-subsidized mortgage system that
guarantees low interest rates for qualified California
Black mortgage applicants .
• Identify previous, and eliminate current, policies and practices that overwhelmingly contribute to the vast
overrepresentation of African Americans among the
unhoused population .
• Identify and eliminate any policies with blatant
anti-black residency requirements or preferences;
invalidate and deem unlawful, any contract with an -
ti-Black racial covenants .
• Provide clean and secure public housing for vulner -
able populations including those persons who are
formerly incarcerated, in the foster care system, and
unhoused individuals .
• Provide development incentives for businesses that
provide healthy foods, specifically grocery stores, in
predominantly-Black neighborhoods to address in -
creasingly prevalent food swamps .

Separate and Unequal Education
• Add Black students to the existing three student
groups listed in the Supplemental Grants provi -
sions of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) .

Methodically guide this funding to provide instruc -
tional supports, enrichment, and counseling to
Black students .
• Identify and eliminate racial bias and discriminatory practices in standardized testing, inclusive of state - wide K -12 proficiency assessments, undergraduate and
postgraduate eligibility assessments, and professional
career exams (ex . STAR, ACT, SAT, LSAT, GRE, MCAT,
State Bar Exam) .
• Provide funding for free tuition to California colleges and universities .
• Provide funding for African American/American
Freedmen owned and controlled K -12 schools, colleges
and universities, trade and professional schools .
• Adopt mandatory curriculum for teacher credentialing
that includes culturally responsive pedagogy, anti-bias training, and restorative practices and develop strate- gies to proactively recruit African American teachers to teach in K -12 public schools .
• Reduce arbitrary segregation within California pub -
lic schools and the resulting harms to Black students
at majority-nonwhite under-resourced schools, by
creating porous school district boundaries that allow
students from neighboring districts to attend .
• Increase the availability of inter-district transfers to increase the critical mass of diverse students at each
school so that students are assigned, or able to at -
tend, public schools based on factors independent
of their parents’ income level and ability to afford
housing in a particular neighborhood or city .
• Provide scholarships for Black high school gradu -
ates to cover four years of undergraduate education
(similar to the G .I . Bill model) to address specific and ongoing discrimination faced in California schools .
• Implement systematic review of public and private
school disciplinary records to determine levels of ra - cial bias and require all schools to implement racially equitable disciplinary practices .
• Require that curriculum at all levels and in all subjects be inclusive, free of bias, and honor the contributions 21 Executive Summary
and experiences of all peoples regardless of ethnicity, race, gender, or sexual orientation .
• Advance the timeline for ethnic studies classes in
public and private high schools
• Adopt a K -12 Black Studies curriculum that introduces students to concepts of race and racial identity; accu- rately depicts historic racial inequities and systemic
racism; honors Black lives, fully represents contributions of Black people in society, and advances the ideology of Black liberation .
• Encourage identification and support of teachers
who give culturally nurturing instructions and adopt
new models for teacher development to improve
teacher habits in the classroom .
• Improve funding and access for educational oppor -
tunities for all incarcerated people in both juvenile
and adult correctional facilities .

Racism in Environment and Infrastructure
• Identify and address the impact of environmental
racism on predominantly Black communities in -
cluding, but not limited to, unequal exposure to
pollutants associated with roadway and heavy truck
traffic, oil drilling, drinking water contamination,
and current or former heavily-industrial and other
potential pollutants in Black neighborhoods .
• Require and fund the statewide planting of trees to
create shade equity and minimize heat islands in
Black neighborhoods .
• Ensure that state and local allocation of resources to public transit systems is equitable on a per-rider ba - sis for methods of transit that are disproportionately
utilized by low-income, urban, and Black residents .
• Support development of policies and practices that
limit the unequal citing of vice retail businesses (e .g ., liquor stores, tobacco retail) in Black neighborhoods . • Support Black neighborhoods to develop policies
and practices that promote locating healthy retail -
ers (e .g ., grocery stores, farmers markets) within
Black neighborhoods .
• Support the work of community-based organiza -
tions in identifying Black resident interests and
needs within neighborhoods (e .g ., farmers markets,
public transportation) .
• Support the work of community-based organizations
to ensure safe access to neighborhood-level physical
activity spaces (e .g ., public parks) .
• Reduce the density of food swamps (i .e ., high densi- ties of fast-food restaurants) in Black neighborhoods . • Introduce climate change mitigation and adaptive
capacity strategies and measures (e .g ., cooling cen - ters, increasing greenspaces that reduce urban heat
island effects and air pollutant concentrations) .
• Equalize community benefit infrastructure fund -
ing among Black and white neighborhoods (i .e . bike
trails, drinking water pipes, sidewalks, etc .)
Pathologizing Black Families
• Compensate families who were denied familial
inheritances by way of racist anti-miscegenation
statutes, laws, or precedents, that denied Black
heirs resources they would have received had they
been white .
• Realign federal Temporary Assistance to Needy
Families funding devoted to direct assistance to
impoverished families in order to provide greater
funding to poor Black families that have historically
been denied equal welfare benefits pursuant to a va -
riety of subversive racist policies and practices .
• Address the severely disparate involvement of
Black families within the child welfare and foster
care systems .
• Review and adopt policies that caregivers in the
child welfare system are allowed to meet the re -
quirements and have access to resources to care for
family members .
• Ensure that Black men and women have ac -
cess to effective, high quality, trauma-informed,
culturally competent intimate partner and/or guardian
violence treatment and services outside of the criminal legal system .
• Eliminate past-due child support owed to the gov -
ernment for non-custodial parents .
• Eliminate the collection of child support as a
means to reimburse the state for current or past
government assistance .
• Ensure that all child support payments are provided
directly to the custodial parent and the child .
22 Executive Summary
• Eliminate the annual interest charged for past due
child support .
• Allow incarcerated parents, when appropriate, to
strengthen and maintain their relationships with
their children by doing the following:
» Provide on-going wrap around family reunification
and maintenance services to incarcerated people
and their families .
» Provide mental health support designed specifi -
cally to heal trauma and strengthen family ties,
including both individual and family treatment
when needed .
» Develop spaces and programs for incarcerat -
ed people to spend time with their children
in non-institutional, non-punitive settings
when appropriate .
» Prohibit the state prison system and local jails from cancelling family visits as a form of punishment .
» Require that all visitation policies be culturally
competent, trauma-informed, and non-threatening
for the family members .
» Allow free telephone and video calls to allow in -
carcerated parents to maintain connections to
their children and other family members, for cas-
es not involving domestic or familial abuse .
» Accommodate telephone and video meetings
between incarcerated parents and their children’s
caregivers, physicians, and teachers to allow par -
ents to participate in decision making regarding
their children’s care, needs, and education .

Control Over Creative Cultural and
Intellectual Life
• Identify and eliminate anti-Black discrimination
policies in the areas of artistic, cultural, creative,
athletic, and intellectual life .
• Provide financial restitution and compensation to
athletes or their heirs for injuries sustained in their work if those injuries can be linked to anti-Black
discrimination policies .
• Compensate individuals who have been deprived of
rightful profits for their artistic, creative, athletic, and intellectual work .
• Identify and eliminate discrimination in the industries of art, culture, invention, sports, leisure, and business, including but not limited to: ensuring access to patents and royalties for cultural, intellectual, and artistic
production; prohibiting discrimination and glass
ceilings that harm Black artists and entrepreneurs;
removing anti-Black memorials and monuments;
placing clear restrictions on the use of artistic works in disciplinary or law enforcement actions; and providing
a pathway to compensation for student athletes .

Stolen Labor and Hindered Opportunity
• Identify and eliminate racial bias in employment and
advancement, especially for Black Californians
seeking public employment or promotion to high -
er-paying positions in government . Pass legislation to advance pay equity .
• Adopt a clean slate policy for both young people and
adults to ensure that eligible criminal record ex -
pungements are done quickly and equitably .
• Remove unnecessary barriers to employment for in -
dividuals with criminal records .
• Raise the minimum wage and require scaling-up of
the minimum wage for more experienced workers,
require provision of health benefits and paid time
off, and provide other missing protections for work -
ers in food and hospitality services, agricultural, food processing, and domestic worker industries .
• Require or incentivize private and public employers
to undergo training regarding bias in employment
practices and measures to address bias in hiring, pro-
motion, pay, and workplace practices .
• Create a fund to support the development and sus -
tainment of Black-owned businesses and eliminate
barriers to licensure that are not strictly necessary and that harm Black workers .
• Create and fund intensive training programs that
enable Black Californians to access employment op -
portunities from which they have been excluded .
• Ban employment practices that lock in and perpetu-
ate historic and continuing discrimination and should
make eligibility for public contracts contingent on
elimination of employment practices that dispro -
portionately harm Black workers .
• Address disparities in transportation that limit access to jobs .
23 Executive Summary
• Increase funding to the California Department of
Fair Employment and Housing and other relevant
state agencies to effectively enforce civil rights laws and regulations .

An Unjust Legal System
• Eliminate discriminatory policing and particu -
larly killings, use of force, and racial profiling of
African Americans .
• Eliminate and reverse the effects of discrimination
within the criminal justice system including, reviewing the cases of incarcerated African Americans in order to determine whether they have been wrongfully convict-
ed or have received longer or harsher sentences than
white people convicted of the same or similar crimes .
• Review the security level determinations made
by the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation in order to eliminate and reverse an -
ti-Black discriminatory policies and decisions that have resulted in a disproportionate number of Black incar-
cerated people being identified as members of security
threat groups, held in segregated housing, or housed in higher security levels than their white peers .
• Prevent discrimination by algorithms in new
policing technologies .
• Eliminate the racial disparities in police stops .
• Eliminate the racial disparities in criminal sentenc - ing and the over incarceration of African Americans .
• Eliminate the over-policing of predominantly
Black communities .
• Eliminate the racial disparities and discrimination
against African Americans in the parole hearing pro -
cess (including in the criminal risk assessments used
to determine suitability for parole) .
• Eliminate both implicit and explicit bias in the criminal justice system, including implementing training and
accountability for prosecutors, judges, parole commis-
sioners, and parole and probation officers .
• Reduce the scope of law enforcement jurisdiction
within the public safety system and shift more fund -
ing for prevention and mental health care .
• Invest in institutions that reduce the likelihood of
criminal activity such as care based services, youth
development, job training and increasing the min -
imum wage .
• Require the Board of State and Community
Corrections (BSCC), CDCR, the Judicial Council and
the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and
Training, and the Board of Parole Hearings to work
with the Attorney General to collect comprehensive
data on policing, convictions, sentencing, and incar -
ceration, including the use of less lethal weapons by
law enforcement and demographic characteristics on
a regular (monthly, quarterly, annual) basis . As part
of the data collection, mandate that law enforcement
(at all levels) report the data accurately and in a time- ly manner . In addition, require that the data be made
available through an open data system that can be
accessed and downloaded by researchers, advocates,
policy makers and the public .

Mental & Physical Harm and Neglect
• Eliminate anti-Black healthcare laws and policies and anti-Black discrimination in healthcare .
• Compensate, both financially and with cost-free
high quality comprehensive services and supports, in-
dividuals whose mental and physical health has been
permanently damaged by anti-Black healthcare system
policies and treatment, including, but not limited to,
those subjected to forced sterilization, medical ex -
perimentation, racist sentencing disparities, police
violence, environmental racism, and psychological
harm from race-related stress .
• Identify and eliminate discrimination and systemic
racism, including but not limited to, discrimination
by healthcare providers; inequity in access to health-
care; inaccessibility of health insurance; funding needs of health-focused community organizations; the
dearth of clinical research on health conditions that
affect African Americans; the underrepresentation
of African Americans among medical and mental
health providers; and the lack of race-conscious public health policy .
• Create free healthcare programs .
• Provide ongoing medical education, particularly on
illnesses and other issues that historically impact
health of African Americans; provide medical clinics .
• Implement Medi-Cal reforms to increase flexibility
for the use of community evidence practices designed,
tested and implemented by the Black community and
24 Executive Summary
reduce the tendency to use culturally bankrupt evi -
dence based practices that are not field tested .
• Identify and eliminate the biases and discriminatory
policies that lead to the higher rate of maternal injury and death among Black women .
• Ensure that Black women have access to competent,
trained medical staff and services for all of their
lifetime reproductive healthcare needs including
birth control, prenatal and postnatal care, labor
and delivery, abortion services, and perimenopause,
menopause and post-menopause care .

The Wealth Gap
• Implement a detailed program of reparations for
African Americans .
• Develop and implement other policies, pro -
grams, and measures to close the racial wealth gap
in California .
• Provide funding and technical assistance to Black-led and Black community-based land trusts to support
wealth building and affordable housing .

The California African American
Freedmen Affairs Agency
• Establish a cabinet-level secretary position over an
African American/Freedmen Affairs Agency tasked
with implementing the recommendations of this
task force . The role of the agency is to identify past harms, prevent future harm, work with other state
agencies and branches of California’s government
to mitigate harms, suggest policies to the Governor
and the Legislature designed to compensate for the
harms caused by the legacy of anti-Black discrimina -
tion, and work to eliminate systemic racism that has
developed as a result of the enslavement of African
Americans in the United States .
• The Agency should include the following:
» A branch to process claims with the state and as -
sist claimants in filing for eligibility .
» A genealogy branch in order to support potential
claimants with genealogical research and to con -
firm eligibility .
» A reparations tribunal in order to adjudicate sub -
stantive claims for past harms
» An office of immediate relief to expedite claims .
» A civic engagement branch to support ongoing
political education on African American history
and to support civic engagement among African
American youth .
» A freedmen education branch to offer free edu -
cation and to facilitate the free tuition initiative
between claimants and California schools .
» A social services and family affairs branch to identify and mitigate the ways that current and previous pol-
icies have damaged and destabilized Black families .

Services might include treatment for trauma and
family healing services to strengthen the family unit,
stress resiliency services, financial planning services, career planning, civil and family court services .
» A cultural affairs branch to restore African American cultural/historical sites; establish monuments;
advocate for removal of racist relics; support
knowledge production and archival research; and
to provide support for African Americans in the
entertainment industry, including identifying and
removing barriers to advancement into leadership
and decision-making positions in the arts, enter -
tainment, and sports industries .
» A legal affairs office to coordinate a range of free
legal services, including criminal defense attor -
neys for criminal trials and parole hearings; free
arbitration and mediation services; and to advo -
cate for civil and criminal justice reforms .
» A division of medical services for public and
environmental health .
» A business affairs office to provide ongoing
education related to entrepreneurialism and
financial literacy; to provide business grants;
and to establish public-private reparative
justice-oriented partnerships .
25 Endnotes
1 Pres . Proc . No . 95, (Jan . 1, 1863); U .S .

Const . amend . XIII, § 1 .
2 The Reconstruction Amendments'
Debates: The Legislative History and
Contemporary Debates in Congress on
the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments
(Alfred Avins Ed ., 1967), p . 122 .
3 The Civil Rights Cases,
(1883) 109 U .S . 3, 20 .
4 Kolchin, American Slavery: 1619 – 1877
(1993) (Kolchin), at pp . 17 – 18; Kendi,
Stamped from the Beginning: The
Definitive History of Racist Ideas in
America (2016) (Kendi) p . 38-41 .
5 See generally Chapter 3 Political
Disenfranchisement
6 See generally Chapter 3 Racial Terror
7 See generally Chapters 2 . Enslavement;
3 . Racial Terror; Chapters 4 . Political
Disenfranchisement; 5 . The Root of
Many Evils Residential Segregation;
6 . Separate and Unequal Education,
8 . Pathologizing the Black Family; 9 .

Control Over Spiritual Creative and
Cultural Life; 10 . Stolen Labor and
Hindered Opportunity; 11 . An Unjust
Legal System; 12 . Harm and Neglect
Mental Physical and Public Health
8 See generally Chapters 6 . Separate and
Unequal Education; 7 . Racism in
Environment and Infrastructure;
8 . Pathologizing the Black Family;
10 . Stolen Labor and Hindered
Opportunity; 11 . An Unjust Legal System;
12 . Harm and Neglect Mental Physical
and Public Health; 13 . The Wealth Gap .
9 See generally Chapter 12 . Harm and
Neglect Mental Physical
and Public Health;
10 Chapter 2, section V .B, see also Baptist,
The Half Has Never Been Told:

Slavery and the Making of American
Capitalism (2014) (Baptist) at p . xxiii .
11 Chapter 2, section V .B .
12 Baptist, supra, at p . xxiii .
13 Chapter 2, Section IV .C .
14 Baptist, supra, at pp . 9 – 11 . For an in
depth discussion, see
Chapter 2, Section IV .C .
15 Presidents who owned enslaved peo-
ple while in office included George
Washington, Thomas Jefferson,
James Madison, James Monroe,
Andrew Jackson, John Tyler, James
K . Polk, and Zachary Taylor . See
Rosenwald, Slave-owning presidents
become targets of protestors (June 3, 2020)
Washington Post (as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
16 Weil and Adrian Blanco, More than 1,700
Congressmen Once Enslaved Black
People. This Is Who They Were, and
How They Shaped the Nation (Jan . 20,
2022) Washington Post (As of January
24, 2022) (Weil and Blanco) .
17 Ericson, The Federal Government and
Slavery: Following the Money Trail (Spring
2005) 19 Stud . in Amer . Pol . Dev . 107 .
18 Id. at pp . 112 – 115 .
19 Pritchett, Quantitative Estimates of the
United States Interregional
Slave Trade, 1820 – 1860 (June
2001) 61 J . of Econ . Hist . 474 .
20 Ball, Slavery in the United States: A
Narrative of the Life and Adventures of
Charles Ball, a Black Man (1837), p . 69 .
21 Rosenthal, Reckoning with Slavery:

How Revisiting Management’s
Uncomfortable Past Can Help Us
Confront Challenges Today (2021)
20 Academy of Management
Learning & Ed . 467-472 .
22 Baptist, supra, at pp . 116-124 . For an in
depth discussion of the hor-
rors suffered by enslaved people,
see Chapter 2, section V
23 Berry, The Price for their Pound of
Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from
Womb to Grave, in the Building of a
Nation (2017) pp . 78 – 83; Douglass,
Narrative of the Life of Frederick
Douglass, An American Slave . Written
by Himself (1845), pp . 3 – 4 .
24 Thomas Jefferson,Letter to Joel Y ancey,
Jan . 17 , 1819 (as of May 9, 2022)
25 U.S. Census of 1860, Introduction, p . vii
(as of May 9, 2022)
26 Kendi, supra, at pp . 38–41 .
27 Kendi, supra, at p . 48 .
28 Morgan, American Slavery, American
Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial
Virginia (1975) (Morgan),
at pp . 369, 385 – 386 .
29 Commonwealth of Virginia
Legislature, Act I . An act about the
casual [sic] killing of slaves (1669)
Act I . (as of Apr . 24, 2022) .
30 Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The
First Two Centuries of Slavery in North
America (1998), pp . 123 – 124 (Berlin) .
31 An act concerning Servants and Slaves
XXXIV (1705), Records of the American
Colonies, p . 459 (as of Apr . 24, 2022) .
32 See e.g., US Constitution, Article I,
Section 2; Kolchin, supra, at pp .
17 – 18, Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U .S .
393; Darlene Goring, The History of
Slave Marriage in the United States, 39 J .

Marshall L . Rev . 299 (2006) (Abolitionist
William Goodell described the way
that American law treated the fam-
ilies of enslaved people in 1853 as:
“The slave has no rights . Of course,
he or she cannot have the rights of a
husband, a wife . The slave is a chat-
tel, and chattels do not marry . ‘The
slave is not ranked among sentient
beings, but among things;’ and things
are not married .”); Campbell, Making
Black Los Angeles: Class, Gender,
and Community, 1850-1917 (2016) .
(The 1850 and 1860 federal censuses
did not list most enslaved people by
name, as they did for white Americans,
but en masse in “slave schedules .”)
33 See Chapter 3 and 4 .
34 Petrella and Loggins, “This is a Country
for White Men”: White Supremacy and U.S.

Politics (Jan . 5 . 2017) Black Perspectives,
African American Intellectual History
Society (as of March 15, 2022) .
35 See Chapters 2, 4, 6, 10, 11
Executive Summary
26 Executive Summary
36 Smith, Remaking Slavery in a Free
State: Masters and Slaves in
Gold Rush California (Feb . 2011)
80 Pacific Hist . Rev . 33
37 Smith, Freedom’s Frontier: California
and the Struggle over Unfree Labor,
Emancipation, and Reconstruction
(2013), p . 8 (Freedom’s Frontier) .
38 Id. at pp . 40, 257 .
39 Rohrbough, Days of Gold: The
California Gold Rush and the American
Nation (1997) at pp . 136 – 138 .
40 Baur, The Health Factor in the Gold Rush
Era (Feb . 1949) 18 Pacific
Hist . Rev . 97 – 105 .
41 See e .g ., A Slave Flogged in San Jose (Feb .
16, 1850) Daily Alta California, p . 2,
col . 3; Slaveholding in California (Aug .
30, 1850), Liberator, p . 140, col . 5 .
42 An Act Respecting Fugitives from
Labor, and Slaves brought to this
State prior to her Admission into
the Union, April 15, 1852, ch . 33,
California Statutes, at 67–69, Freedom’s
Frontier, supra, at pp . 67-68 .
43 Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at pp . 71 – 72 .
44 Waite, Early California lawmakers also
preached #resistance—but against im-
migration (Aug . 3, 2018) Los Angeles
Times (as of Jan . 26, 2022); Cottrell,
It took 92 years for California to ratify
the 15th Amendment (June 26, 2020)
The Union (as of March 15, 2022)
45 See Equal Justice Initiative (EJI),
Lynching in America: Confronting the
Legacy of Racial Terror (2015), p . 3
(as of Oct . 20, 2021) (EJI 2015) .
46 EJI 2015, supra, at pp . 3, 7; EJI, Lynching
in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial
Terror: Third Edition (2017), pp . 48-50,
65, 73 (as of Oct . 20, 2021) (EJI 3d ed .);
Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our
Discontents (2020), p . 151 (Caste); Lee,
How America’s Vast Racial Wealth Gap Grew:

By Plunder (Aug . 18, 2019), New York
Times, (as of Oct . 22, 2021) (Lee); Case
for Reparations, supra; Lawfare, supra .
47 Coates, The Case for Reparations, The
Atlantic (June 2014) (as of April 4,
2022) (Case for Reparations); Byman,
The Failure of Counterterrorism After
the Civil War, Lawfare (Aug . 22, 2021)
(as of April 4, 2022) (Lawfare); Niraj
Chokshi, Racism at American Pools Isn’t
New: A Look at a Long History, N .Y . Times
(Aug . 1, 2018) (as of April 4, 2022) .
48 See, e .g ., Brockell, Tulsa isn’t the only race
massacre you were never taught in school.

Here are others., The Washington Pos
49 EJI 2015, supra, at pp . 3, 7; EJI 3d ed .,
supra, at pp . 48-50, 73; Case for
Reparations, supra; SPLC History,
supra, at pp . 14-15, 18; Eckstrand, supra,
at pp . 46-47; Lawfare, supra; Human
Rights Watch, The Case for Reparations
in Tulsa, Oklahoma: A Human Rights
Argument, at p . 6 (May 2020) (as of April
4, 2022) (Human Rights Watch) .
50 Walter Howard Smith, Jr ., The Impact of
Racial Trauma on African Americans
The Heinz Endowments (2010) (as of
Apr . 5, 2022), p . 4 (Impact of Racial
Trauma) .; Erlanger A . Turner & Jasmine
Richardson, Racial Trauma Is Real: The
Impact of Police Shootings on African
Americans (July 14, 2016), American
Psychological Association, Psychology
Benefits Society (as of Mar . 15, 2022) .
51 EJI 2015, supra, at p . 23 .
52 Ibid .
53 Lee, How America’s Vast Racial Wealth Gap
Grew: By Plunder, N .Y . Times, (Aug .
14, 2019) (as of April 4, 2022)
54 Niedermeier, The Color of the Third
Degree (2019), pp . 17-19; United Nations
General Assembly, Report of the Working
Group of Experts on People of African
Descent on its mission to the United States of
America (Aug . 18, 2016), p . 16; Love, The
Trayvon Martin case reveals a vigilante spirit
in the US justice system, The Guardian,
(Apr . 7 , 2012) (as of April 4, 2022) .
55 See e .g ., Hudson, West of Jim Crow: The
Fight Against California’s Color Line
(2020), p . 193 (Hudson) .
56 Bringhurst, The Ku Klux Klan in a Central
California Community: Tulare County
During the 1920s and 1930s (Winter 2000)
82(4), Southern California Quarterly
365, 370; Hudson, supra, at pp . 171-72 .
57 Hudson, supra, at p . 172 .
58 Ibid .
59 Brenda Elaine Stevenson, The Contested
Murder of Latasha Harlins: Justice, Gender,
and the Origins of the LA Riots (2013),
p . 186; Hudson, supra, at p . 179 .
60 Hudson, supra, at p . 168 .
61 See Chapter 3 .IV .J .5 .
62 Nat . Park Service, U.S. Dept. of the
Interior, Civil Rights in America: Racial Voting
Rights (2009) (Nat . Park Service), p . 4
(as of Nov . 8, 2021); See Chapter 4 .
63 Foner, Reconstruction: America’s
Unfinished Revolution, 1863-
1877 (1988), pp . 550, 569-76
(“Foner, Reconstruction”) .
64 Foner, Forever Free: The Story of
Emancipation and Reconstruction
(First Vintage Books 2006), pp .
113-115, 117-118 (“Foner, Forever
Free”) . Foner, Reconstruction, supra,
pp . 444-44, U .S . Const ., amend . XV,
§ 1, U .S . Const ., amend . XIV, § 2 .
65 Cobb and Jenkins, Race and the
Representation of Blacks’ Interests
During Reconstruction (2001) 54 Pol .

Research Quarterly 181, 184 .
66 Nat . Park Service, supra, p . 6; Black
Officeholders in the South,
(as of Nov . 19, 2021) .
67 Foner, Reconstruction, supra, at pp .
581-82 .
68 Chapter 4, Section IV .
69 See Equal Justice Initiative, Race and the
Jury: Illegal Discrimination in Jury Selection
(Nov . 2005), p . 15 (as of Mar . 31, 2022) .
70 Foner, Forever Free, supra, p . 143 .
71 Nat . Park Service, U .S . Dept . of the
Interior, Civil Rights in America:

Racial Voting Rights (2009), p .
14 (as of Nov . 8, 2021) .
72 Nat . Park Service, supra, p . 6; Black
Officeholders in the South,
(as of Nov . 19, 2021) .
73 U .S . House of Representatives, Office
of History and Preservation,
African Americans in Congress:
1870-2007 (2008), pp . 2, 4 .
27 74 Caro, Master of the Senate (2009), pp .
xiii-xiv; Grantham, The Life
and Death of the Solid South:

A Political History (1992) .
75 Caro, supra, pp . xiii-xiv .
76 See Chapter 4, 10, 12
77 See, e .g ., Katznelson, When
Affirmative Action was White (2005),
p . 113; Krugman, Paul Krugman - New
Deal Created the Middle Class (Apr . 1, 2011)
(as of Jan . 18, 2022); Mettler, Soldiers to
Citizens: The G .I . Bill and the Making of
the Greatest Generation (2005), p . 9 .
78 Katznelson, supra, p . 113; California
Task Force to Study and Develop
Reparation Proposals for African
Americans (Oct . 13, 2021),
Testimony of Jacqueline Jones, 7:20-
8:55 (as of Jan . 26, 2022) .
79 Katznelson, supra, p . 121 .
80 Thomas, The Hill-Burton Act and Civil
Rights: Expanding Hospital Care for Black
Southerners, 1939-1960 (2006) 72 J . of
Southern History p . 823, 836; Von
Hoffman, A Study in Contradictions: The
Origins and Legacy of the Housing Act of 1949
(2000) 11 Housing Policy Debate 299,
81 See Chapter 4 .IV .L ., and Chapter 3 .
82 People v. Hall (1854) 4 Cal . 399, at p . 404 .
83 People v. Hall (1854) 4 Cal . 399, at p . 404 .
84 Id. at p . 404 .
85 Katz, et al ., Reckoning with our Rights: The
Evolution of Voter Access in California,
UCLA Luskin Center for History
and Policy (Sept . 2020) (Katz)
pp . 3, 7 (as of Mar . 31, 2021) .
86 Cal . Const . of 1849, art . II, § 5 .
87 Katz, at p . 9
88 Id. at pp . 11-12 .
89 See Chapters 3, 5, 6, 7 , and 10
90 See, e .g ., Wilkerson, The Warmth of
Other Suns: The Epic Story of
America’s Great Migration (2011)
(Warmth of Other Suns) pp . 38-45;
Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of
Our Discontents (2020) pp . 116-17 .
91 See Cal . EPA, Pollution and Prejudice:

Redlining and Environmental Injustice
in California (Aug . 16, 2021) (as
of Apr . 4, 2022) (Cal . EPA) .
92 Rothstein, The Color of Law (2017) pp .
13 (Rothstein) .
93 U .S . Census Bureau, Black Population
1790-1915 (1918) at p . 33 .
94 See e.g., Cutler et al ., The Rise and the
Decline of the American Ghetto (1999) 107
No . 3 J . of Political Economy 455, 456
95 Rothstein, supra, at pp . vii-xvii, 16-30,
51-52; Cal . EPA, supra, Taylor, Toxic
Communities: Environmental
Racism, Industrial Pollution, and
Residential Mobility (2014) p . 229
(Toxic Communities); Taylor, The
Environment and the People in
American Cities, 1600s-1900s: Disorder,
Inequality, and Social Change (2009)
pp . 365 (Environment and People);
Mohl, The Interstates and the Cities:

Highways, Housing, and the Freeway
Revolt, Poverty & Race Research Action
Council (Jan . 1, 2002) p . 2 (Mohl) .
96 See Corrigan v. Buckley (1926) 271 U .S .
323, 331; U .S . Commission on
Civil Rights, Understanding Fair
Housing (Feb . 1973) p . 4; Shelley
v. Kraemer (1948) 334 U .S . 1 .
97 Domonoske, Interactive Redlining Map
Zooms In On America’s History Of
Discrimination, (Oct . 19, 2016) NPR
(as of May 3, 2022); Jackson, What
Is Redlining?, (Aug . 17 , 2021) N .Y .

Times (as of May 3, 2022) .
98 Rothstein, supra, at 61
99 See Id. at pp . 177-180 .
100 Cutler, supra, p . 456
101 Frey, Neighborhood Segregation Persists
for Black, Latino or Hispanic, and Asian
Americans (Apr . 6, 2021) Brookings
Institution (as of June 30, 2021) .
102 The Roots of Structural Racism Project
103 Toxic Communities supra, p . 184
104 Loewen, Sundown Towns: A Hidden
Dimension of American
Racism (2005) p . at 76 .
105 Rothstein, supra, at pp . 72-73 .
106 Nelson, et al ., Mapping Inequality:

Redlining in New Deal America,
American Panorama (as of May 1, 2022) .
107 Beal, Redlining in San Diego, Local
Initiatives Support Corporation
San Diego (as of Apr . 26, 2022) .
108 Rothstein, supra, at p. 31
109 Ibid .
110 Id. at page 33 .
111 Rothstein supra at p . 81, see also Toxic
Communities, supra, at p . 155 .
112 Toxic Communities, su-
pra, at p . 184-186
113 Rothstein at p . 9
114 Taylor, How “Urban Renewal”
Decimated the Fillmore District,
and Took Jazz with It (Jun . 25, 2020),
KQED (as of Apr . 25, 2022) (Decimated
Fillmore); Xia, Manhattan Beach Was
Once Home to Black Beachgoers,
but the City Ran Them Out . Now It
Faces a Reckoning (Aug . 2, 2020), L .A .

Times (as of Apr . 25, 2022) (Xia I)
115 Fulbright, Sad chapter in Western
Addition history ending, San Francisco
Chronicle (Jul . 21, 2008) (as of Jul . 7 , 2021)
116 Fulbright, supra.
117 Decimated Filmore, supra .
118 Fulbright, supra .
119 Sambol-Tosco, The Slave Experience:

Education, Arts & Culture, Thirteen
(2004) p . 2 (as of Mar . 5, 2021) (The Slave
Experience); Bell, Silent Covenants:

Brown v. Board of Education and the
Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform
(2004) p . 52 (Silent Covenants) .
120 Burnette II, Do America’s Public Schools
Owe Black People Reparations? (Sept . 23,
2020) 40 Education Week 4-7 (as of
June 21, 2021) (hereafter Do America's
Public Schools?); Jim Crow Laws, History
(Feb . 21, 2021) (as of June 21, 2021); see
also South Carolina v. Katzenbach (1966)
383 U .S . 301, 310-13, 311, fn . 10 (noting
that Southern states “rapidly institut-
ed racial segregation in their public
schools” following the Civil War and
discussing the interplay between efforts
to restrict literacy and efforts to restrict
Executive Summary
28 Executive Summary
the vote); Du Bois, The Souls of Black
Folk: Essays and Sketches (2d ed . 1903);
Tyack & Lowe, The Constitutional Moment:

Reconstruction and Black Education in the
South (1986), 94 Am . J . Ed . 236, 238-239,
250-252; Anderson, The Education of
Blacks in the South, 1860-1935 (1988)
pp . 95-96 (“From the vantage point of
the southern white majority, any system
of universal education for blacks, even
industrial education, would poten-
tially lead to universal suffrage .”) .
121 Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name:

The Re-Enslavement of Black
Americans from the Civil War
to World War II (2008) pp . 105
(Slavery by Another Name) .
122 See, e .g ., Du Bois & Dill, The Common
School and the Negro American, Report
(1911) (hereafter The Common School)
p . 52; see also The Warmth of Other
Suns at pp . 57 , 59-60, 101 (describing
differences in months of operation for
black and white schools in Georgia and
South Carolina); Brooker, The Education
of Black Children in the Jim Crow South,
America’s Black Holocaust Museum:

Bringing Our History to Light (as of
June 18, 2021); Ladson-Billings, From
the Achievement Gap to the Education
Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S.

Schools (2006) 35 Ed . Researcher 3, 5;
The Warmth of Other Suns, at p . 88
123 Brown v. Board of Education (1954) 347
U .S . 483, 495; Horsford & McKenzie,
‘Sometimes I feel like the Problems Started
with Desegregation’: Exploring Black
Superintendent Perspectives on Desegregation
Policy (2008) 21 Int . J . of Qualitative
Studies in Ed . 443, 444 (Exploring
Black Superintendent Perspectives) .
124 Id.
125 See Alexander v. Holmes County Bd. of
Educ . (1969) 396 U .S . 19, 20-21 .
126 See Burnette II, As Districts Seek Revenue
Due to Pandemic, Black Homeowners May
Feel the Biggest Hit, Education Week (July
23, 2020) (as of June 22, 2021); Oliver &
Shapiro, Black Wealth/White Wealth: A
New Perspective on Racial Inequality
(1995) pp . 8-9, 19-20; Guastaferro, Why
Racial Inequities in America's Schools are
Rooted in Housing Policies of the Past, USA
Today (Nov . 2, 2020) (as of June 23, 2021) .
127 Id.
128 Milliken v. Bradley (1974)
418 U .S . 717 , 752 .
129 Ward v. Flood (1874) 48 Cal . 36 .
130 Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) 163 U .S . 537 .
131 Wollenberg, All Deliberate Speed:

Segregation and Exclusion in California
Schools, 1855-1975 (1976) p . 143
132 Id. at p . 148-164 .
133 Orfield & Ee, Segregating California’s
Future: Inequality and Its Alternative
60 Years after Brown v. Board of Education
(May 14, 2014) The Civil Rights Project,
UCLA p . 3, 12-18 (herafter Segregating
California’s Future); Butt v. California
(1992) 4 Cal . 4th 668, 684-685 .
134 See Cal . Const ., art . I, § 7; School
Assignment and Transportation of
Pupils, California Proposition 1 (1979) .
135 Orfield & Jarvie, Black Segregation
Matters: School Resegregation and Black
Educational Opportunity, UCLA Civil
Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos
Civiles (Dec . 2020) pp . 30-31, Tables
13 and 14 (as of July 1, 2021) .
136 Orfield & Ee, Segregating California’s
Future, supra, pp . 3, 27 .
137 Muller et al ., Environmental Inequality:

The Social Causes and Consequences
of Lead Exposure (2018) 44 Annual
Review of Sociology, pp . 266-
68; .Jacobs, Environmental Health
Disparities in Housing (2011) 101 Am .

J . of Public Health, pp . S115–S122 .
138 Villarosa, Pollution is Killing African
Americans. This Community Fought
Back. (July 28, 2020) New York Times
Magazine (as of Apr . 7 , 2022); Zwickl,
The Demographics of Fracking: A Spatial
Analysis for Four U.S. States (2019) 161
Ecological Economics, pp . 202-215;
Fleischman and Franklin, Fumes Across
the Fence-Line (Nov . 2017) Nat . Ass . for
the Advancement of Colored People and
Clean Air Task Force, p . 6; Pratt et al .,
Traffic, Air Pollution, Minority and Socio-
Economic Status: Addressing Inequities in
Exposure and Risk (2015) 12 International
J . of Environmental Research and
Public Health 5, pp . 5355-5372; .

Environment and People, pp . 94, 270 .
139 Hoffman et al, The Effects of Historical
Housing Policies on Resident Exposure
to Intra-Urban Heat: A Study of 108
US Urban Areas 8 Climate 2020 .
140 Pulido, Rethinking Environmental
Racism: White Privilege and Urban
Development in Southern California
(2000) 90 Annals of the Ass . of Am .

Geographers 1, p . 21; CalEPA, Pollution
and Prejudice; Office of Health Equity,
Housing Overcrowding (Dec . 2018) Cal .

Dept . of Public Health (as of Apr . 7 , 2022) .
141 Arango, “Turn Off the Sunshine”: Why
Shade Is a Mark of Privilege in
Los Angeles (Dec . 1, 2019) N .Y .

Times (as of Apr . 26, 2022)
142 Del Real, The Crisis Lurking in
Californians’ Taps: How 1,000 Water
Systems May Be at Risk (July 24, 2019)
N .Y . Times (as of Apr . 27 , 2022) .
143 Morello-Frosch et al ., Environmental
Justice and Regional Inequality in Southern
California: Implications for Future
Research (Apr . 2002) 110 Environmental
Health Perspectives 2, pp . 149-154 .
144 London et al ., The Struggle for Water
Justice in California’s San Joaquin Valley: A
Focus on Disadvantaged Unincorporated
Communities (Feb . 2018) UC Davis
Center for Regional Change, p . 10 .
145 Del Real, How Racism Ripples Through
Rural California’s Pipes (Nov . 29, 2019),
N .Y . Times (as of Apr . 22, 2022) .
146 Cowan and Del Real, Why Thousands of
Californians Don’t Have Clean
Drinking Water (Dec . 6, 2019), N .Y .

Times (as of Apr . 27 , 2022) .
147 Ibid .
148 Fuke, Planters, Apprenticeship, and Forced
Labor: The Black Family under Pressure
in Post-Emancipation Maryland
(1988) 62 Ag . Hist . 57 , p . 63 .
149 Robinson, “The Black Family” and US
Social Policy: Moynihan's Unintended
Legacy?, 97 Revue Française d'études
Américaines (2003) 118, 118-128;
Baldwin, Stratification of the Welfare
29 Executive Summary
Poor: Intersections of Gender, Race, and
“Worthiness” in Poverty Discourse and
Policy (2010) 6 The Modern American
4; Cooper, Racial Bias in American Foster
Care: The National Debate (2013) 97
Marq . L .Rev . 215, 230-233; sections
VI & VII, infra; see generally Minoff,
Center for the Study of Social Policy,
The Racist Roots of Work Requirements
(Feb . 2020) (as of Mar . 6, 2022) .
150 Floyd et al ., TANF Policies Reflect Racist
Legacy of Cash Assistance (Aug . 4, 2021)
Ctr . on Budget & Pol’y Priorities, p . 10 .
151 Moehling, Mother’s Pensions and Female
Headship (2002) Yale University, pp . 2-3,
12-18, 31 table 9 (analyzing data from
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana,
Mississippi, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia) .
152 Dettlaff et al ., It Is Not a Broken System,
It Is a System That Needs to Be Broken:

The UpEND Movement to Abolish
the Child Welfare System (2020) 14
J . of Public Child Welfare 500
153 Dettlaff, et al ., Disentangling
Substantiation: The Influence of Race,
Income, and Risk on the Substantiation
Decision in Child Welfare (2011) 33 Children
and Youth Services Review 1630,
1634–1635; Miller, Racial Disproportionality
in Washington State’s Child Welfare System
(June 2008) Washington State Institute
for Public Policy; Rivaux et al ., The
Intersection of Race, Poverty, and Risk:

Understanding the Decision to Provide
Services to Clients and to Remove Children
(2008) 87 Child Welfare 151, 151–152 .
154 Children’s Bureau, Child Welfare
Practice to Address Racial
Disproportionality and Disparity (Apr .
2021) U .S . Dept . of Health and Human
Services, (Children’s Bureau) pp . 2-3 .
155 Cooper, Racial Bias in American Foster
Care: The National Debate (2013) 97 Marq .

L .Rev . 215, 230; Sedlak & Broadhurst,
Third National Incidence Study
of Child Abuse and Neglect: Final
Report (1996) U .S . Dept . of Health
and Human Services, Administration
for Children and Families, p . 8–7;
see generally Dettlaff et al ., It Is Not a
Broken System, It Is a System That Needs
to Be Broken: The UpEND Movement to
Abolish the Child Welfare System (2020)
14 J . of Public Child Welfare 500
(hereinafter “Dettlaff et al . 2020”) .
156 Id. at p . 132 .
157 Ibid .
158 See, e .g ., Hockenberry & Puzzanchera,
Juvenile Court Statistics 2018,
Nat . Center for Juvenile Justice
(2020) (as of Jan . 28, 2021) .
159 Cal . Dept . of Justice, Attorney General
Becerra Secures Settlements with Barstow
and Oroville School Districts to Address
Discriminatory Treatment of Students
Based on Race and Disability Status (Aug .
25, 2020) (as of Apr . 15, 2022) . .
160 Ibid .
161 Tiano, Los Angeles’ Plan to Address the
Overrepresentation of Black and LGBTQ
Youth in Foster Care (May 22, 2019)
The Imprint (as of Aug . 25, 2021) .
162 KidsData, Children in Foster Care, by
Race/Ethnicity (2018) (as of Aug . 27 , 2021) .
163 Compare Ibid . with Children’s Bureau,
supra, pp . 2-3 .
164 KidsData, supra .
165 Sambol-Tosco, Education, Arts, &
Culture (2004), Thirteen, p . 1 (as of March
20, 2022); Newton, Slave Artisans and
Craftsmen: The Roots of Afro-American Art
(1977), 9(3) Plastic Arts and Crafts, 35 .
166 See, e .g ., Paggett, Cultural
Incompetence: My Son was Kicked out
of Class Because of His Hair (March 8,
2018), ACLU of Northern California
(as of March 21, 2022), People v.

Olguin (1994) 31 Cal .App, .4th 1355 .
167 Barnes, Yes, Politicians Wore Blackface. It
Used to be All-American ‘Fun’ (Feb . 8, 2019),
Washington Post (as of March 21, 2
168 Absher, The Black Musician and the White
City: Race and Music in Chicago, 1900-1967
(2014), pp . 1-2, 157 (as of April 6, 2022);
Koppes & Black, Blacks, Loyalty, and
Motion-Picture Propaganda in World
War II (Sept . 1986), 73 The Journal
of American History 383; Rothwell,
The Black Innovators Who Elevated the
United States: Reassessing the Golden Age
of Invention (Nov . 23, 2020), Brookings
Institution (as of March 21, 2022);
Reese, The Socio-Political Context of the
Integration of Sport in America (1998),
3(4) Journal of African American Men,
5-22; Alison Rose Jefferson, Living the
California Dream: African American
Leisure Sites During Jim Crow Era
(2020); Cox, Dixies Daughters: The
United Daughters of the Confederacy
and the Preservation of Confederate
Culture (2003); Scott, Cinema Civil
Rights: Regulation, Repression, and Race
in the Classical Hollywood Era (2015) .
169 Rothwell, supra.
170 Jefferson, supra
171 Cox, supra .
172 Scott, supra .
173 Pepin, Music of the Fillmore (2000), PBS
(as of March 20, 2022) .
174 See, e .g ., Paggett, Cultural
Incompetence: My Son was Kicked
out of Class Because of His Hair
(March 8, 2018), ACLU of Northern
California (as of March 21, 2022) .
175 See, e .g ., Miranda, How One Art Museum
Has Reckoned with Race and Its
Past (Oct . 22, 2020), L .A . Times
(as of March 20, 2022) .
176 People v. Olguin (1994) 31
Cal .App, .4th 1355 .
177 Desmarais, Historic Wrongs on a Pedestal:

Ugly Past Doesn’t Vanish When the Artwork
Does (Feb . 27 , 2018) (as of March 21, 2022) .
178 Trotter, Workers on Arrival: Black
Labor and the Making of America (2019)
pp . xvi, xx-xxi; see also California
Task Force to Study and Develop
Reparation Proposals for African
Americans (October 13, 2021) Testimony
of Jacqueline Jones, (as of Apr . 7 , 2022)
(Jones Testimony) citing Berry, The
Price for their Pound of Flesh: The
Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to
Grave, in the Building of a Nation (2017);
Baptist, The Half has Never Been Told:

Slavery and the Making of American
Capitalism (2016); Beckert, Empire
of Cotton: A Global History (2015);
Beckert & Rockman, edits ., Slavery’s
30 Executive Summary
Capitalism: A New History of American
Economic Development (2018) .
179 U .S . Postal Service, Postal History:

African American Postal Workers in the
20th Century (as of Apr . 11, 2022); Wilson
and Race, President Wilson House (as
of Apr . 11, 2022); The Army and Diversity,
U .S . Army Center of Military History;
Broussard, In Search of the Promised
Land in Seeking El Dorado: African
Americans in California (De Graaf et
al ., edits . 2001) p . 198; United States v.

City and County of San Francisco (N .D .

Cal . 1988) 696 F . Supp . 1287 , 1290 .
180 Little, How Woodrow Wilson Tried to
Reverse African American Progress
(Jul . 14, 2020) History .com .
181 The Army and Diversity, U .S . Army
Center of Military History .
182 See Jones, American Work: Four
Centuries of Black and White Labor
(1998) p . 342; see also Perea, The
Echoes of Slavery: Recognizing the Racist
Origins of the Agricultural and Domestic
Worker Exclusion from the National Labor
Relations Act (2011) 72 Ohio State L .J . 95;
Katznelson, Fear Itself: The New Deal
and the Origins of Our Time (2013) p .
163; Baradaran, The Color of Money:

Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap
(2017), p . 101; Reich, A Working People:

A History of African American Workers
Since Emancipation (2013) p . 91 .
183 California Task Force to Study and
Develop Reparation Proposals
for African Americans (October
13, 2021), Testimony of Jacqueline
Jones, (as of October 25, 2021) .
184 See, e .g ., Walters & Briggs, The Family
Economy, Child Labor, and Schooling:

Evidence from the Early Twentieth-
Century South (1993) 58 Am .

Sociological Rev . 163, 164 .
185 Barnes, Is the EEOC Protecting Workers or
Discriminatory Employers? (Sept . 4, 2019)
Forbes; Jones, American Work, supra, p .
362; Linderman, At the EEOC, harassment
cases can languish for years (Apr . 9, 2018)
AP News; Korber & Adkisson, Department of
Fair Employment and Housing: Underfunding
and Misguided Policies Compromise Civil
Rights Mission (Dec. 18, 2013) Cal. Sen.

Off. Oversight & Outcomes, pp. 1-2.
186 Chatterji, et al ., The Impact of City
Contracting Set-Asides on Black Self-
Employment and Employment (2014)
32 J . of Labor Economics 507 , 510;
Regents of Univ. of Calif. v. Bakke
(1978) 438 U .S . 265, 318-319
187 Quillian et al ., Meta-Analysis of Field
Experiments Shows No Change in
Racial Discrimination in Hiring Over
Time (2017) Proceedings of the Nat .

Academy of Sciences (PNAS) .
188 See, e .g ., Broussard, “In Search of the
Promised Land: African American
Migration to San Francisco, 1900-
1945” in Seeking El Dorado: African
Americans in California (De Graaf,
Mulroy & Taylor, eds . 2001) p . 198;
West of Jim Crow: The Fight Against
California’s Color Line (2020) p . 234;
189 United States v. City and County of San
Francisco, 696 F . Supp . 1287
(N .D . Cal . 1988)
190 See, e .g ., Sundown Towns: A Hidden
Dimension of American Racism by
James Loewen (pp . 100, 239-40)
191 See, e .g ., Trotter, Workers on Arrival:

Black Labor and the Making
of America (2019) p . 113 .
192 Faughnder & James, Hollywood’s
C-suites Are Overwhelmingly White.

What Are Studios Doing About It? (July
1, 2020) Los Angeles Times; Is Silicon
Valley Tech Diversity Possible Now? (Jun .
26, 2019) Center for Employment
Equity, U . Mass-Amherst .
193 See, e .g ., Alexander, The New Jim
Crow (2020) (Alexander); see also
Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins
of Our Discontents (2020) .
194 Alexander, supra, at pp . 38-44,
Jim Crow Laws, National Park
Service (as of May 10, 2022)
195 See generally Blackmon, Slavery by
Another Name: The Re-Enslavement
of African Americans from the
Civil War to World War II (2008)),
p . 247 , 294-296, 377-382 .
196 See, e .g ., Ruffin v. Commonwealth (1871)
62 Va . 790, 796 .
197 Baum, Legalize It All: How to Win the War
on Drugs (April 2016), Harper’s Magazine
at p . 22 (as of Apr . 24, 2022) .
198 See , e .g ., Pierson et al ., A large scale
analysis of racial disparities in police stops
across the United States (2017), Nature
Human Behavior 4, 736–745 (as of Apr .
25, 2022); Weir, Policing in black & white
American Psychological Association,
Monitor on Psychology (December
2016) Vol . 47 , No . 11 at p . 36 (as of Apr .
25, 2022); Moy, A Taxonomy of Police
Technology's Racial Inequity Problems (2021)
2021 U . Ill . L . Rev . 139 (as of Apr . 25,
2022); Okidegbe, When They Hear Us: Race,
Algorithms and the Practice of Criminal Law
(2020) 29-SUM Kan . J .L . & Pub . Pol'y,
329 (as of Apr . 26, 2022); Selbst, Disparate
Impact in Big Data Policing (2017) 52 Ga . L .

Rev . 109 (as of Apr . 26, 2022); Richardson
et al ., Dirty Data, Bad Predictions: How
Civil Rights Violations Impact Police Data,
Predictive Policing Systems, and Justice
(2019); Blad and Harwin, Black Students
More Likely to Be Arrested at School (January
24, 2017), Education Week (as of Apr .
26, 2022); Riddle and Sinclair, Racial
disparities in school-based disciplinary
actions are associated with county-level rates
of racial bias (April 2, 2019) Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences (as
of Apr . 26, 2022); Barkow, Prosecutorial
Administration: Prosecutor Bias and
the Department of Justice (April 2013)
99 Va . L .Rev . 271, 271–342 (as of Apr .
26, 2022); Levinson, Forgotten Racial
Equality: Implicit Bias, Decisionmaking,
and Misremembering (2007) 57 Duke
L .J . 345, 398–407 (as of Apr . 26, 2022) .
199 Sood, Biases Behind Sexual Assault: A
Thirteenth Amendment Solution to
Under-Enforcement of the Rape of Black
Women (2018) vol . 18, No . 2, U . Md .

L .J . Race, Religion, Gender & Class
405, 405, 407 (as of Apr . 25, 2022) .
200 See, e .g ., Forestiere, America’s War on
Black Trans Women (Sept . 23, 2020)
Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties
Law Review (as of May 19, 2022) .
201 See, e .g ., van de Rijt, et al ., Racial and
gender differences in missing children’s
recovery chances vol . 13, No . 12 (December
31, 2018) (as of Apr . 26, 2022) .
31 Executive Summary
202 The Washington Post, Police shootings
database 2015-2022 (as of Apr . 25, 2022);
Campaign Zero, Mapping Police Violence
Database (Mar, 15 2022), Campaign
Zero, (as of Apr . 25, 2022); U .S . DOJ
Office of Justice Programs, Prisoners
in 2019 (Oct . 2020), pp . 1, 16 (as of Apr .
26, 2022); Federal Bureau of Prisons,
Inmate Race (last visited Apr . 26, 2022) .
203 See, e .g ., U .S . Const ., 13th, 14th, and
15th Amends .
204 See, e .g ., The Civil Rights Act of 1866,
The Reconstruction Acts of 1867-1868,
The Ku Klux Klan Act, The Civil Rights
Act of 1875, The Civil Rights Act of
1964, The Voting Rights Act of 1965,
and The Fair Housing Act of 1968 .
205 Alexander, supra .
206 Cal . Department of Justice, Racial and
Identity Profiling Advisory Board Annual
Report 2022 pp . 6-8 (as of Apr . 25, 2022)
(RIPA 2022); Cal. Department of Justice, Use
of Force Incident Reporting 2016-2020 (as
of Apr . 25, 2022); U .S . Census Bureau,
Quick Facts: California (as of Apr . 26, 2022) .
207 RIPA 2022, supra, at p . 8 .
208 Semel et al . , Whitewashing the Jury Box:

How California Perpetuates the
Discriminatory Exclusion of Black and Latinx
Jurors (June 2020), Berkeley Law Death
Penalty Clinic (as of Apr . 26, 2022) .
209 Sutton, Symbol and Substance: Effects of
California's Three Strikes Law on Felony
Sentencing (2013) vol . 47 , No . 1, Law &
Society Rev. 37–71 (as of Apr . 26, 2022) .
210 Office of Minority Health, Profile:

Black/African Americans (Oct . 12, 2021)
U .S . Dept . of Health and Human
Services (as of Mar . 20, 2022) .
211 California Task Force to Study and
Develop Reparation Proposals
for African Americans (January
27 , 2022), Testimony of Melissa
Jones (as of February 8, 2022) .
212 Forde et al ., The Weathering Hypothesis
as an Explanation for Racial Disparities
in Health: A Systematic Review (2019)
33 Annals of Epidemiology 1, 1-18 .
213 Simons et al ., supra; Geronimus et al .,
Black/White Differences in the Relationship
of Maternal Age to Birthweight: A
Population-Based test of the Weathering
Hypothesis (1996), 42 Social Science
& Medicine 589; Geronimus et al .,
Differences in Hypertension Prevalence
Among United-States Black-and-White
Women of Childbearing Age (1991)
106 Pub . Health Report 393 .
214 Forde, supra .
215 Simons et al ., Discrimination,
Segregation, and Chronic Inflammation:

Testing the Weathering Explanation for the
Poor Health of African Americans (2018)
54 Developmental Psychology 1993 .
216 Sellers et al ., Racial Identity Matters: The
Relationship between Racial Discrimination
and Psychological Functioning in African
American Adolescents (2006) 16 J .
of Research on Adolescence 187;
Fisher et al ., Discrimination Distress
During Adolescence (2000) 29 J . of
Youth and Adolescence 679 .
217 Chavous et al ., Gender Matters, Too: The
Influences of School Racial Discrimination
and Racial Identity on Academic Engagement
Outcomes among African American
Adolescents (2008) 44 Developmental
Psychology 637; Neblett et al ., African
American Adolescents’ Discrimination
Experiences and Academic Achievement:

Racial Socialization as a Cultural
Compensatory and Protective Factor (2006)
32 J . of Black Psychology 199; Smalls
et al ., Racial Ideological Beliefs and Racial
Discrimination Experiences as Predictors
of Academic Engagement Among African
American Adolescents (2007) 33 J . of
Black Psychology 299; Wong et al ., The
Influence of Ethnic Discrimination and
Ethnic Identification on African American
Adolescents’ School and Socioemotional
Adjustment (2004) 71 J . of Personality 1197 .
218 Cal . Health Care Foundation,
California Health Care Almanac (Oct . 2019),
p . 7 (as of July 12, 2021) (CHCF 2019) .
219 Cal . Maternal Quality Care
Collaborative, The California Pregnancy-
Associated Mortality Review (2018), p . 21 (as
of Jan . 21, 2022);Watson, A Black Mother
Told Not to Scream in Labor Asks: Can
California Fix Racism in Maternity Care? (Jul .
11, 2019) Cal Matters (as of Apr . 5, 2022) .
220 Cal . Health Care Foundation, Health
Disparities by Race and Ethnicity
in California: Pattern of Inequity
(Oct . 22, 2021), p . 19, 25, 28 .
221 Woods et al ., “WE AIN’T CRAZY! Just
Coping With a Crazy System”: Pathways
into the Black Population for Eliminating
Mental Health Disparities (May 2012)
Cal . Reducing Disparities Project,
pp . 6 (as of Mar . 16, 2022) .
222 Eberhart, Monitoring Californians’
Mental Health: Population
Surveillance Reveals Gender, Racial/
Ethnic, Age, and Regional Disparities
(2018) Rand Corporation, at pp .
3-8 (as of Mar . 19, 2022) .
223 Ibid .
224 Allen, Homesteading and Property Rights;
or, ‘How the West Was Really Won
in The Journal of Law and
Economics 34, no . 1, (1991) .
225 Merritt, Land and the roots of African-
American Poverty AEON (Mar . 11,
2016)(as of Mar . 18, 2022) .
226 Darity Jr . and Mullen, William A. Darity
and Kristen Mullen on Direct
Payments to Close the Racial Wealth
Gap, The Economist (May 18,
2021) (as of Mar . 18, 2022) .
227 Public Broadcasting Service, Go
Deeper: Where Race Lives (n .d .)
(as of Mar . 18, 2022) (PBS) .
228 Katznelson, When Affirmative Action
Was White: An Untold History of
Racial Inequality in Twentieth-
Century America (2005), p . 42-43
(When Affirmative Action Was White);
Katznelson & Mettler, On Race and
Policy History: A Dialogue About the
G.I. Bill (Sept . 2008) 6(3) American
Political Science Association 519, pp .
521, 522, 530 (as of Jan . 18, 2022) .
229 See Brown, Dorothy A . The Whiteness
of Wealth, p . 16; Asante-Muhammad,
et al, Corporation for Economic
Development, The Ever-Growing Gap:

Without Change, African-American and
Latino Families Won’t Match White Wealth for
Centuries (Aug . 2016) (as of Apr . 11, 2022) .
32 Executive Summary
230 Fed . Reserve Bank of Cleveland, What
is Behind the Persistence of the Racial Wealth
Gap? (Feb . 28, 2019) (as of Mar . 18, 2022) .
231 Hicks et al ., Still Running Up the Down
Escalator: How Narratives Shape Our
Understanding of Racial Wealth Inequality
(2021) (as of Mar . 18, 2022) .
232 Darity Jr . and Mullen, From Here to
Equality: Reparations for
African Americans in the 21st
Century (2020) pp . 35-38 .
233 De La Cruz-Viesca et al ., The Color of
Wealth in Los Angeles (2016), Fed .

Reserve Bank of San Francisco,
(as of Mar . 18, 2022) p . 38 .
234 National Park Service, A History of
African Americans in California: Farming
(n .d .) (as of Mar . 18, 2022) .
235 Toxic Communities supra, p . 184;
Sundown Towns, supra, p . at 76;
Rothstein, supra, at pp . 72-73 .
236 Lohrentz, The Impact of Proposition 209
on California’s MWBE’s (Jan . 2015), Equal
Justice Society, p . 2 (as of Mar . 18, 2022) .
237 Ibid .

CHAPTER 1 Introduction
I . California’s Stories
Why Reparations in California?
After all, California promised to be a free territory not once, but twice . First, in 1823 as a part of Mexico . 1 Then again in 1850, by the time California entered the Union and declared in its Constitution that “neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of crimes, shall ever be tolerated in this state . ” 2
So why is California considering reparations for African Americans and descendants of enslaved people?
Consider Basil Campbell . Campbell was born enslaved
in Missouri, where he married a woman named Mary
Stephens and had two sons . 3 In 1854, four years af - ter California joined the Union as a free state, a man
named J .D . Stephens bought Campbell for $1,200 and
forcibly moved him 1,500 miles away to a farm in Yolo
County, California . 4 Campbell never saw his wife or two sons again . 5 J .D . Stephens enslaved Basil Campbell in California, ignoring California’s status as a free state, for another seven years, until Stephens decided that
Campbell had sufficiently paid off his purchase price . 6 Over the rest of his life, Campbell married again, adopt - ed his wife’s children, and amassed a small fortune in
land and livestock . 7 A few years after his death in 1906, his two sons from his first marriage in Missouri filed a petition for a portion of Campbell’s estate . 8 A California appellate judge concluded that a marriage between
enslaved people “is not a marriage relation, and it is
mockery to speak of it as such . ” 9 The land once owned by Campbell is now a nature preserve . 10
Consider the Short family . In December 1945, O’Day
Short, his wife Helen, their seven-year-old daughter
Carol Ann, and their nine-year-old son Barry moved into the house that they had built in Fontana, California . 11 In 1945, Fontana was a white neighborhood . 12 Deputy sher- iffs warned Short that he was “out of bounds,” and that to avoid “disagreeableness,” Short should move his family
back to the segregated Black neighborhood on “the other side of the Baseline . ” 13 The real estate agent who sold the property to the Shorts warned them on December 3,
1945 that a “vigilante committee had a meeting on your
case last night . They are a tough bunch to deal with . If I were you, I’d get my family off this property at once . ” 14 COURTESY OF PHOTO12/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP VIA GETTY IMAGES Enslaved people working in California’s Gold Mines. (1852) 35 Chapter 1 Introduction
On December 6, two weeks after they moved in, an
explosion and a fire engulfed the house . 15 Neighbors reported seeing Helen try to beat down the flames con - suming her children . 16 Helen, Carol Ann, and Barry died in the hospital . 17 The San Bernardino County Coroner and District Attorney concluded that the explosion was
an accident . 18 The District Attorney based this conclu - sion partly on a statement given by O’Day while he was
in the hospital . During the same conversation, O’Day
also said, “I am here on my sick bed, my hair burned off my head, my legs twisted under me . You have no respect for my position . All you want to do is get the informa - tion you are looking for .” 19 The District Attorney told O’Day that his wife and two young children had died
when doctors had been keeping the information from
him for fear that his condition would worsen . 20 O’Day Short died a few days later . 21 A subsequent California Attorney General report investigating the murders con - cluded that no evidence of vigilante
activity in Fontana could be found . 22
Consider Alfred Simmons, a Black
school teacher who rented a house
from his white colleague in the
Elmwood district of Berkeley in
1958 . 23 The Berkeley chief of po -
lice asked the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) to investigate how Simmons managed
to live in the all-white community . 24 The FBI referred the case to the U .S . Attorney, who did not prosecute be- cause no laws had been broken . 25 The Federal Housing Administration, the agency created by the federal gov - ernment to help Americans buy homes, then wrote to
Simmons’s white landlord to tell him that his future
mortgage insurance applications would be rejected be -
cause renting to a African American was an “Unsatisfactory Risk Determination .” 26
Consider Paul Austin and Tenisha Tate-Austin, who
bought a home in Marin City in 2016 . Three years later, a white appraiser valued their home for $500,000 less
than it was worth, calling it a “distinct, marketable ar - ea .” 27 “I took that as code word as: it’s a Black area,” said Paul Austin, who testified before the Task Force that he felt physically sick when he read the appraisal report . 28 Paul Austin testified that his grandparents had moved
to California in the 1940s to work in the shipyards in
Sausalito . 29 When they had saved up enough money to
buy a house, his grandparents realized that they could
not buy homes outside of Marin City due to redlining . 30 Redlining is a set of government policies that helped
white families buy homes in the suburbs while forcing
Black families to remain in urban centers . 31 These pol - icies have devalued Black neighborhoods 32 and led to continued education segregation . 33 In 2019, a California Attorney General investigation found that the Sausalito- Marin City School District intentionally established a
racially and ethnically segregated elementary and middle school, by offering inferior education programming and
directly harming a mostly Black and
Latino student body . 34 In the 1950s,
Paul Austin’s paternal grandparents
were one of the first Black fami -
lies to move to Mill Valley, a white
neighborhood . 35 Paul’s grandfather
built a home where the driveway
dropped 90 degrees so that the
house could not be seen from the
road . “Grandson,” Paul’s grandfa -
ther told him, “I had to build this
home at nights and on weekends,
so we wouldn’t be detected, because
they didn’t want any Black families
living in their city .” 36 A white man
picked up the lumber for them . 37
Like Alfred Simmons’s white land -
lord, the white woman who sold
her land to Paul’s grandfather was,
in Paul’s words, “blackballed,” be -
cause the neighbors found out that
A California appellate judge concluded that a marriage between enslaved people “is not a marriage relation, and it is mockery to speak of it as such.”
“Residence & Ranch Basil Campbell, near Fairview, Yolo Co.” Basil Campbell became one of the wealthiest African Americans in California and owned this ranch. (1879)

COURTESY OF DE PUE & COMPANY /DIGITAL PUBLIC LIBRARY OF AMERICA 36 Chapter 1 Introduction
she had sold her property to a Black family . 38 In 2021, Paul testified that the smaller houses in a white neigh - borhood that are a mile away from Paul and Tenisha’s
house are valued at $200,000 to $300,000 more . 39
What does California owe the Campbells, the Shorts,
the Simmonses, the Austins, and the 2 .28 million Black Californians who have experienced different versions of these stories throughout their lives, their parents’ lives, their grandparents’ lives, and their great-grandparents’ lives, some of whom were enslaved?
Similar stories are repeated throughout the history of
California and the nation .

As W .E .B . Du Bois asked in 1935: “Nations reel and stagger on their way; they make hideous mistakes; they commit
frightful wrongs; they do great and beautiful things . And shall we not best guide humanity by telling the truth
about all this, so far as the truth is ascertainable?” 40 To that end, the following twelve chapters will recount the horrors and harms perpetrated against African
Americans in California and the nation in a number of
different areas:

To maintain a system of enslavement and subjugation
in the United States, white government leaders used
the belief system of white supremacy to restrict the
freedom of African Americans and the flourishing of
Black culture and prosperity . 41 These belief systems have served to normalize and perpetuate crimes against
humanity and systemic racism in our governmen -
tal institutions . These beliefs created dehumanizing
stereotypes of African Americans, which mainstream
arts and culture disseminated and amplified, fuel -
ing racial terror and violence long after enslavement
ended . These beliefs were enshrined into the United
States’ laws, court decisions, and government poli -
cies and practices, and into California’s laws, court
decisions, and government policies and practices . 42
Government actors used these laws and practices to
suppress and criminalize Black political participation
and rip apart Black families . Federal, California, and lo - cal government, acting in tandem
and in parallel with private actors,
created and intensified housing
segregation . Government actions
intertwined with private action
and segregated America, leading
to environmental harms, unequal
educational and health outcomes,
and over-policing of Black neigh -
borhoods in California and across
the nation . Government actions and failures over 400
years have created a wealth gap that persists between
Black and white Americans at all levels of income,
regardless of education or family status . In fact, the wealth gap today is the same size it was two years before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . 43
In 1910, the California Supreme Court decided that California law did not recognize the family that Basil Campbell created while he was enslaved, and that family could not inherit his fortune.

COURTESY OF THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL (MA Y 8, 1910)
Consider Paul Austin and Tenisha Tate-Austin, who bought a home in Marin City in 2016. Three years later, a white appraiser valued their home for $500,000 less than it was worth, calling it a “distinct, marketable area.”
37 Chapter 1 Introduction
II . The Task Force’s Charge
What does California owe its Black residents?
Assembly Bill 3121 (S . Weber) established this Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African
Americans . 44 The Task Force consists of nine members 45 charged with studying the institution of slavery and its lingering negative effects on society and on living African Americans, including descendants of persons enslaved
in the United States . 46 The Task Force must synthesize documentary evidence of the capture, procurement,
and transportation of Africans for the purpose of en -
slavement; the domestic trade of trafficked African
Americans; the treatment of enslaved people; the de -
nial of humanity and the abuse of African Americans;
and the discrimination and lingering negative effects
that followed in the colonies that eventually became the United States, and the United States of today . 47
The Task Force must recommend appropriate reme -
dies of compensation, rehabilitation, and restitution
for African-Americans, with a special consideration
for African-Americans who are descendants of persons
enslaved in the United States . 48 The Task Force rec - ommendations must address how they comport with
international standards and how the State of California will apologize for its role in perpetuating gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity on en -
slaved Africans and their descendants . 49 The Task Force must address the role of California laws and policies
in continuing the negative lingering effects on African Americans as a group and how these injuries can be re - versed . 50 The recommendations must include how to
calculate compensation, what form it will take, and who should be eligible . 51
The Task Force must issue a public
report to the Legislature by June
1, 2022 . 52 On June 1, 2021, the Task
Force voted to issue a report in two
parts . 53 The interim report, to be
published by June 1, 2022, will de -
scribe the institution of slavery, the
ensuing discriminatory systems
created by slavery, and its reverber-
ations throughout American history
and into the present . 54 It will make
preliminary recommendations . The final report will in- clude the Task Force’s final recommendations, following further hearings, community engagement, and consul -
tations with experts, regarding potential forms that an apology and reparations should take . 55
III . Overview of Activities
AB 3121 authorizes the Task Force to hold public hearings to pursue its mission . 56 In order to inform the contents of the interim report, the Task Force held nine public meet- ings, during which it considered public comments, expert, and personal witness testimony, in addition to considering the voluminous materials submitted to the Task Force via email from those unable to attend the meetings .

In total, the Task Force has heard over 40 hours of testimo- ny from 103 witnesses and 16 hours of public comment,
and received 1,075 emails and 100 phone calls . In addi - tion, on September 23, 2021, the Task Force contracted
with the Ralph J . Bunche Center at UCLA to implement a community engagement and communications plan .

In order to maintain slavery, American government officials used the belief system of white supremacy to restrict the freedom and prosperity of African Americans. These beliefs were enshrined into the laws, court decisions, and policies and practices of the United States and of the state of California. 38 Chapter 1 Introduction
IV . Structure of the Report
The interim report focuses on anti-Black, racist feder - al, state, and local government actions and negligence
throughout American history and into the modern day .

Under international law, a government is responsible
where its wrongful actions or negligence caused injury to a specific group of people . 57 Once proven, governments have a duty to remedy wrongful actions . 58 Reparations offer such a remedy, and the United Nations recognizes
five formal categories of reparations: restitution, com - pensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition . 59 American courts of law have long recognized a similar concept—that parties must redress
the harms caused by their actions or omissions where
there was a duty to act . 60 Advocates frame reparations as a program that seeks acknowledgment, redress, and
closure for injustice . 61
This report is created by the Task Force to support
the Legislature in its future effort to acknowledge the wrongful actions and negligence of California as well
as the wrongful actions and negligence of the local
governments within its jurisdiction that have harmed
African Americans .

In addition to California’s potential
legal obligations, repairing a wrong
is a political and moral obligation .

America and California’s demo -
cratic forms of government exist
to embody the will of the people . 62
In accepting this system, we, as
Americans and as Californians, are
more than a random group of peo -
ple who live in the same geographic
area; we bind ourselves into a com -
munity that lives beyond the lifespans of its individual members . 63 Through government, a community chan -
nels its visions for the society it wants to create through the laws that govern it . 64
Following the charge of AB 3121 to describe the trade
of trafficked African people across the oceans and
within the lands of the United States, in this report,
the Task Force will recount the moral and legal wrongs
the American and Californian governments have in -
flicted upon their own Black citizens and residents .

The first chapter describes the institution of slavery
as it existed in the geographic territory of the United States, and the legal, political, economic, and cultur - al systems maintaining and enriched by enslavement .

The subsequent eleven chapters describe how these
racist systems metastasized throughout America and
California, reaching into all corners of American life .

Each chapter traces an issue from its historic foun -
dations in slavery, through successive discriminatory
government actions, and government failures to cor -
rect and remedy the harms of anti-Black racism . Each
chapter describes the uncorrected, compounding, and
continuous harms all levels of the American govern -
ment inflicted upon African Americans, as well as the
modern-day effects of those harms .

By focusing on the role of government actors at all
levels of local, state and national authority in en -
slavement and racial discrimination, this report does
not and cannot ignore the countless racist actions of
private citizens throughout American history . The
government’s role does not absolve private actors of
their own responsibility or prevent private individu -
als and entities who benefited from this state of affairs for generations from offering their own apologies and
engaging in their own acts of reparations . 65 As the re - port makes clear in the following pages, federal, state, and local governments often worked in tandem with
private individuals 66 to build and maintain a system placing African Americans in the lowest social strata
of this country . 67
The report’s focus on African Americans also does not
and cannot ignore the countless ways in which the
Californian government and its private citizens en -
slaved, dehumanized, or discriminated against other
marginalized communities .

Often, government discrimination or racist mob vio -
lence targeted many communities at once . During the
Zoot Suit Riots of 1943, white mobs of U .S . servicemen, off-duty police officers, and civilians indiscriminately at- tacked Latino, Black, and Filipino men in Los Angeles . 68 Sometimes, one racial group enacted violence against
another . As AB 3121 charges this Task Force solely with in- vestigating the history of systemic racism as it relates to Black Californians, it does not focus on the innumerable acts of racist violence and discrimination by government officials and private citizens against other people of color .

This report’s focus on African Americans does not and cannot ignore the countless ways in which the California government and private citizens enslaved, dehumanized, or discriminated against other marginalized communities.
39 Chapter 1 Introduction
V . Immigration and Migration Patterns
The first ship carrying enslaved people landed in
what would become the United States in 1619 on the
shores of Virginia . 69 Although Congress outlawed the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1807 , between 1525 and
1866, approximately 388,000 enslaved people were traf - ficked to the United States . 70 These African men, women, and children were mostly captured on the west coast
of the African continent between modern day Senegal
and Angola . 71 Once in the United States, the majority of enslaved people remained in the South, although
southern enslavers often brought enslaved people into
free states . 72
In the 1800s and early 1900s, very few African peo -
ple voluntarily immigrated to the United States due to
immigration laws that limited the number of African
immigrants . 73 Between 1870 and 1920, 17 ,376 African im- migrants arrived in the United States representing 0 .06 percent of the total immigrant population at the time . 74 The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 established an immi -
gration system that limited the number of immigrants
from the African continent . 75 Between 1920 and 1970, 58,449 African individuals entered the United States, or about 0 .51 percent of the total immigrant population . 76 Beginning in the 1960s, Congress passed immigration
reforms which significantly increased Caribbean and
African immigration to the United States . 77 As a result, the Black population of the United States became increasingly diverse . In 1990, 363,819 African immigrants entered the United States . 78
Today, approximately 47 million Black people live in the United States, according to the 2020 census . 79 Of those 47 million Black individuals, academics and other ex -
perts differ on the number who are the descendants of
people enslaved in the United States . Name changes, de- struction of culture, inaccurate records, forced family separation, and other consequences of 400 years of ra - cial oppression make it extremely difficult to trace which Black individuals living today are American descendants of slaves . On the other hand, about 12 percent of Black people in American were born in a foreign country . 80 Nine percent of African Americans have at least one
foreign-born parent . 81 By 2060, the Black foreign-born population is projected to make up about one-third of
the U .S . Black population . 82 58 percent of Black immi - grants arrived in the United States after 2000 . 83 Every U .S . census conducted since 1970 has found that Black immigrants from the English speaking Caribbean earn
more, are more likely to be employed that U .S .-born
African Americans, are more likely to hold more fi -
nancial assets, 84 are more likely to own their home, 85 and most are more likely to be healthy than U .S .-born African Americans . 86
In California, the Black population remained small until World War II . Unlike the English speaking colonies on the east coast, racial boundaries were not strict, and a multi- racial population lived in California as a Spanish colony in the 1500s . 87 By 1850, when California entered the union, the Black population of California was a mix of African Americans from the North and South, foreign-born Black
Afro-Latinos from Mexico, Peru and Chile, and Jamaicans . 88 The 1860 census counted 4,086 “total free colored” people in California . 89 Sources vary in the estimates of enslaved people in California, with some sources estimating up to 1,500 enslaved African Americans lived in California in 1852 . 90 The 1920 census counted 38,763 African Americans, out of a total population of 3 .4 million in the state . 91 California’s Black population increased significantly during World War II, as many moved to the state in search of war industry jobs . 92 More Black people moved to California in the 1940s than in the entire previous century of statehood combined . 93 The Black population of California ballooned from 124,306 in 1940 to 1,400,143 in 1970 . 94
African Americans take a break from their work on the railroad. (1938)

COURTESY OF BUYENLARGE/GETTY IMAGES

40 Chapter 1 Introduction
VI . State of Black California
California is home to the fifth largest Black population in the United States, after Texas, Florida, Georgia, and New York . 95 As of 2020, about 39 .5 million people live in California, of whom about 2 .8 million self-identify as Black . 96 Of the current 2 .8 million Black Californians, 244,969 are foreign born, according to the U .S . Census Bureau . 97
While the number of Black Californians has increased
in the last thirty years, the overall percentage of Black Californians has fallen over the same period . 98 Black Californians make up about six percent of the state’s
population today, a decrease from 8 .1 percent of the
state’s population in 1990 . 99
Black Californians live in all 58 Californian counties, but most Black Californians live in Los Angeles County
(943,145), San Bernardino County (223,116), San Diego
County (211,354), Alameda County (198,250), and
Riverside County (197 ,329) . 100 The counties with the highest number of Black Californians, as a percentage of the total population, are Solano County (16 .87 percent), Sacramento County (12 .43 percent), Alameda County
(11 .78 percent), Contra Costa County (10 .69 percent), and San Bernardino County (10 .23 percent) . 101 In the past three decades, about 275,000 Black Californians
have left expensive coastal cities to move inland or to other states . 102 During the same timeframe, the Black populations of some of California’s historically Black
neighborhoods in cities across California have plunged:

Compton by 45 percent, San Francisco by 43 percent,
and Oakland by 40 percent . 103
Despite the history of Black voter suppression through - out the United States and California, California has
steadily improved voting access since the late twentieth century . 104 Surveys from 2019 show that six percent of likely voters are Black, equal to their share of the popu - lation in California . 105
Nevertheless, the effects of 400 years of compounding
governmental and private acts of racial violence and
discrimination described in this report have resulted
in disparities between Black and white Californians
in almost every corner of life . Compared to white
Californians, Black Californians earn less and are more likely to be impoverished . In 2018, on average, Black
Californians earned $53,565, compared to $87 ,078 for
white Californians . 106 Around 19 .4 percent of Black Californians live below the poverty line, compared to
nine percent of white Californians . 107 Black Californians are also far less likely to own a home than white
Californians; in 2019, 59 percent of white households
owned their homes, compared with 35 percent of Black
Californians . 108 And in contrast to the advances in voting rights in California, the rates of Black homeownership in California have declined by over 11 percent since 2010 . 109 In fact, Black homeownership in California in the 2010s has been lower than in the 1960s, when sellers could still legally discriminate against Black home buyers . 110
Homelessness is a more acute problem in California
than in the rest of the country, and the burden falls
heaviest on Black Californians . Almost 50 percent—or
nearly one in every two Black Californians—lives in a
household where rent or mortgage payments eat up
more than 30 percent of the residents’ income, com -
pared to about 30 percent of white Californians who
suffer similar housing cost burdens . 111 Nearly 40 percent of California’s unhoused people are Black, even though
Black Californians represent only six percent of the
state’s total population . 112
The pervasive effects of racial dis -
crimination have seriously harmed
the health of Black Californians . In
2021, the life expectancy of an aver -
age Black Californian was 75 .1 years,
six years shorter than the state av -
erage . 113 Black babies are more
likely to die in infancy 114 and Black
mothers giving birth die at a rate of
almost four times higher than the average Californian
mother . 115 Compared with white Californians, Black
Californians are more likely to have diabetes, 116 to die from cancer, 117 or be hospitalized for heart disease . 118 Compared to white Californians,
Black Californians are
to live below
the poverty line 2x

MORE LIKEL Y
6% 40%

BLACK CALIFORNIANS

POPULATION

BLACK CALIFORNIANS

UNHOUSED POPULATION
41 Chapter 1 Introduction
Racial discrimination in housing, education, and the
legal system, along with institutionally racist approach - es and militarized culture, have collectively resulted
in the over-policing of Black communities and the
mass incarceration of Black citizens . 119 According to data from 2020, the police are more than two times
more likely to stop and search African Americans in
California than white Americans, even though officers
reported no criminal activity for the Black individuals stopped more than twice as often as they did for the
white individuals stopped . 120 In 2020, law enforce - ment officers used force against African Americans
in California more than twice as
often than they did against white
Americans, 121 and data from 2016
to 2019 indicates that law enforce -
ment officers in California are
three times more likely to serious -
ly injure, shoot, or kill a African
American in California, even
when other factors are taken into
account . 122 About 28 percent of
people imprisoned in California
are Black—even though they make
up about six percent of the popu -
lation in the state . 123
Black youth in the state also face heightened risk of pun- ishment . Black students in California are suspended at rates 2 .4 times higher than the statewide average, 124 and lose the most number of days of instruction to sus - pensions when compared with other racial groups . 125
Recently, the California Attorney General’s Office
identified racial disparities in discipline for Black stu - dents across three different school districts . 126
Further, school discipline is often the first step to - ward law enforcement involvement . Black students in
California are disproportionately referred by schools
to law enforcement . 127 A California Attorney General’s Office investigation found that, since 2015, Black and
Latinx students in Stockton Unified School District were significantly more likely to experience severe policing outcomes than other students, including being cited or
booked into police custody . 128
As a result, compared to white youth in California,
Black youth are over 30 times more likely to be held in a juvenile justice facility in the State . 129 In 2019, African American youth comprised 36 percent of those or -
dered to be placed in state juvenile detention facilities, even though they make up only 14 percent of the youth
population in California . 130
VII . Terms Used Throughout the Report
When discussing issues as complex as race and repara -
tions, precision is paramount . Precision helps ensure
that we — the writers and the reader, as American and
Californian citizens and residents — begin in the same
place, to arrive at the same understanding . As described later in this report, words have been weaponized
throughout American history to dehumanize African
Americans . Words can also be used to mend —to ac -
knowledge, to respect, and to uplift . To that end, this report defines and adopts the following terms through - out its pages .

The N-word– the word “nigger” has been used for cen -
turies to dehumanize African Americans . 131 The terms “Negro” and “Colored person” (as opposed to “person
of color”), although adopted by Black communities for
periods of time, have since been recognized as deroga - tory terms . 132 When quoting historical documents, this report will quote these words—not to condone the words
or their vicious meanings—but to present them in the
context in which these slurs were used . The California Legislature enacted AB 3121, recognizing that the last - ing wounds of slavery and discrimination cannot begin
to mend until those wounds are first addressed . In
that same spirit, we quote these terms recognizing that reparations or any other answer to racism cannot be
complete until we squarely face slavery and the systemic discrimination that followed and persists today .

White supremacy – white supremacy is a system of belief and power that white people are superior to other rac - es . 133 This report confronts the idea of white supremacy In the past three decades, about 275,000 Black Californians have left expensive coastal cities to move inland or to other states.

During the same timeframe, the Black populations of some of California’s historically Black neighborhoods in cities across California have plunged: Compton by 45 percent, San Francisco by 43 percent, and Oakland by 40 percent.
42 Chapter 1 Introduction
and the various forms that it takes . When discussing the concept of white supremacy, the report uses the term to refer to one of two concepts .

First, this report uses the terms “white supremacy” or
“white supremacists” to identify groups or individuals
who believe that white people are superior to people
of other races . When used this way, “white supremacy”
describes individual prejudice . Examples of white su - premacist groups—including groups that exist to this
day—include, for example, the Ku Klux Klan . 134
Second, this report uses the term “white supremacy”
in the American context to describe the racist prem -
ise upon which social and legal rules and practices are formed with the intention of discriminating or enacting violence against people of color, including Black peo - ple . 135 This report also uses it to describe cultural images and stereotypes that reinforce prejudices against people of color, including Black people . 136 When used this way, white supremacy describes forms of racism that extend
beyond individuals or organizations, a form of racism
often described as structural or systemic racism . 137 As this report demonstrates, the fundamental political,
social, and economic system of our country negatively
impacts people of color regardless of the intent of any one person to be racist .

This report does not use the term “white supremacy” to
describe white people as a group, white Americans, or
white Californians . Not all white people are white su - premacists . Anyone, regardless of race, with or without intent, consciously or unconsciously, can engage in acts of white supremacy, or be a part of a racist system . A rac- ist system harms all who live in it, even those who may have historically reaped the benefits of the system . 138 Throughout the report, we also use words that center the people discussed . We avoid words that describe solely
their conditions, especially when enslavement and other racist laws and policies have imposed these conditions .

Rather than refer to “slaves,” we refer to “enslaved per - sons .” As the White House Historical Association notes, most historians now refer to “enslaved persons” instead of “slaves” because the term “slave” reduces the enslaved person to an object . 139 Instead, historians use “enslaved person” to grant agency and recognition to the enslaved individual and to remind us about the violence and inhu- manity of slavery . 140 For similar reasons, this report refers to “enslavers,” rather than “owners” or “masters .” 141 Similarly, instead of “owners” or “masters,” we refer to “enslavers .” The words master or owner suggests a false sense of natural authority and suggest that the enslaved person is less capable than the enslaver . 142 It also hides the fact that these individuals actively chose to enslave other human beings who are entitled to the same human
rights as themselves . 143
Instead of “fugitive,” this report refers to “freedom-seek- ers” when describing enslaved persons or other people
seeking to escape slavery and other forms of captivi -
ty . The term “fugitive” was commonly used with laws
such as the Fugitive Slave Laws of 1793 and 1850 passed by Congress, which used the term to reinforce the
system of enslavement and criminalize those who
sought freedom . 144
Rather than refer to “felon” or “ex-offender,” this report uses terms such as “formerly incarcerated” and “return- ing citizen .” Similarly, this report uses terms such as “person in prison” or “incarcerated person,” rather than “inmates .” Like the term “fugitive,” the terms “felon,” “ex-offender,” and “inmate” have stigmatized people
who are or have once been in jail or prison . By label - ing people as nothing more than their criminal justice
status, these words deny people their full personhood
and reinforce a stigma that prevents people from fully
participating in society . 145
Instead of referring to people without homes as “the
homeless,” this report uses terms such as “unhoused
people” or “people experiencing homelessness . ” This
follows the practice of the Associated Press Style Guide, which recognized that the phrase “the homeless” de -
humanizes people by collectively reducing them to a
label based on housing status, rather than their status as people . 146
Though the report uses person-centered terms, the
report may sometimes quote historical documents or
statements that do not . This report presents these quo - tations unaltered to present them unfiltered .

In using person-centered words, this report recognizes
that words alone may not cure the wounds that people
have suffered . 147 While words may not fix the systems they describe, this report uses these words, recognizing that they are the beginning—not the end—of what we
must do to redress racism, past and present .

THIS PAGE INTENTIONALL Y LEFT BLANK
44 Chapter 1 Introduction
Endnotes
1 Lapp, Blacks in Gold Rush California (1977)
pp . 3-9, 130-139 .
2 Cal . Const . of 1849, art .

I, § 18; id . at p . 127 .
3 L .H ., The Roots of Slavery in Woodland
(Mar . 20, 2016) The Davis Vanguard
(as of Mar . 28, 2022); Smith, Freedom’s
Frontier: California and the Struggle
over Unfree Labor, Emancipation, and
Reconstruction (2013), pp . 231-233 .
4 L .H ., supra; Smith, supra, at pp . 231-233 .
5 L .H ., supra; Smith, supra, at pp . 231-233 .
6 L .H ., supra; Smith, supra, at pp . 231-233 .
7 L .H ., supra; Smith, supra, at pp . 231-233 .
8 L .H ., supra; Smith, supra, at pp . 231-233 .
9 In re Campbell’s Estate (1910) 12 Cal .App .
707 , 718 .
10 Restore/Restory: A People’s History of
the Cache Creek Nature Preserve,
Basil Campbell Restore/Restory
(as of Mar . 28, 2022) .
11 Hudson, West of Jim Crow: The Fight
Against California’s Color Line (2020) p . 190 .
12 Id. at p . 192 .
13 Ibid .
14 Ibid .
15 Id. at p . 193
16 Ibid .
17 Ibid .
18 Id. at p . 194 .
19 Ibid .
20 Id. at p . 204 .
21 Ibid .
22 Ibid .
23 Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten
History of How Our Government
Segregated America (2017) pp . 66-67 .
24 Ibid .
25 Ibid .
26 Ibid .
27 California Task Force to Study and
Develop Reparation Proposals
for African Americans (Oct . 13,
2021), Testimony of Paul Austin
(as of Mar . 28, 2021) .
28 Ibid .
29 Ibid .
30 Ibid .
31 Perry and Harshbarger, America’s
Formerly Redlined Neighborhoods Have
Changed, and So Must Solutions to
Rectify Them (Oct . 14, 2019) Brookings
Inst . (as of Apr . 4, 2022) .
32 Perry, et al ., The Devaluation of Assets in
Black Neighborhoods (Nov . 2018) Brookings
Inst . pp . 10-19 (as of Apr . 5, 2022) .
33 Ibid .; Guastaferro, Why Racial Inequities
in America's Schools are Rooted in Housing
Policies of the Past (Nov . 2, 2020) USA
Today (as of Apr . 5, 2022); Oliver
and Shapiro, Black Wealth/White
Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial
Inequality (2006) pp . 8-9, 22-23 .
34 Cal . Atty . Gen ., Sausalito Marin City
School District Agrees to End Segregation
in its Schools (Aug . 9, 2019) Cal .

Dept . of J . (as of Apr . 5, 2022) .
35 California Task Force to Study and
Develop Reparation Proposals
for African Americans (Oct . 13,
2021), Testimony of Paul Austin
(as of Mar . 28, 2021) .
36 Ibid .
37 Ibid .
38 Ibid .
39 Ibid .
40 Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America
(1935) p . 714 .
41 See generally Kendi, Stamped from the
Beginning: The Definitive History of
Racist Ideas in America (2016) .
42 See, e .g ., U .S . Const ., art . I, § 2, cl . 3; id., art . I, § 9, cl . 1; id., art . IV, § 2, cl . 3;
Cal . Const . of 1849, art . II, § 1; Stats .
1852, ch . 33, § 1 et seq ., pp . 67–69;
Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) 60 U .S . 393;
People v. Hall (1854) 4 Cal . 399, 403 .
43 Aliprantis and Carroll, What is Behind
the Persistence of the Racial Wealth Gap?
(Feb . 28, 2019) Fed . Reserve Bank
of Cleveland (as of Apr . 5, 2022) .
44 Assem . Bill No . 3121 (2019-
2020 Reg . Sess .) .
45 Gov . Code, § 8301 .2, subd . (a) .
46 Gov . Code, § 8301, subd . (b)(1) .
47 Gov . Code, § 8301 .1, subd . (b)(1) .
48 Id., subd . (b)(3) .
49 Id., subd . (b)(3)(A)-(B) .
50 Id., subd . (b)(3)(C)-(D) .
51 Id., subd . (b)(3)(E)-(G) .
52 Id., § 8301 subds . (a), (b) .
53 California Task Force to Study and
Develop Reparation Proposals for
African Americans, June Meeting Minutes
(Jun . 1, 2021) (as of Apr . 5, 2022) .
54 Ibid .
55 Ibid .
56 Gov . Code, § 8301 .3, subd . (a)(1) . The
meetings are conducted pursuant
to the Bagley Keene Act . Gov . Code §
11120 . Due to the COVID-19 pandemic,
from June 2021 to March 2022, accord-
ing to California Governor Executive
Orders N-29-20, N-08-21, and N-1-22,
all meetings were conducted virtually .
57 Responsibility of States for Internationally
Wrongful Acts, 53rd Sess ., art . 31, 39,
U .N . Doc . A/56/83 (Dec . 12, 2021) .
58 Ibid .
59 G .A . Res . 60/147 , ¶¶ 19-
23 (Mar . 21, 2006) .
60 See, e .g ., Merrill v. Los Angeles Gas & Elec.

Co. (1910) 158 Cal; 499, 503–04;
Rest .2d Torts, §§ 4, 430, 431 .
61 Darity and Mullen, From Here to Equality
(2020) p . 2 .
62 Reynolds v. Sims (1964) 377 U .S . 533, 562;
see also U .S . Const ., pream-
ble; Cal . Const ., preamble .
63 See U .S . Const ., preamble; Cal . Const .,
preamble; Hamilton, Federalist No.
1 (as of Apr . 21, 2021); Testimony
of Ta-Nehisi Coates, Hearings be-
fore House Com . on Jud . on H .R .
40, 116th Cong ., 1st Sess . (2019) .
45 Chapter 1 Introduction
64 Testimony of Ta-Nehisi Coates, supra .
65 See, e .g ., Desai, The First Reparations
Attempt at an American College Comes
from its Students (Apr . 18, 2019) The
Atlantic (as of Apr . 21, 2022); Lockhart,
A Virginia Seminary Is the First School
to Create a Reparations Fund (Sept . 10,
2019) Vox (as of Apr . 21, 2022) .
66 See, e .g ., Burton v. Wilmington Parking
Auth . (1961) 365 U .S . 715, 716-26; Shelley
v. Kraemer (1948) 334 U .S . 1, 13-23 .
67 See generally, Wilkerson, Caste: The
Origins of Our Discontents (2020) .
68 Gerber, Zoot Suit Riots: After 75 Years, L.A.

Looks Back on a Violent Summer (June 4,
2018) L .A . Times (as of Apr . 21, 2022) .
69 Selections: Massachusetts and Virginia. The
May-Flower at Plymouth, and the First
Slave Ship at Jamestown (Sep . 28,
1860) Liberator (1831-1865) p . 1 .
70 Gates, Jr ., How Many Slaves Landed in the
U.S.? (Sep . 19, 2013) PBS
(as of Apr . 21, 2022) .
71 Pruitt, What Part of Africa Did Most
Enslaved People Come From? (Jun .
19, 2019) History (as of Apr . 21,
2022); Rice University, Trans-
Atlantic Slave Trade - Database Slave
Voyages (as of Apr . 21, 2022) .
72 Mullen, These Maps Reveal How Slavery
Expanded Across the United States
(May 15, 2014) Smithsonian
Magazine (as of Apr . 21, 2022) .
73 Capps et al ., Diverse Streams: Black
African Migration to the United States
(April 2012) Migration Policy Institute
(as of Apr . 21, 2022); see also U .S . Dept
of State Office of the Historian, The
Immigration Act of 1924 (The Johnson-
Reed Act) U .S . Dept of State Office of
the Historian (as of Mar . 21, 2022) .
74 Newton, Injecting Diversity into U.S.

Immigration Policy: The Diversity Visa
Program and the Missing Discourse on
its Impact on African Immigration to
the United States (2005) 38 Cornell
Internat . L . J . 3 at p . 1061 .
75 U .S . Dept of State Office of the
Historian, supra; The Immigration
Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act),
Pub . L . 68-139, 43 Stat . 153 .
76 Newton, supra at p . 1061 .
77 Rumbaut, Origins and Destinies:

Immigration to the United States Since
World War II (1994) 9 Sociological
Forum 4 at pp . 588, 595 .
78 Id. at p . 95 .
79 Jones et al ., 2020 Census Illuminates
Racial and Ethnic Composition of the
Country (Aug . 12, 2021) U .S . Census
Bureau (as of Apr . 21, 2022) .
80 Tamir, Key Findings about Black
Immigrants in the U.S. (Jan . 27 , 2022)
Pew Research (as of Apr . 21, 2022) .
81 Ibid .
82 Ibid .
83 Ibid .
84 Hamilton, Immigration and the
Remaking of Black America (2009) .
85 Id.
86 Id.
87 Taylor, In Search of the Racial Frontier:

African Americans in the American
West 1528-1990 (1998) p . 30 .
88 Id. at p . 83
89 U .S . Census Bureau, Population of the
United States in 1860: California
(as of Apr . 22, 2022) p . 28 .
90 Smith, Freedom’s Frontier,
supra, at p . 40 .
91 U .S . Census Bureau, 1920 Census:

Population, Composition and
Characteristics of the Population by
States (as of Apr . 22, 2022) p . 106 .
92 Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns
(2010), p 188
93 I. at Ibid .
94 Gibson and Jung, Historical Census
Statistics on Population Totals by Race,
1790-1990, and by Hispanic Origin, 1970 to
1990, for the United States, Regions, Divisions,
and States (Sept . 2002) U .S . Census
Bureau (as of Apr . 20, 2022) p . 47 .
95 The Campaign for College
Opportunity, The State of Higher
Education for Black Californians (Feb .
2021) The Campaign for College
Opportunity (as of Apr . 20, 2021) p . 10 .
96 U .S . Census Bureau, Race (2020) (as of
Nov . 3, 2021) . This number includes all
Californians who identify solely as Black
or as Black and at least one other race .
97 U .S . Census Bureau, Place of Birth for the
Foreign-Born Population in
California (as of Apr . 20, 2022) .
98 Compare U .S . Census Bureau, Race
(2020) (as of Apr . 20, 2022) with Raphael
and Stoll, The State of Black California
(Feb . 1, 2008) UCLA: School of Public
Affairs (as of Apr . 22, 2022) p . 78 .
99 U .S . Census Bureau, Quick Facts:

California (2020) U .S . Census
Bureau (as of Apr . 22, 2022) .
100 U .S . Census Bureau, Race (2020) (as of
Nov . 3, 2021) .
101 Ibid .
102 Hepler, The Hidden Toll of California’s
Black Exodus (Jul . 15, 2020) Cal
Matters (as of Apr . 20, 2022) .
103 Ibid .
104 See Katz, et al ., Reckoning with our
Rights: The Evolution of Voter Access in
California (Sept . 2020) UCLA Luskin
Center for History and Policy (as
of Apr . 17 , 2022) pp . 20-27 .
105 Baldassare et al ., California’s Likely
Voters (Sept . 2021) Public Policy Institute
of California (as of Apr . 21, 2022) .
106 Sen . Joint Economic Com ., The
Economic State of Black America in
2020 (2020) Sen . Joint Economic
Com . (as of Apr . 22, 2022) p . 28 .
107 Ibid .
108 California Forward, Building Racial and
Economic Equity Through Home
Ownership (Apr . 2021) California
Forward (as of Apr . 22, 2022) p . 17 .
109 Ibid .
110 California Housing Finance Agency,
Black Homeownership Initiative: Building
Black Wealth California Housing
Finance Agency (as of Apr . 20, 2022);
Reid, Crisis, Response, and Recovery: The
Federal Government and the Black/White
Homeownership Gap (Mar . 2021) UC
Berkeley Terner Center for Housing
Innovation (as of Apr . 22, 2022) p . 2 .
46 Chapter 1 Introduction
111 Levin, Black Californians’ Housing Crisis,
by the Numbers (June 19, 2020) Cal
Matters (as of Apr . 22, 2022) .
112 Cimini, Black People Disproportionately
Homeless in California (Oct . 5, 2019)
Cal Matters (as of Apr . 22, 2022) .
113 California Health Care Foundation,
Health Disparities by Race and Ethnicity
in California: Pattern of Inequity (Oct .
22, 2021) California Health Care
Foundation (as of Apr . 22, 2022) p . 7 .
114 Id. at p . 42 .
115 Cal . Maternal Quality Care
Collaborative, The California Pregnancy-
Associated Mortality Review (2018) Cal .

Maternal Quality Care Collaborative
(as of Apr . 21, 2022) p . 21 .
116 Cal . Health Care Foundation, supra at
p . 25 .
117 Id. at p . 28 .
118 Id. at p . 19 .
119 Reskin, The Race Discrimination System
(2012) 38 Annual Rev . of Soc . pp . 17–35 .
120 Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory
Board, 2022 Report Quick Facts (2022)
Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory
Board (as of Apr . 19, 2022) p . 1; see
also Premkumar et al ., Police Use
of Force and Misconduct in California
(Oct . 2021) Public Policy Institute of
California (as of Apr . 22, 2022) .
121 Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory
Board, supra .
122 Premkumar et al ., supra .
123 Vera Institute of Justice, Incarceration
Trends in California (Dec . 2019) Vera
Institute of Justice (as of Apr . 22, 2022) .
124 Wood et al ., Suspending Our Future: How
Inequitable Disciplinary Practices
Disenfranchise Black Kids in California’s
Public Schools (Feb . 17 , 2021)
Black Minds Matter Coalition
(as of Apr . 22, 2022) p . 4 .
125 Losen & Martin, The Unequal Impact of
Suspension on the Opportunity to Learn
in California (Sep . 18, 2018) The Civil
Rights Project (as of Apr . 22, 2022) pp .
4-5; see also Office for Civil Rights,
An Overview of Exclusionary Discipline
Practices in Public Schools for the 2017-
2018 School Year (June 2021) U .S . Dept .
of Ed . (as of Apr . 22, 2022) pp . 6-7 .
126 Office of the Attorney General,
Attorney General Becerra Secures
Settlements with Barstow and Oroville
School Districts to Address Discriminatory
Treatment of Students Based on Race and
Disability Status (Aug . 25, 2020) Cal .

Dept . of Justice (as of Apr . 22, 2022) .
127 Black Organizing Project et al ., From
Report Card to Criminal Record: The
Impact of Policing Oakland Youth
(Aug . 2013) Black Organizing
Project (as of Apr . 22, 2022) p . 17 .
128 State of Cal. v. Stockton Unified School
District, Complaint for Injunctive
Relief (2019) at pp . 5-6 .
129 Ridolfi, et al ., California Youth Face
Heightened Racial and Ethnic Disparities
in Division of Juvenile Justice (Aug . 2020)
Center on Juvenile and Criminal
Justice (as of Apr . 22, 2022) .
130 Ibid .
131 Kennedy, Nigger: The Strange Career of a
Troublesome Word (Jan . 11, 2001)
Wash . Post (as of Apr . 22, 2022) .
132 Malesky, The Journey from ‘Colored’ to
‘Minorities’ to ‘People of Color’ (Mar .
30, 2014) NPR (as of Apr . 22, 2022);
Smith, Changing Racial Labels: From
“Colored” to “Negro” to “Black” to
“ African American” (1992) 56 Public
Opinion Quarterly 4, pp . 497-501 .
133 See, e .g ., Newkirk II, The Language of
White Supremacy (Oct . 6, 2017) The
Atlantic (as of Apr . 21, 2022) .
134 Southern Poverty Law Center,
Extremist Groups (as of Apr . 22, 2022) .
135 See Bailey et al ., How Structural Racism
Works—Racist Policies as a Root Cause of
U.S. Racial Health Inequities (2021) 384
New England J . of Medicine 768, 768-
69; See also Gates, Jr ., Stony the Road:

Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and
the Rise of Jim Crow (2019) p . xxii .
136 See Ibid .
137 Wiecek, Structural Racism and the Law in
America Today: An Introduction
(2011) 100 Ky . L . J . 1, pp . 5-19 .
138 See generally Metzl, Dying of Whiteness:

How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is
Killing America's Heartland (2019) .
139 White House Historical Ass ., Slavery in
the President’s Neighborhood
FAQ White House Historical
Ass . (as of Apr . 22, 2022) .
140 Ibid .
141 Nat . Park Service, Language of Slavery
Nat . Park Service (as of Apr . 22, 2022) .
142 Ibid .
143 Ibid .
144 Ibid .
145 Cox, The Language of Incarceration (July
23, 2020) Incarceration (as of Apr . 22,
2022); see also Bedell et al ., Corrections
for Academic Medicine: The Importance of
Using Person-First Language for Individuals
who have Experienced Incarceration (2019)
94 Academic Medicine 2, pp . 173-74 .
146 Perlman, 2020 AP Stylebook Changes:

Person-First Language, and the Great
‘Pled’ Debate (May 6, 2020) Columbia
Journalism Review (as of Apr . 22, 2022) .
147 See Betts, Incarcerated Language (2018)
Yale Review (as of Apr . 22, 2022) .

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Enslavement
CHAPTER 2
I . Introduction
On July 5 th, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a speech to a crowd of 600 mostly white antislavery activists in
Rochester, New York, the day after Independence Day . 1 Douglass was one of the most famous Black antislav -
ery and civil rights activists at the time . 2 He began by praising the courage of the nation’s founders in winning their freedom from the British Empire . 3 But Douglass did not come to celebrate American independence and
liberty . 4 The United States was founded on the idea that “all men are created equal[,]” but white Americans
enslaved their fellow African Americans and “notori -
ously hate[d] […] all men whose skins are not colored
like your own .” 5 For Douglass, the Fourth of July only highlighted the “immeasurable distance” between free
white Americans and enslaved African Americans . 6
“The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common .—The rich inheritance of justice,
liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by
your fathers, is shared by you, not by me,” he explained; “You may rejoice . I must mourn .” 7
Frederick Douglass’s speech about the Fourth of July
shows the conflict at the heart of American history . The United States prides itself on liberty, equality, and justice for all, but for over 400 years, white people of European ancestry built and continued a brutal caste system based on false notions of racial difference: white people at
the top, people of African descent at the bottom, and
all other groups ranked in between . 8 From the begin - ning, America’s wealth was built by the forced labor of people from Africa and their descendants . These peo -
ple were forcibly sold and traded as commodities and
millions of them cultivated crops—tobacco, sugar, rice, indigo, wheat, corn, and especially cotton—that allowed American colonies and the early United States to pros - per . Colonial governments and the U .S . government at all levels allowed and participated in the exploitation, abuse, terror, and murder of people of African descent so that white people could profit as much as possible from their enslavement . To justify stealing the intellect, skill, and labor of African Americans, enslavers created and
spread false, racist ideas that African Americans were less intelligent than whites, that they loved their children less than white parents, and that they felt less pain than white people did .

COURTESY OF ANN RONAN PICTURES/PRINT COLLECTOR/GETTY IMAGES Captives being brought on board of a slave ship on the West Coast of Africa. (c. 1880) 49 Chapter 2 Enslavement
Insisting that African Americans were less than hu -
man made it easier for enslavers and the American
government at all levels to deny them the legal rights
that many white Americans believed were a basic part
of being American . After enslavement officially ended
in 1865, white Americans terrorized African Americans
with violence and racist ideas . African Americans lived under violent threats to themselves and their families
and did not have the economic opportunities or polit -
ical rights of their white peers . Through laws allowing, promoting, and protecting enslavement, federal, state,
and local governments were complicit in stealing cen -
turies of unpaid wages from African Americans . The
racist ideas invented to control enslaved people have
echoed through centuries of American laws and policies
and inflicted physical, mental, and emotional trauma
on approximately 16 generations of African Americans .

The state and federal governments of this country have
never atoned for these harms .

This chapter traces the long arc of enslavement in ear - ly North America and the United States . Sections III
and IV examine the origins of race-based enslavement
targeting people of African ancestry, the ways slavery
generated wealth for white colonists in English North
America, and the emergence of transatlantic trafficking in enslaved African people . Section V discusses the im - portance of enslavement to the founding of the United
States from the American Revolution to the creation
of the U .S . Constitution . Sections VI, VII, and VIII de - scribe the lives of enslaved people during the height of the domestic slave trade, the complicity of northerners in the perpetuation of enslavement, and enslavement’s
importance to American educational, religious, and
governmental institutions . Section IX discusses the ex - pansion of enslavement into western U .S . territories, the establishment of enslavement in California, and the complicity of the California state government in pro -
moting enslavement, oppressive laws, and anti-Black
sentiment . Finally, sections X, XI, and XII conclude the chapter by examining the U .S . Civil War, the formal abo- lition of enslavement, policies toward formerly enslaved people during Reconstruction . It ends by considering
the lingering, harmful effects of efforts to recast the de - feat of the Confederate States of America into a “Lost
Cause” myth that endures to the present day .

II . The Origins of American Enslavement
Pre-Modern Enslavement
Enslavement has existed for thousands of years in
many different cultures across the world . 9 It is only in the past 400 to 500 years that white Europeans devel -
oped a type of enslavement based heavily on the color
of someone’s skin and that mainly targeted people of
African ancestry . 10 This type of enslavement developed gradually between the 1400s and the 1700s . 11 It was based on the ideas that African ancestry could be the
basis for life-long enslavement that the children of en - slaved African-descended women
could be enslaved from birth, and
that people of African descent were
naturally destined to be enslaved . 12
Before the 1400s, a time period
known as the “pre-modern era,”
enslavement and enslaved people
differed widely . 13 In the ancient
Roman Empire, for instance, those
who were enslaved were mostly
conquered people who came from
multiple racial, ethnic, religious, and class backgrounds across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa . 14 In the Middle Ages (600s to 1400s), Celtic peoples, North
Africans, Scandinavians, and especially Slavic people
from Eastern Europe (from whom the word “slave”
comes) were the most commonly enslaved groups
in Europe . 15 In the Muslim kingdoms of North Africa
and the Middle East, both Slavic people and sub-Sa -
haran African people (Africans who lived south of the
Sahara Desert) made up a large number of those who
were enslaved . 16
Enslaved people in these diverse societies became en -
slaved in different ways: they could be prisoners of war, victims of kidnapping, targets of religious crusades,
people sentenced to enslavement as a punishment for
crimes, or poor people sold to pay off debts . 17 Depending on the culture or time period, children born to one or
more enslaved parent were not always automatically
enslaved, and it was fairly common for enslavers to free T o justify stealing the intellect, skill, and labor of African Americans, enslavers created and spread false, racist ideas that African Americans were less intelligent than whites, that they loved their children less than white parents, and that they felt less pain than white people.
50 Chapter 2 Enslavement
the children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren of
enslaved people . 18
Finally, early enslaved people fulfilled a variety of roles in their societies beyond being forced agricultural la - borers or house servants . 19 Enslaved people could be status symbols who represented the wealth and pow -
er of their enslavers, trusted advisors, poorly treated members of their enslavers’ extended families, coerced
sexual and marriage partners, or slave-soldiers forced
into military service . 20
Beginnings of Modern Enslavement
Enslavement changed with European world explora -
tion and global colonization between the 1400s and the
1600s . 21 In North America and South America, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Dutch colonizers took
Indigenous peoples’ land to grow crops such as sugar -
cane, tobacco, rice, and coffee and to mine for gold . 22 In most of these new colonies, natural resources and land to grow crops were common, but laborers were scarce . 23 In order to efficiently exploit these resources, Europeans first captured, enslaved, and exploited the Indigenous
peoples of North and South America . 24 Because the en - slavement of Indigenous people could not keep up with
the demand for labor, European colonizers began to traf- fic enslaved people from the continent of Africa . 25
Portuguese and Spanish colonizers brought the first
enslaved Africans to North and South America to supple- ment forced Indigenous labor . 26 Portuguese merchants had been trafficking West Africans and selling them in
Portugal for many years before the colonization of North and South America . 27 It was these captives who were first forcibly moved in small groups to European colonies
across the Atlantic Ocean . 28 Portuguese and Spanish col- onizers eventually started buying thousands of enslaved Africans along the coasts of West Africa and Central
Africa and bringing them directly to colonies in the
Caribbean and Brazil . 29 Around 500,000 enslaved people of African descent had already arrived in North and South America 30 —including Spanish settlements in present-day South Carolina (by 1526) 31 and Florida (by 1539) 32 —by the time Dutch pirates sold around 20 African captives to
English colonists in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619 . 33
Creating the American Racial Hierarchy
When these first Africans were brought by force to the
English colonies that became the United States, a caste system based mostly on skin color did not yet fully exist .

Instead, European colonists who wanted to exploit en -
slaved Black people and profit from their labor built this caste system gradually during the 1600s and 1700s .

In the very earliest years of English colonization in
Virginia, European indentured servants were the most
common workers . 34 Indentured servants were usually
either poor people who agreed to work for wealthy peo - ple for several years in exchange for transportation to the colonies, or they were people found guilty of crimes who had to work for several years in the colonies before getting their freedom . 35
At first, there was not much difference between the
treatment of enslaved Africans and European inden -
tured servants . 36 The major divisions in Virginia were between wealthy people and poor people who were
forced to labor, not between Black and white people . 37 Wealthy white Virginians who controlled the colony and
profited from the labor of both indentured white people and enslaved African people feared that rebellions by
these lower-class people might undermine their power
and wealth . 38
Wealthy white colonists attempted to solve this problem by using race as a way to divide these two groups and stay in power . 39 Rich white Virginians began to grant more rights and privileges to poorer white people . 40 This move created a false sense of greater equality among rich
and poor white English colonists, who began to come
together around a shared idea that they were “white”
people who were naturally superior to “Black” people
‘Introduction of Slavery,’ probably Jamestown, Virginia, late 1610s.

COURTESY OF KEAN COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES
51 Chapter 2 Enslavement
of African descent . 41 The new unity between rich and poor white people in Virginia encouraged poor whites
to keep Africans and their descendants enslaved and
to help their wealthy neighbors squash rebellions of
enslaved people . 42
Colonial lawmakers then established new laws that made
the racial caste system a permanent part of American cul- ture and society . 43 Colonial laws aimed to control people of African descent, keep them in life-long enslavement, and keep poor whites and enslaved African-descended
people divided . 44 In the late 1600s and early 1700s, these colonial laws gradually built up a legal system that treat - ed people of African descent as permanent outsiders
whose skin color made them naturally different from
and unequal to all white people . 45 These Virginia laws, called “Slave Codes,” did the following:
• Made enslavement permanent and automatic for
most people of African descent by saying that chil -
dren born to enslaved mothers would be enslaved
for life 46 ; that becoming a Christian would not end
enslavement 47 ; and that enslavers could not set en - slaved people free unless they paid to take them out
of the Virginia colony; 48
• Made it easier for whites to control free people of
African descent (those born into freedom or who
did manage to escape enslavement) by denying them
legal, political, and social rights . 49 These included the right to vote, serve in colonial military organizations, have political office, or carry firearms; 50 and
• Divided all white people from all Black people by
making interracial sex or marriage a crime, 51 pun-
ishing white women who gave birth to mixed-race
children, 52 and forcing these mixed-race children
(and their children) into indentured servitude until
they were 31 years old . 53
Other southern colonies that depended on enslavement
passed similar laws across the 1700s, sometimes copying the laws of Virginia directly . 54 These early slave codes en- sured that this racial caste system became widespread
across much of the area that would later become the
United States . 55
Only after enslavement became widespread and profit -
able and racist policies were in place, did white people develop elaborate racist ideas to explain why the racial caste system was natural and good . 56 European enslavers argued either that enslavement “civilized” Africans by
introducing them to European climates and lifeways, or
that the Christian Bible had automatically cursed them
to suffer enslavement . 57 The overall goal of these racist ideas was to defend enslavement and white suprema -
cy by claiming that Black people were, and always had
been, inferior to white people with European ancestry . 58 III . The Transatlantic Trafficking of Enslaved People
The Growth of Slavery
The search for profits, the unity of rich and poor white colonists, and the development of racist ideas paved the way for the massive increase of slaving voyages to Africa and the enslavement of people of African descent in
the lands that would later become the United States . 59 The enslavement of people of African descent played a
major role in the population boom of English colonies in North America during the 1700s . 60 Enslaved Africans and African descended peoples made up 47 .5 percent of all people who arrived in the English colonies between 1700 and 1775 (around 278,400 of the 585,800 new arrivals
documented during this period) . 61 This meant that the transatlantic slave trade was nearly as important to the growth of English North America as free (or indentured) immigration from Europe . 62
The populations of the English colonies showed this
change: Between 1680 and 1750, people of African
descent increased from 7 percent to 44 percent of the
total population of Virginia, and from 17 percent to 61 percent of the total population of South Carolina . 63 This trend was even more pronounced in the nearby
British colonies of the Caribbean (known as the West
Indies) where almost one million enslaved Africans were forcibly brought during the same period of time, 64 and where enslaved people made up 80 to 90 percent of the
total population . 65
To keep the profits of enslavement growing, British
merchants, the British monarchy, and the British gov -
ernment worked together to become the leaders of the
transatlantic slave trade . 66 Just one English company, the Royal African Company, forcibly brought nearly 150,000
enslaved people from Africa across the Atlantic Ocean
between the early 1670s and the early 1720s . 67 This total was more than any single company in the entire history
of the transatlantic slave trade . 68
52 Chapter 2 Enslavement
The English transatlantic slave trade of the 1600 to 1700s differed from the slave trades which existed in West
Africa before or during the same period . 69 Enslavement was common in sub-Saharan Africa, including West
Africa, which (in addition to Central Africa) was one of the main areas of the transatlantic slave trade . 70 In West African societies, enslaved people were usually people
captured in wars or attacks on other ethnic or lineage
(family ancestry) groups, people who owed debts, or
people found guilty of crimes . 71 Enslaved people in West African societies also had a wide variety of social and economic roles . 72 Many, especially children, lived in the same home as their enslavers and were treated
as “pawns,” low-status members of the family group . 73 Some worked in agriculture or as house servants, while
some became wives or concubines (involuntary sex -
ual partners or secondary wives) . 74 This enslavement was not usually permanent or passed on to the next
generation . 75 Most enslaved people and their chil - dren in West Africa gradually lost their enslaved status and became part of the families and communities of
their enslavers . 76
The arrival of Europeans made enslavement along the
western coast of Africa more widespread and violent . 77 European enslavers depended on African slave-trad -
ing networks for captives to send
across the Atlantic Ocean . 78 But
the massive demand for African
captives, which kept growing as
Europeans colonized more areas
of the world, changed African en -
slavement greatly . 79 Warfare and
kidnapping raids increased to cap -
ture more people to sell to Europeans . 80 The focus of the West African slave trade also shifted to the coasts and port cities where Europeans set up trading forts to buy people who had been captured . 81
The transatlantic slave trade eventually involved cap - turing Africans from an enormous geographic area
covering much of West Africa and Central Africa, and
even extending to the island of Madagascar off the south- east coast of Africa . 82 This trafficking in human beings spanned 3,500 miles along the western African coast
from present-day Senegal in the north to present-day
Angola in the south, and as many as 500 to 1,000 miles
into the interior of the continent . 83 Captive African people often changed hands many times and traveled
long distances before they arrived at coastal ports where Europeans bought them . 84
The Middle Passage
African captives suffered horrific physical, emotional, and mental trauma before and during the voyage across
the Atlantic Ocean . 85 This journey was called the “Middle Passage” and it was so dangerous, unhealthy, and vio -
lent that almost 1 .8 million people died before they ever reached the Americas . 86
Enslaved Africans’ suffering began even before the
slave ships set sail for the Americas . 87 Once European enslavers purchased people who had been captured
from African enslavers, they incarcerated them for days, weeks, or even months until they were ready to sail . 88 In the earlier years of the slave trade, European enslavers imprisoned enslaved people in large corrals called “bar - racoons .” 89 The most common practice, however, was
to incarcerate enslaved people on board the slave ships until it was time to sail for the Americas . 90
During the journey across the Atlantic Ocean, enslaved
Africans went through months of torture trapped inside
slave ships . 91 The voyage, which was called the “Middle Passage” because it was the second leg of a triangular
trade between Europe, Africa, and the Americas, 92 took 80 to 100 days (around 2 .5 to 3 months or more) in the early years of the trade (although new sailing technol - ogies cut the length of the trip to 60 to 80 days in later years) . 93 Slaving ships came in many different sizes, but the average Royal African Company boat held around
330 enslaved people . 94
African men, who made up around two-thirds of all
those captured, 95 spent almost all of the journey—sixteen hours or more every day—laying down in specially con -
structed rooms inside the ships . 96 Crews stripped them naked, chained them up, 97 and forced them to lay down on their sides, or to lay head to feet, so that they could fit in as many people as possible . 98 On English slave ships, each man had a space smaller than the size of a coffin . 99 On ships with “tight-packing,” captains added an extra
platform so that men laid in two rows stacked on top
of each other with only 2 .5 feet of vertical space to lay down . 100 Enslaved women and children, who were usu - ally smaller in number, lived together in groups in small rooms inside the ship . 101
Almost 1.8 million Africans died as they were trafficked across the Atlantic Ocean to slavery.
53 Chapter 2 Enslavement
Conditions inside slave ships were horrific and caused
massive amounts of sickness and death . 102 Hundreds of people were crowded together in the blazing heat and
tossed back and forth with the ship’s movement, espe -
cially during bad weather . 103 Enslaved captive Olaudah Equiano, who survived the Middle Passage, wrote that
“the closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowd -
ed that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost
suffocated us .” 104
Captives did not have much fresh
air and their rooms were covered
with human waste . 105 Rats and in -
sects swarmed around them . 106
Low-quality food, as well as scarce
water, led to widespread lack of nu-
trition and dehydration . 107 Filthy
conditions and poor nutrition
caused waves of sickness, including
scurvy (a lack of vitamins B and C) and “bloody flux”
(amoebic diarrhea or dysentery) . 108 Highly contagious diseases—especially smallpox—spread fast in the over -
crowded spaces . 109 Slave ships were filled with people who were very sick, dying, or dead .

Enslaved Africans also suffered physical and sexual vi - olence at the hands of ships’ crews . 110 Crew members moved people who had been captured to the top deck
of the ship on a regular basis to force them to bathe and dance for exercise . 111 They often raped and impregnat - ed women and girls . 112 Heavily armed crew members
watched enslaved people carefully, and they threatened, beat, tortured, and sometimes killed them, especially if they resisted or rebelled . 113
There is also evidence that ship crews threw sick enslaved people overboard to prevent them from spreading disease to others and to claim insurance money for “lost” human cargo . 114 In one especially brutal case in 1781, an English slave ship captain ordered his crew to throw 132 Africans overboard because he had run out of supplies and his in- surance company would only pay him if enslaved people
drowned, not if they starved to death . 115 During the worst storms, crews also tried to keep from sinking by throw - ing enslaved people overboard to decrease the weight of the ship . 116 British insurance companies allowed this and paid ship captains for any human beings who their crews threw overboard to drown . 117
The transatlantic slave trade and the Middle Passage
had a sickening cost in human lives . European enslav - ers forced around 12 .5 million enslaved Africans to cross the Atlantic Ocean between 1500 and 1866 . 118 More than 14 percent of these people, around 1 .8 million in total, died of sickness, neglect, abuse, murder, or suicide . 119 The men, women, and children who
survived the Middle Passage were
then sold to local slave traders, mer-
chants, or owners of plantations
and forced labor camps . 120
When their voyage across the
Atlantic Ocean finally ended in
North America, South America, or
the Caribbean, enslaved Africans
suffered “social death,” which meant
they were now permanently separat-
ed from their home communities,
cultures, and families . 121 They were
outsiders in an unfamiliar place,
surrounded by strangers with com -
pletely different cultures, religions,
and languages . Enslaved Africans had
to build new families, languages, cul-
tures, and religious practices rooted
both in the pre-colonial traditions of
Engraving “Stowage of the British Slave Ship ‘Brookes’ Under the Regulated Slave Trade Act of 1788” (circa 1788)

COURTESY OF LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/ ART IMAGES VIA GETTY IMAGES Crews stripped enslaved Africans naked, chained them up, and forced them to lay down on their sides, or to lay head to feet, so that they could fit in as many people as possible. On English slave ships, each man had a space smaller than the size of a coffin. 54 Chapter 2 Enslavement
their homelands and the new cultures that they found in the Americas . 122
Slavery and the Founding of the United States
Starting in the late 1600s, enslaved people and the insti - tution of enslavement became increasingly important
to the colonial societies of North America that would
later become the United States . 123 The southern English colonies of North America, which eventually includ -
ed Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, the Carolinas, and
Georgia, began trafficking more and more enslaved
people as the 1700s went on . 124
These colonies gradually built economies and societ -
ies that depended heavily on enslavement for growing
cash crops to sell in international markets . 125 In the col- onies of the Upper South, including Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, and North Carolina, enslaved people grew to-
bacco . Enslaved people in the low country and coastal
plains of the Carolinas and Georgia grew rice and indigo (a plant for making blue dye) . 126
Enslavers who forced enslaved people to labor in agri - cultural production exploited not only their physical
strength, but also their intellect, innovation, and skill .

Growing rice and indigo, for instance, required skilled labor and knowledge of specialized techniques for suc - cessful production . 127 In fact, rice and indigo growing was already highly developed along the western coast
of Africa, and, later the Caribbean, where people of
African descent had already innovated several pro -
duction techniques . 128 Enslavers were eager to buy
enslaved people who already had these specialized
agricultural skills . 129
Human trafficking in enslaved people was not limited
to the southern colonies . 130 Whites in northern colo - nies also trafficked enslaved people, and enslavement
became a feature of life in every northern colony . 131 In most New England colonies, enslavement was not a ma -
jor institution, but in colonies farther south, such as New York, enslavement was often a part of daily life . 132 For example, one-fifth of New York City’s population was
enslaved in 1746, making it the second largest slavehold- ing city in the 13 original English colonies behind only Charleston, South Carolina . 133
By the time white English colonists began to complain
about their mistreatment by the British government
and began comparing their lack of rights in the British Empire to enslavement, the real enslavement of peo -
ple of African descent was already well established in
all 13 original British colonies . 134 Five hundred thousand enslaved Black people, who made up 20 percent of the
entire colonial population, knew the real horrors and
trauma of enslavement . 135
The American Revolution
When white colonists declared their independence
from Great Britain, they explained their actions by say - ing that the King of England and
the British government had taken
away their freedom and their rights
as “freeborn Englishmen . ” 136 In
the Declaration of Independence,
Americans famously announced
that “all men are created equal”
and “that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalien -
able Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness .” 137 At the same time,
these same colonists bought and
sold people of African descent who
had no freedom and very few rights .

People who opposed the American
Revolution were quick to point
out the hypocrisy of these words . 138 Thomas Day, an Englishman who opposed enslavement, said that “[i]
f there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independence
with the one hand and with the other brandishing a
whip over his affrighted slaves .” 139 Even white American colonists understood the hypocrisy of the Declaration
of Independence . 140 Abigail Adams, an opponent of en - slavement from New England, the wife of John Adams,
and a future first lady of the United States, wondered just how strongly white colonists felt about human liberty
Enslavers who forced enslaved people to labor in agricultural production exploited not only their physical strength, but also their intellect, innovation, and skill. Growing rice and indigo, for instance, required skilled labor and knowledge of specialized techniques for successful production. In fact, rice and indigo growing was already highly developed along the western coast of Africa, and, later the Caribbean, where people of African descent had already innovated several production techniques. Enslavers were eager to buy enslaved people who already had these specialized agricultural skills.
55 Chapter 2 Enslavement
when they were “accustomed to deprive their fellow cit- izens of theirs .” 141
The founders of the United States, especially those who owned enslaved people and profited from enslavement,
were well aware of these contradictions and they tried
to downplay them . They knew that enslavement made
them, and their independence movement, look hypo -
critical, but they also wanted to continue to profit from the stolen labor of enslaved people .

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the first draft of the
Declaration of Independence, owned around 600 en -
slaved people over the course of his lifetime . 142 His original draft of the Declaration of Independence openly criticized the transatlantic slave trade, which he called “a cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s [sic] most sacred rights of life and liberty,” but he blamed it almost all on King George III of England . 143 Jefferson claimed that the king not only failed to stop the slave trade, but also that the king encouraged enslaved people to rise up and kill white colonists . 144
Embarrassment over enslavement, and the hope to keep
making money from it, was clear when the Continental
Congress rejected this part of the Declaration and vot - ed to remove it . 145 Jefferson explained the rejection in his notes . 146 Representatives from South Carolina and Georgia depended on enslavement and wanted to con -
tinue in the trafficking of humans . 147 Men from the northern colonies were embarrassed by the criticism
of the slave trade because they were highly involved in shipping enslaved Africans across the Atlantic . 148 The final version of the Declaration of Independence only
mentioned enslavement indirectly by claiming that
King George III was trying to cause “domestic insurrec - tions” (code words for rebellions by enslaved people) in the colonies . 149
The founders of the United States tried to dodge the issue of enslavement, but enslaved and free people of African descent would not let them . They tested the new nation’s ideas of freedom during the American Revolutionary
War (1775 to 1783) . 150
Around 30,000 to 40,000 people (and maybe as many
as 100,000 people) escaped their enslavement during
the American Revolution . 151
Virginia’s colonial governor, John
Murray, Earl of Dunmore, quickly
took advantage of enslavement in
the colonies by promising freedom
to any enslaved man who fought
for the British Army against the
Americans . 152 Some male freedom
seekers did join the British Army,
but large numbers died from
smallpox during their service . 153
Others, including many women
and children, took advantage of
wartime chaos to escape to areas where the British
Army was strong . 154 The massive number of freedom
seekers greatly damaged enslavement in the lower
southern states . 155 For instance, around 30 percent of South Carolina’s enslaved population left or died
during the Revolution . 156
Some states tried to solve this problem by promising
freedom to enslaved men who fought on the side of
the Americans . 157 Other states recruited free Black men to boost the size of the small American army . 158 Even though they were smaller in number than whites, free
Black men were more likely to volunteer for military
service and to serve longer than whites because they
wanted both independence for the United States and
greater rights for themselves . 159 Overall, around 9,000 free or enslaved African American men served along -
side white revolutionaries in integrated military units to fight for American independence . 160
African Americans’ struggles for freedom during the
American Revolution led to the end of the enslavement
in most of the northern states where the enslaved pop - ulation was small and local enslavement was less central to the economy . 161 Enslaved people used the revolution - ary ideals of freedom to convince northern judges and
the general public to end enslavement . 162
When enslaved people in Massachusetts sued for their
freedom, the state courts decided that enslavement
went against the state’s new constitution, which said
that "all men are born free and equal . ” 163 Enslavement ended there in 1783 . 164 Nearby, the state of Vermont ap - proved a new constitution that outlawed enslavement
completely in 1777 . 165 States farther south, such as New Thomas Jefferson, the author of the first draft of the Declaration of Independence, owned around 600 enslaved people over the course of his lifetime. He willingly freed only 10 of the 600 people who he had enslaved over the course of his life. Four of those 10 people were his own children with Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman who he owned as his property and who he never freed. 56 Chapter 2 Enslavement
York and Pennsylvania, depended much more on en -
slavement and so passed gradual emancipation laws to
cover enslavers’ loss of profits . 166 These laws required children born to enslaved mothers to go through a long
indenture (up to 28 years) and then be set free . 167
Southern states that profited the most from enslavement kept and rebuilt it, but the process looked different in the Upper and Lower South .

States in the Upper South—Virginia, Maryland, and
Delaware—temporarily began to relax their laws against
freeing enslaved people . 168 “Manumission,” the legal process by which enslavers freed enslaved people or al - lowed them to save money and purchase their freedom,
became more common . 169 This was partly because the
Revolutionary War had hurt the market for tobacco and
made enslavement less profitable in the Upper South . 170 Revolutionary ideas about human freedom also moti -
vated some of this manumission, although with limits . 171 For instance, Virginian George Washington, leader of the revolutionary army and the first president of the United States, freed all of the people he enslaved, but only upon his death . 172
Washington, however, was not the norm . Thomas
Jefferson, the next slaveholder from Virginia to win
the presidency, willingly freed only 10 of the 600 peo - ple who he had enslaved over the course of his life . 173 Four of those 10 people were his own children with
Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman who he owned as
his property and who he never freed . 174
Jefferson’s fellow white southern -
ers in the Upper South increasingly
stopped manumission when they
found that selling “surplus” en -
slaved people to cotton growers in
South Carolina and Georgia could
be a profitable replacement for
tobacco . 175 Meanwhile, the Lower
or Deep South states rebuilt their
plantation economies by buying en-
slaved people from the Upper South
and trafficking in large numbers of
enslaved Africans from the transat -
lantic slave trade . 176
Overall, the American Revolution
created a new nation that was
increasingly divided into three
regions: The North, where enslave -
ment was immediately or gradually
ended; the Upper South, where
older patterns of enslavement were
changing; and the Lower South, where enslavement re -
mained an important and growing part of the economy .

The New Cotton Economy and the
Expansion of Slavery
Instead of dying out after the American Revolution, en - slavement became the economic lifeblood of the United
States, North and South . After winning independence,
the United States built one of the largest and most
profitable enslaved labor economies in the world . 177 Between the end of the American Revolution in 1783
and the start of the Civil War in 1861, roughly the length of one human lifetime, the enslaved population of the
United States increased almost five times from just un - der 650,000 enslaved individuals to almost four million enslaved people . 178
Two major processes made this possible . First, new tech- nologies for producing cotton increased the value of
enslaved people’s labor and encouraged the expansion
of enslavement into lands in the Deep South . 179 Second, white Americans adopted a national constitution that
protected enslavement and gave proslavery white
Americans outsized political power in the federal gov - ernment . 180 This power allowed enslavers to increase the profits of enslavement and to enjoy those profits with
little regulation by the federal government .

Starting in the 1790s new technologies made enslave -
ment more profitable than ever in North America . A
new machine, the cotton gin, made it much easier and
faster to remove the seeds from short-staple cotton, a
Number of people in millions
8 6
4 2
0 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860
Enslaved population of the United States from 1790-1860

COURTESY OF PICTURES FROM HISTORY /UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP VIA GETTY IMAGES 57 Chapter 2 Enslavement
sturdy breed of cotton that could be grown in many dif - ferent climates and soils in the South . 181 Cotton growing breathed new life into the institution of enslavement .

Enslavers looked for new lands to the west to expand
cotton plantations . 182
To help these land-hungry cotton planters, the United
States government increasingly pressured Native
Americans in the Deep South to give up their home -
lands . 183 Native Americans in the southeastern United States, some of whom had adopted the practices of white colonizers such as growing cotton and owning enslaved
African Americans, resisted this pressure . 184 The U .S . government eventually used a brutal policy of removal
in which soldiers rounded up Native Americans, re -
moved them from their land, and force marched (or
sailed) them hundreds of miles to lands west of the
Mississippi River . 185 People of African descent enslaved by Native Americans were also forcibly moved west with
their enslavers, and some Native Americans even pur -
chased more enslaved people to take west with them . 186 Thousands of Native Americans and an unknown num -
ber of enslaved African Americans died from disease and neglect along the way and the removal process came to
be known as the “Trail of Tears .” 187 As white southern cot- ton planters moved into Native homelands, the removal,
death, and land theft suffered by Native Americans went hand-in-hand with the widespread enslavement and
forced relocation of African Americans .

Slavery in the New U.S. Constitution
Around the same time that the cotton gin took off,
southern enslaving states left a permanent mark on the
American legal system by shaping the U .S . Constitution to meet their needs in upholding enslavement . During
the Constitutional Convention in 1787 , southern pro -
slavery representatives pushed for protections for
enslavement, partly by threatening not to sign onto the new Constitution . 188
A major protection for enslavement in the Constitution
came in a clause that prohibited Congress from out -
lawing U .S . participation in the transatlantic slave trade for another 20 years . 189 During those important 20 years, slave ships legally brought around 86,000 en - slaved Africans to the United States . 190 Congress was also required, and given the power, to use military
force to stop “Insurrections” and “domestic violence,” 191 which would have included rebellions by enslaved
people . 192 Proslavery southerners also ensured that the Constitution included a fugitive slave law, which
required the return of enslaved people who sought free- dom across state lines . 193
The most important proslavery constitutional policy
was the 3/5 Clause . The Constitution was built on the
idea of representative government and that Americans
should elect people to represent their needs and in -
terests in the federal government . In the U .S . House of Representatives, the number of representatives each
state got was based on population with the idea that
more populous states should get more representation
than less populous states . 194 This part of the Constitution raised controversial questions: Was it reasonable or fair for southern states with large numbers of enslaved peo - ple to count those people toward their Congressional
representation when they allowed enslaved people no
vote, no political rights, and very few legal rights? If en - slavers usually treated enslaved people as property, why should they suddenly be counted as people for purpos -
es of representation? 195 People who opposed counting enslaved people toward Congressional representation
came mostly from the North and they argued that the
enslaved population should give little or no boost to
southern states’ power . 196 At the same time, enslavers demanded to count the enslaved as whole people, not
because they believed enslaved people were equal to
white Americans, but because they wanted more voice
in Congress and to counterbalance the power of the
more populous northern states . 197 The authors of the Constitution reached a compromise . 198 States would get to count each enslaved person toward their represen -
tation in Congress, but each enslaved individual would
only count as 3/5 (or 60 percent) of a free white person when it came time to determine how many represen -
tatives each state received in the House . 199 This was an enormous benefit for enslavers . They could continue to treat enslaved people as property but still get to count 60% of the enslaved population toward getting more
power in Congress . 200
The Founding Fathers embedded slavery
into the U.S. Constitution by:
• Protecting the transatlantic trafficking of en-
slaved people for another 20 years, resulting in
the trafficking of 86,000 Africans .
• Giving power to Congress to use military force
to stop insurrections, including slave rebellions .
• Requiring the return of enslaved people who
fled towards freedom across state lines .
• Counting enslaved people as 3/5 of a person
58 Chapter 2 Enslavement
Representation in Congress also had a major influence
on presidential elections . 201 The Constitution set up an electoral college in which a group of representatives
(called “electors”) voted to choose the next presi -
dent . Each state got a number of electors equal to the number of senators and representatives that it had in
Congress . 202 In this way, enslaving states, which gained more representatives in Congress from the 3/5 Clause,
automatically gained more presidential electors, and
more power to influence presidential elections, too . 203 At the same time, some historians argue that white
southerners would have gone even further to make the
U .S . Constitution a proslavery document if they did
not have to compromise with representatives from the
northern states . 204 The words “slave” and “slavery” could not be found anywhere in the new Constitution . Instead, it used code words for enslaved people such as “Person
held to Service or Labour” 205 or just “other Persons .” 206 Some historians see this as a sign that white northerners who helped write the Constitution were growing less
comfortable with enslavement and did not want the
nation’s founding document to say openly that owning
human beings as property was legal . 207
The Constitution also gave Congress the power to end
U .S . participation in the transatlantic slave trade in 1808, rather than leaving it completely open, and the fugitive slave law was vague and not well enforced . 208 Finally, the 3/5 Clause probably disappointed proslavery southern -
ers who pushed hard for enslaved people to be counted
as whole people, rather than as 60 percent of a person, for purposes of representation in Congress . 209
No matter what the Constitutional Convention intended
to do, the new Constitution ended up giving proslavery
southerners outsized power in the federal govern -
ment, strengthening the institution of enslavement . 210 Northerners complained that the enslaving states’ 60
percent boost in Congressional representation and in
the electoral college, both due to the 3/5 Clause, gave enslavers too much power over national politics . Some
northerners tried to get rid of the 3/5 Clause . 211
The linking of Congressional representation to pres -
idential electors also helped proslavery southerners
control the White House . Enslavers Thomas Jefferson,
in 1800, and James K . Polk, in 1846, would not have won election to presidency without the South’s extra elector- al votes based on counting enslaved people . 212
More Than 50 percent of U.S. Presidents from 1789 to 1885 enslaved African Americans The first twenty-one Presidents seated together in The White House. The enslavers are shaded in red.

COURTESY OF JOHN PARROT/STOCKTREK IMAGES VIA GETTY IMAGES 59 Chapter 2 Enslavement
The power of proslavery white southerners was evident
throughout the United States’ early government . Fifty percent of the nation’s pre-Civil War presidents were
enslavers . 213 Between George Washington’s election and 1850, enslavers held the presidency for 50 years, the
position of Speaker of the House for 41 years, and the
chair of the House of Representatives Ways and Means
Committee for 42 years . 214 Control of the presidency also meant control of the U .S . Supreme Court, where
presidents chose justices to serve for life . Enslavers made up 18 of the 31 justices (or 58 percent) who sat on the U .S . Supreme Court before 1850 . 215 Ultimately, through- out American history, more than
1,700 Congressmen, representing
37 states, once enslaved Black peo -
ple . 216 They did not only represent
the South, but also every state in
New England, much of the Midwest,
and many Western states . 217
Proslavery southerners’ control
of Congress, the presidency, and
the U .S . Supreme Court increased the lifespan of en - slavement and the geographic area where it was legal .

Together, proslavery officials in the federal government paved the way for enslavement’s expansion into new
states and territories in the West by letting enslavers move without regulation into the large geographic area
south of the Ohio River . 218
Between the ratification of the Constitution in 1788 and the start of the Civil War in 1861, Congress approved
the creation of nine new enslaving states (roughly 43
percent of all 21 new states) . 219 This expansion of enslave- ment included parts of the new territory of Louisiana,
which the United States purchased from France in 1803 .

French Louisiana had long been an enslaving colony
where sugar production based on enslaved labor was
becoming a major source of wealth . 220 Louisiana be - came a state in 1812 and, by the time of the Civil War, produced one-quarter of the world’s sugar and was the
second richest state . 221 In addition to creating this major new enslaving state, enslavers won another big victory in 1820 when Congress voted, after protests by antislavery politicians, to let Missouri become a state with a consti - tution that both allowed enslavement and banned free
African Americans from settling there . 222 The major tradeoff that opponents of enslavement got from the
Missouri Compromise was the policy that enslavement
would be illegal in all parts of the Louisiana Territory located north of Missouri’s southern border . 223 For the time being, white Americans reached an unsteady po -
litical peace over enslavement’s westward expansion .

IV . The Lives of Enslaved People During the Height of
the Domestic Slave Trade
Domestic Trafficking of Enslaved People
Cotton solidified enslavement’s importance to the
United States, especially in the Deep South where the
crop grew the best . The demand for enslaved people in
the Deep South allowed enslavers in the Upper South
to profit from enslavement in a new way: the interstate trafficking of enslaved people . Enslavers on worn-out
tobacco farms in Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia
could not grow cotton themselves, but they could sell
enslaved people to the growing cotton plantations far - ther south . 224
Between 1790 and 1859, slave traders sold approxi -
mately 845,720 people within the U .S . 225 They made enormous fortunes in this trafficking of human beings,
amounting to more than $159 million between 1820
and 1860 . 226 Slave traders force marched, or sailed, hundreds of thousands of enslaved people to new terri - tories along the Mississippi River or the Gulf of Mexico .

Today’s states of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and
(later) Texas were built on the brutal forced migration of the enslaved . 227
The trafficking of enslaved people destroyed enslaved
people’s families, communities, and their bodies .

Enslavers and slave traders often ambushed enslaved
people with a surprise sale so that they could not at - tempt to run away or plead to stay with their families . 228 A person “sold south” was almost always separated from
their family members and home communities forever .

Between 1790 and 1859, slave traders sold approximately 845,720 people within the U.S. They made enormous fortunes in this trafficking of human beings, amounting to more than $159 million between 1820 and 1860.
60 Chapter 2 Enslavement
Parents and children, husbands and wives, brothers and
sisters, and extended family members and friends never
saw each other again . 229
On top of the grief and mental and emotional trauma
of family separation came physical violence . Slave traf - fickers usually chained the hands and feet of enslaved
people and then chained several individuals together in a line (called a “coffle”) . Then, traffickers force marched their captives by gunpoint to the next place of sale . 230 Newly purchased people might be added to the coffle
along the way, or enslaved people might be sold to a
string of different traders as they moved South . 231 Some enslaved people might make part of their forced journey via ship or riverboat . 232 But it was common practice to march enslaved people hundreds of miles over land to
their destinations . 233 Handcuffs and chains rubbed their skin raw, their feet ached and bled, and they suffered
from a lack of food, clothing, shelter, and sleep . 234 Charles Ball, an enslaved man who was bought by slave
traffickers Maryland and forced to march to South
Carolina, later remembered: “I seriously meditated on
self-destruction, and had I been at liberty to get a rope, I believe I should have hanged myself at Lancaster . . . I had now no hope of ever again seeing my wife and children,
or of revisiting the scenes of my youth . ” 235
At the end of their forced march south, enslaved peo -
ple faced the terrifying process of being sold to their new enslavers . Many of the enslaved ended up in the
city of New Orleans, the human trafficking center of the Deep South . 236
Enslaved people waited until their day of sale in a
high-walled outdoor yard, called a “slave pen,” where
they were crowded together with 50 to 100 people . 237 Upon arrival, traffickers allowed enslaved people food, rest, baths, and new clothing to make them look more
appealing to future buyers and bring a higher price
upon sale . 238 Later, traders who trafficked in enslaved people sold them in a showroom next to the pen . 239
As historian Walter Johnson has written, one of the great obscenities of enslavement was that enslavers forced
enslaved people “to perform their own commodifica -
tion .” 240 Slave traders coached enslaved people on how to act and what to say to potential buyers, to hide any injuries or disabilities, and to highlight their valuable skills . 241 When sales began, enslaved people were re - quired to line up by gender and height, separate from
any family members . 242 Buyers questioned and exam - ined them, forcing them to open their mouths to show
their teeth and to undress to reveal any signs of illness, disability, disease, or scars from previous whippings
(which whites saw as signs of disobedience) . 243
Enslaved people with specialized skills, such as the
ability to play a musical instrument, might perform
for buyers, while slave traders forced everyone to
parade around and dance to show their physical
well-being . 244 Women and girls often suffered the most violent inspections of their bodies . Buyers took them
behind closed doors, stripped them naked, and forc -
ibly examined their breasts and genitals to see if they would be good “breeders” and were free of sexually
transmitted infections . 245
The moment of sale was extremely painful and traumat -
ic . Buyers purchased enslaved people based on racist
stereotypes about African Americans’ capabilities and
skills, which were often connected to skin color, gen - der, and physical size . 246 Younger enslaved Black men and women, as well as teenagers,
often sold at high prices as “prime”
field hands to pick cotton and do
other hard labor . 247 Enslaved men
with specialized knowledge and
skills, such as carpentry, barrel
making, or driving carts, also sold
for higher prices . 248 Enslavers often
bought younger enslaved women
to work in the cotton fields, but
also valued their knowledge and
skills in home-based work such as
cooking, washing clothes, sewing,
cleaning, and childcare . 249 Finally,
elderly people and very young chil -
dren usually were sold for a lot less
money because white buyers viewed their labor and
skills as less valuable . 250
Some buyers specifically bought Black people that they
could subject to sexual and reproductive violence . 251 The Some buyers specifically bought Black people that they could subject to sexual and reproductive violence. The “fancy trade” was the term for selling young women and girls to white men for the purpose of constant rape and/or forced sex work in brothels.

Other enslavers bought young mothers (with or without their children) because a woman who had recently given birth to children showed that she was able to have more children in the future to enrich her buyer.
61 Chapter 2 Enslavement
“fancy trade” was the term for selling young women and
girls to white men for the purpose of constant rape and/ or forced sex work in brothels . 252 Other enslavers bought young mothers (with or without their children) because
a woman who had recently given birth to children
showed that she was able to have more children in the
future to enrich her buyer . Pregnant and breastfeeding women could be forced to nurse all the children, Black
and white, on a plantation to free up other enslaved
mothers for field work . 253
All of these factors often meant that even if an enslaved family had managed to stay together up to this point,
they would now face permanent separation . Solomon
Northup, a free Black man from New York who was kid -
napped and sold into enslavement, remembered the
case of an enslaved woman named Eliza . Eliza begged
to be sold with her two children, Emily, who was sev -
en or eight years old and Randall, who was four to five years old . Slave traders sold off Randall to another buyer and refused to sell Emily to Eliza’s buyer because they hoped to sell the tiny girl as a “fancy” to a wealthy en - slaver when she was a little older . Northup wrote that the sale of her children was absolutely soul crushing for Eliza . She died young from the grief of losing them . 254 Cotton and Capitalism
Enslavers were capitalists, and like all capitalists, they strived for profit maximization . They wanted to get the most work out of enslaved people by pushing them up
to, but not beyond, their physical breaking point . To do this, enslavers used violence, or the threat of violence, to make the enslaved work harder and faster and to
maintain a constant, carefully calculated rate of pro - duction . The result for enslaved people was a nearly
endless daily round of work under the constant threat
of violence . 255
Once enslaved people were sold to the Deep South,
their new enslavers subjected them to a lifetime of bru - tal, backbreaking work growing cotton, which was a
never-ending, year-round process . 256 Enslaved people began every spring by plowing the land and planting
cotton seeds . For the next several months they hoed
the fields to kill grass and weeds that might damage the fragile young cotton plants . 257 Starting in August, en - slaved people worked from sunup to sundown to pick
cotton, sometimes working by the light of the moon to
finish . They only stopped for a 10- to 15-minute meal
break per day . 258 This exhausting workday did not end when the cotton picking was done . Everyone still had
to cut wood, feed farm animals, and do all of the oth - er daily tasks that kept the plantation running . Then, enslaved people went back to their cabins, made their
evening meals, and cooked food to eat in the cotton
fields the next day . 259
The cotton-picking season went on for months into
the winter . 260 After the cotton season ended, enslaved people harvested the corn crop, which, according to
Solomon Northup, was used for “fattening hogs and
feeding slaves .” 261 After the corn harvest was complete, enslaved people burned all the dead corn and cotton
plants and began the process of planting the next year’s crops all over again . 262
To make sure that enslaved people worked as hard
and as quickly as possible, enslavers came up with the
“pushing system .” The main idea behind the pushing
system was that every enslaved person should farm
a certain number of acres of cotton per year . 263 This number kept increasing, from five acres per enslaved
person in 1805 to double that number (10 acres) by the
1850s . 264 In fact, many of today’s financial accounting and scientific management practices to increase profits had their early beginnings among enslavers in the U .S .

South and the Caribbean who wanted to perfect the
pushing system . 265
To make sure that the production of cotton and
profits kept increasing, enslavers intensified the
physical violence . 266 Frederick Douglass remembered that sleep-deprived enslaved people who acciden -
tally slept past sunrise were whipped for lateness . 267 Solomon Northup, the free Black man kidnapped and
The American colonial Slave Codes
created a new type of slavery that
was different than the slavery which
existed in pre-modern times.
• These laws enslaved babies at birth, for their
entire lives, and for the entire lives of their
children, and their children’s children .
• These laws denied political, legal and social
rights to free and enslaved Black people alike in
order to more easily control enslaved people .
• These laws divided white people from Black
people by making interracial marriage
a crime .

Some of these laws survived well into the 20th century.

The Supreme Court only declared that outlawing in -
terracial marriage was unconstitutional in 1967 .
62 Chapter 2 Enslavement
sold into enslavement in Louisiana, remembered that
enslavers followed enslaved people into the fields on
horseback and whipped them if they stopped work or
fell behind . 268 He also remembered that each adult was responsible for picking 200 pounds of cotton per day
and that those who did not pick enough got whipped .

Even picking less than one’s own personal best daily
weight record, or accidentally breaking a branch on a
cotton plant, resulted in whipping . 269 Northup himself was whipped for failing to pick cotton fast enough when he was sick and exhausted . 270
Southern slave codes, the state and local laws that en - forced enslavement, became more severe to support
the increased brutality and profitability of enslave -
ment, especially in the Deep South . Many southern
states outlawed all meetings of enslaved people—in -
cluding religious observance—without supervision by
white people, prohibited teaching enslaved people
to read and write, and banned enslaved people from
trading . 271 These laws also increased slave patrols, the police forces that enforced these laws . 272 Finally, new laws made it much more difficult for enslaved people
to achieve their freedom by banning “manumission,”
voluntary emancipation by enslavers . Altogether, these developments in slave codes aimed to maintain the ra -
cial caste system by cracking down on all resistance by enslaved people and to prevent them from ever getting
their freedom . 273
Neglect and Violence
Living conditions for enslaved people showed enslavers’ inhumane, brutal emphasis on profit maximization .

Most of the enslaved lived in small, poorly built cabins .

Gaps between the log walls were so big that the wind
and rain constantly blew in . 274 Furniture was either rare or non-existent . Solomon Northup’s bed “was a plank
[of wood] twelve inches wide and ten feet long . ” 275
Frederick Douglass reported that enslaved people on
the Maryland tobacco plantation where he was born
had no beds at all; they slept on the cold dirt floor
with only a rough blanket . 276 On the coldest nights, the young Douglass would steal a sack used for carrying
corn and sleep inside it with his head inside and his feet hanging out . Years later, when he wrote about his life, he remembered that “[m]y feet have been so cracked
with the frost, that the pen with which I am writing
might be laid in the gashes . ” 277
Besides cold, one of the greatest
things Douglass suffered was hun -
ger . Douglass’s enslaver fed enslaved
children mashed-up boiled corn in
a trough on the ground . The chil -
dren were then forced to eat “like so
many pigs” and “[h]e that ate fastest
got most .” 278 Solomon Northup remembered a similar
lack of food on the Louisiana plantation where he lived for 10 years . Each person received only three and a half pounds of bacon and a peck of corn (about eight dry
quarts) per week . 279
Enslaved people, particularly women and girls, also
suffered sexual and reproductive violence . Enslavers
frequently raped and impregnated enslaved women
and girls and increased their profits by doing so . 280 Frederick Douglass pointed out that since children born to enslaved women were automatically enslaved at birth, Formerly enslaved person named Gordon, also known as “Whipped Peter,” showing his scarred back at a medical examination, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (1863)

COURTESY OF LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Enslavers also forced sexual intercourse between enslaved people— an act historian Daina Ramey Berry has called third-party rape—so that they could “breed” more children to make more money. 63 Chapter 2 Enslavement
enslavers often owned and sold their own children as
property . 281 Additionally, Douglass remembered that white women often harassed enslaved victims of rape
and their mixed-race children by insisting on their sale or punishing them even more cruelly than other en -
slaved people . 282
Enslavers also forced sexual inter -
course between enslaved people—an
act historian Daina Ramey Berry
has called third-party rape—so that
they could “breed” more children
to make more money . 283 Frederick
Douglass remembered that a poor
white farmer named Edward Covey
owned only one enslaved woman
named Caroline and had to rent additional enslaved
people from others (a practice called hiring out) . To in - crease his own wealth, Covey forced Caroline and one
of the rented enslaved men, who was already married,
to have sex . Not long after, Caroline gave birth to twins .

Douglass remembered that “[t]he children were re -
garded as being quite an addition to his wealth . ” Sexual violence tripled Covey’s wealth—from one to three en -
slaved people—within just one year . 284
Finally, enslavers also used the bodies of enslaved peo - ple, living and deceased, for medical and scientific
experimentation . For an in-depth discussion of med -
ical experimentation on enslaved people and African
Americans throughout U .S . history, please see Chapter 12, Mental and Physical Harm and Neglect .

Enslaved Communities and Cultures:

Resilience, Resistance, and Rebellion
Enslaved people of African descent defied enslavers’
efforts to dehumanize them by creating resilient fami - lies and communities, vibrant cultures, and distinctive religious and intellectual traditions . Family ties, com - munity ties, cultural practices, and religious traditions ensured African American survival . They were the
foundation of Black resistance to enslavement and the
struggle for human rights both before emancipation and
long afterward .

Family life was the building block of enslaved life in the American South . 285 Although enslaved families were al - ways in danger of being broken apart by sale, enslaved
people built strong extended family ties and fought to
preserve these relationships . 286 Husbands and wives struggled to have enslavers recognize their marriage
ties by claiming their right to live together in their own private cabins, or to visit spouses who lived on different plantations . 287 Enslaved parents chose their children’s names to honor their own family ties, not according to
the will of their enslavers, and frequently named chil - dren after grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins . 288 Enslaved people often chose their own last names,
even if enslavers refused to recognize them, and they
passed down their skills to their children . 289 Enslaved people also rebelled against the sale of their family
members, sometimes by fleeing to see their relatives on distant plantations . 290
Enslaved people built close communities bound together
by blood, marriage, and adoptive family ties . On larger plantations, multiple extended family groups lived in the same “slave quarters” and were often linked to each other through marriages or adoptive kin relations . 291 For in - stance, Frederick Douglass remembered that the enslaved children on the Maryland plantation where he was born
referred to older enslaved men as their uncles, demon - strating both their respect for their elders and the close family-like relationships that grew between community
members unrelated by blood . 292 These close ties can best be seen in cases of young enslaved children orphaned by the sale or death of their parents: extended family mem- bers and non-kin alike frequently raised these children along with their own children . 293
Close-knit families and communities ensured that
cultural practices, language, and oral histories were
passed down to the next generation . “Slave quarters,”
the clusters of cabins where the enslaved lived, were
often distant from the “big house” of the enslavers and allowed the enslaved some privacy to pray, dance, sing, tell stories, rest, and tend to their homes . 294 The lively cultural spaces that enslaved people created for them - selves allowed for the persistence of elements of African language, music, medicine, and storytelling in African
American culture across generations . 295
Religious life was often the heart of family and commu - nity experience for enslaved people, creating spaces
for freedom of expression, cultural resilience, and re - sistance . Enslaved people who were stolen from Africa
continued the spiritual practices of their homelands,
whether indigenous West African religions or Islam . 296 Over time, enslaved communities fused elements of
Family life was the building block of enslaved life in the American South. Although enslaved families were always in danger of being broken apart by sale, enslaved people built strong extended family ties and fought to preserve these relationships
64 Chapter 2 Enslavement
African religious practice—including song, dance, call
and response, and healing practices—with Protestant
Christianity . 297 They created a distinctive American religious culture that taught a message of liberation, a “gospel of freedom .” 298 Enslaved preachers emphasized freedom from enslavement, both in the afterlife and on
earth . They focused on Biblical liberation stories, such as Moses leading the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt, as well as stories that emphasized the power of the weak to defeat the mighty, such as David and Goliath . 299
Enslavers tried to suppress this religious expression
by prohibiting religious gatherings or by emphasizing
parts of the Bible that said that “servants” should obey their “masters .” 300 Still, enslaved people resisted these efforts by meeting in secret to worship . 301 As a formerly enslaved woman named Alice Sewell remembered, “We
used to slip off in the woods in the old slave days on
Sunday evening way down in the swamps to sing and
pray to our own liking . We prayed for this day of free - dom . We come from four and five miles to pray together to God that if we didn’t live to see it, to please let our children live to see a better day and be free . ” 302
As Alice Sewell’s memory shows, religious and com -
munity life became a foundation for enslaved people’s
resistance to the brutal and dehumanizing conditions
of their enslavement . In some cases, religious and
community ties catalyzed outright rebellions against
enslavement . The alleged Denmark Vesey conspira -
cy in Charleston, South Carolina in 1822, and the Nat
Turner rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia in
1831, developed among communities of free and en -
slaved African Americans who believed strongly in the
gospel of freedom . 303 Most often, though, enslaved com- munities, cultures, and spiritual beliefs made possible smaller forms of everyday resistance that pushed back
against the relentless work and violence of enslavement .

Enslaved people slowed down work, broke tools, or
temporarily escaped to avoid abuse or brutal working
conditions . 304 Everyday resistance forced enslavers to recognize enslaved people’s humanity and showed their
deep longings to be free .

Ultimately, enslaved people in the United States created a distinctive American Black culture that was different from ancestral African cultures, white European cul -
tures, or African-diaspora cultures elsewhere in the
world . Distinctive African American artistic expres -
sion—especially music and dance—literary and linguistic styles, and culinary innovations, among many other
practices, would shape mainstream American culture
across centuries .

For a detailed discussion of African American cultural
and artistic impact on the United States, see Chapter 9, Control over Spiritual, Creative and Cultural Life .

V . Northern Complicity in Enslavement
White New Englanders, the Slave Trade,
and the Textile Industry
Although enslavement itself was disappearing in the
North, white northerners’ participation in enslavement
grew along with the southern cotton economy . White
people in New England, for instance, profited from the
transatlantic traffic in enslaved Africans, rum manufac - turing, and cotton textile production .

White northerners had been involved in the transat -
lantic trafficking of enslaved people for a long time as shipping company owners, slave ship captains, and slave traders . For example, businessmen from the northern
state of Rhode Island controlled
most of the trade in captive human
beings . 305 Slaving ships from Rhode
Island brought rum to the coast of
West Africa and traded barrels of
the liquor for enslaved people, who
they trafficked to North America . 306
Around 24 rum distilleries in the
town of Newport, Rhode Island, fed
this profitable trade . 307 By the time
of the American Revolution, these
Rhode Island merchants controlled
two-thirds of the entire transatlan -
tic slave trade in the Thirteen Colonies and they held
onto this control after U .S . independence . 308 When add- ed together, white Rhode Islanders were responsible for bringing 100,000 enslaved Africans to North America . 309 Cotton grown by enslaved people in the South fed mills employing thousands of people across New England. By the time of the Civil War in 1861, New Englanders had invested more than $69 million in cotton fabric production and operated 570 separate mills. Over 81,000 Americans worked in the New England textile mills and the total profits amounted to over $79 million dollars per year. 65 Chapter 2 Enslavement
Fifty thousand of these enslaved people were captives
whom Rhode Island enslavers rushed to bring into the
United States before Congress outlawed participa -
tion in the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved people in 1808 . 310
At the same time, textile mills, the factories which pro - cessed southern cotton into cloth, were the basis of early northern industrial growth . 311 Cotton grown by enslaved people in the U .S . South fed these mills and the mills employed thousands of people across New England . 312
By the time of the Civil War in 1861, New Englanders had invested more than $69 million in cotton fabric pro -
duction and operated 570 separate mills . 313 Over 81,000 Americans worked in the New England textile mills and
the total profits amounted to over $79 million dollars
per year . 314
Slavery and the Economic Power of
New York City
New York City is a strong example of how northerners
participated in and profited from enslavement . Captive Africans, enslaved by the Dutch West Indian Company,
were part of the labor force that constructed the ear - ly walled street that eventually became Wall Street, the economic center of the United States . 315 Later, the street became the city’s first slave market . City leaders decided in 1711 that whites who wanted to rent out enslaved Black or Native American people could only do so at the end
of Wall Street next to the East River . 316
Enslaved people became less and less common in the city after the state of New York passed a law in 1799 that grad- ually freed children born to enslaved mothers, and then outlawed enslavement completely in 1817 . 317 But as en - slavement itself was dying out, white New Yorkers were
building strong economic ties to southern enslavement
that brought millions of dollars in profit every year . New York City was the main destination of southern cotton
and the center of the transatlantic cotton trade . 318 New York-based shipping companies gathered the cotton in
southern cities and took it north to New York City where merchants packed it and shipped it to Europe . 319
New York City was also the banking center of the United States and New York banks helped finance the expan -
sion of enslavement in the South . Banks loaned money
to enslavers to buy more land and more enslaved peo -
ple . 320 Banks also accepted enslaved people as security for these loans, which meant that they could take and
sell enslaved people if their enslavers failed to pay back their debts . For example, in 2005, JP Morgan Chase,
the banking giant, wrote a formal apology because two
banks that it now owned had taken 13,000 enslaved
people as security for loans in the
state of Louisiana . When enslavers
could not pay back the loans, the
banks ended up taking ownership
of 1,250 of these people, and then
most probably sold them . 321
New York City was also strongly
connected to southern enslavement
through the insurance industry .

Insurance companies insured the
lives of enslaved, and paid enslavers
if an enslaved person died . 322 Some insurance companies also insured shipments of trafficked enslaved people
sold within the United States . 323 Some of these compa - nies were the early ancestors of today’s most important insurance companies, including New York Life, US Life,
and Aetna . 324 American insurance companies’ invest - ment and complicity in enslavement was so widespread
that the California government required all insurers
who did business in the state to make their records of
participation in enslavement open to the public . 325
Corporate Manufacturing Profits
A variety of New York businesses also profited from pro- cessing and manufacturing agricultural products grown
by enslaved people into goods for consumers to buy .

Brooks Brothers, still a well-known New York City cloth- ing company, made money from enslavement in multiple
ways . The company made fashionable, expensive cloth-
ing woven from southern cotton grown by enslaved
people . 326 It also profited from making cheap clothing that enslavers bought to dress enslaved people . 327
At the same time, sugar refineries, factories which pro - cessed raw sugar into a usable form, became a major New York industry, especially in the borough of Brooklyn .

These factories processed thousands of pounds of raw
sugar grown by enslaved people in Louisiana and Cuba .

In 2005, JP Morgan Chase, the banking giant, wrote a formal apology because two banks that it now owned had taken 13,000 enslaved people as security for loans in the state of Louisiana.

When enslavers could not pay back the loans, the banks ended up taking ownership of 1,250 of these people.
66 Chapter 2 Enslavement
By 1855, fifteen New York City refineries were producing over $12 million of sugar per year . 328
The profits of sugar refining can still be seen in New
York City today . Columbia University’s Havemeyer
Hall was funded by and named after one of the city’s
most important sugar refining families from the 1800s
whose business relied on sugar grown by enslaved peo -
ple . 329 The Havemeyer family built what was once the largest sugar refining factory in the world, the Domino Sugar Refinery, which still stands beside East River in Brooklyn . 330 Although the Brooklyn location is no lon - ger running, the Domino Sugar brand, now owned by
the ASR Group, continues to be processed in factories
in New York, Maryland, and Louisiana . 331
The legacies of enslavement in the sugar industry con - tinue in the present-day . After the Civil War and the end of enslavement, southern states such as Texas and
Louisiana rented out imprisoned African Americans to
white sugarcane farmers . Many died in the brutal sugar production process . 332 The Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola and the Texas State Penitentiary at Sugar Land also supported themselves, and profited these state gov - ernments, by growing and processing sugar cane on
prison grounds . 333 Incarcerated individuals at Angola continued to process sugar to sell in the prison gift shop as recently as 2014 . 334
VI . Slavery and American Institutions
Historically White Universities and
Religious Organizations
A wide range of U .S . colleges and universities, both pri- vate and public, profited from enslavement or ties to
enslavers, while at the same time denying admission
to African Americans for most of the nation’s history .

Almost all Ivy League universities and colleges can be
included in this category .

Harvard University Law School was created in 1817 and
funded largely by land donations from a wealthy mer -
chant named Isaac Royall, Jr . Royall, who was the son of a human trafficker in enslaved people, owned multiple
sugar plantations in the Caribbean and Latin America
that were worked by enslaved people . 335 Other early Harvard donors made their money by trading enslaved
people or goods produced by enslaved people in the
Caribbean; smuggling enslaved Africans into the United
States after Congress banned American participation in
the transatlantic slave trade in 1808; or running textile mills fed by southern cotton . 336
The wealth of Brown University (formerly known as the
College of Rhode Island) was greatly tied to the human
trafficking activities of its home state, Rhode Island .

Members of the Brown family, early donors after whom
the university is named, owned enslaved people and
participated in the transatlantic slave trade . 337 University Hall, the oldest building on the Brown University cam - pus, was partially built by enslaved people and made of wood donated by one of the state’s largest slave trading companies . 338 South Carolina slave traffickers and en - slavers also gave money to help fund the college . 339 Other Ivy League schools have similar connections to en- slavement . The University of Pennsylvania, 340 Princeton University, 341 Columbia University, 342 Yale University, 343 and Dartmouth College 344 count enslavers, slave traf - fickers, and/or proslavery defenders among their early
donors, founders, trustees, administrators, building
namesakes, faculty, students, and alumni .

Enslavement was also strongly linked to religious life
and religious organizations in colonial America and the early United States . Some churches and religious col - leges owned, bought, and sold enslaved people . 345 In the southern enslaving states, some churches raised mon -
ey to buy enslaved people . Anglican and Episcopalian
churches in Virginia during the 1600s and 1700s attract - ed new ministers by allowing them use of church-owned
enslaved people . 346 Some wealthy churchgoers donat - ed enslaved people to churches so that the profits of
their labor could be used to fund free schools for poor white children . 347 In the 1700s and 1800s, many Virginia Presbyterian churches hired out enslaved people so that they could use the profits to pay ministers and fund
church upkeep . 348
Colleges with religious missions also owned and profited from enslaved people . Virginia’s College of William and Mary, which was originally an Anglican college to train new ministers, started owning enslaved people by around 1704 . 349 Enslaved people worked in the college’s kitchens, dormitories, laundries, stables, and gardens, or on the college-owned tobacco plantation to raise money for stu- dent scholarships . 350 Although the college sold off many enslaved people during the American Revolution to pay
off its debts, tearing them away from their families and 67 Chapter 2 Enslavement
communities, 351 enslavement continued on the William
and Mary campus until during the Civil War . 352
Some colleges run by the Society of Jesus, a Catholic
religious group better-known as the Jesuits, also de -
pended on the lives and labor of the enslaved . The Jesuits who operated Georgetown College (now Georgetown
University) owned plantations and hundreds of enslaved
people . 353 The profits of these plantations funded the school . 354 In 1838, when the college
was struggling due to a lack of fund-
ing, Jesuits sold 272 enslaved Black
people to Deep South plantations so
that they could pay off the school’s
debts . 355 Even though Jesuit leaders
in Rome required that the enslaved
people be kept together as families
and given Catholic religious educa -
tion in their new homes, 356 buyers in
Louisiana failed to keep these prom-
ises . 357 Altogether, the mass sale of
elders, men, women, children, and
infants raised $115,000 (equal to
around $3 .3 million in 2016) to fund
Georgetown College/University . 358
Direct Federal Government Investment
and Participation
Finally, the federal government directly invested in, pro- tected, and profited from the enslavement of African
Americans . The early U .S . national banking system
played an important role in funding the expansion of
cotton growing and the interstate slave trade . For ex - ample, in the years 1831 to 1832, the Second Bank of the United States, the private bank that the United States
used to handle all of the federal government’s banking
needs, gave five percent of all its loans to just one slave trading company in New Orleans . 359 By 1861, just under two percent of the entire budget of the United States
went to pay for expenses related to enslavement . 360
These expenses included dealing with the illegal trans - atlantic slave trade; 361 colonization projects to remove formerly enslaved people from the United States and
settle them in other parts of the world; 362 enforcing fugitive slave laws; 363 and renting enslaved people to build federal military sites in the South . 364
The U .S . federal government also actively participated in upholding enslavement because it directly controlled the nation’s capital at Washington, D .C . The District of Columbia was formed from lands that once belonged
to the two enslaving states of Maryland and Virginia .

As a result of this, Washington, D .C . had to carry over the laws of those two states, including laws supporting enslavement . 365 U .S . courts in Washington, D .C ., took direct responsibility for punishing enslaved people and deciding cases involving the buying, selling, and inher - itance of enslaved people . 366 Since there were no laws against moving enslaved people through D .C ., and be- cause D .C . was centrally located in the Upper South, the area also became an important location in the interstate slave trade . 367 Slave traffickers gathered and imprisoned enslaved people in D .C . “slave pens” where they wait - ed to be moved to the Deep South and sold . 368 Solomon Northup, a free Black man who was kidnapped and sold
into enslavement in 1841, remembered that he waited to
be sold south in a “slave pen within the very shadow of the Capitol!” 369 That U .S . capitol building, 370 along with another major national landmark and symbol of democ-
racy, the White House, was partially built by the labor of enslaved people . 371
VII . Enslavement in California
Slavery’s Expansion into the West
Even though large numbers of white northerners prof -
ited from the labor of enslaved people, many also began to worry about the place of enslavement in the nation’s future and to question whether it should be allowed to
expand west into new American territories . Some of this new concern sprung from the abolitionist movement,
a northern interracial movement of Black and white
antislavery activists who pushed to end enslavement
immediately . 372 Across the 1830s and 1850s, American In the southern enslaving states, some churches raised money to buy enslaved people. Anglican and Episcopalian churches in Virginia during the 1600s and 1700s attracted new ministers by allowing them use of church-owned enslaved people. Some wealthy churchgoers donated enslaved people to churches so that the profits of their labor could be used to fund free schools for poor white children. In the 1700s and 1800s, many Virginia Presbyterian churches hired out enslaved people so that they could use the profits to pay ministers and fund church upkeep. 68 Chapter 2 Enslavement
abolitionists published thousands of texts, and gave
thousands of speeches, to convince their fellow citi -
zens that enslavement was wrong and against the will
of god . 373 They also helped thousands of freedom seek - ers escape enslavement via a secret network called the
Underground Railroad . 374
While most white northerners disapproved of abolition - ism and worried that it would tear the North and South
apart, the high-profile nature of the movement and
the actions of freedom seekers raised new opposition
to enslavement moving west . Most white northerners’
opposition to the westward expansion of enslavement
was based on self-interest . They argued that new west - ern territories should be “free soil” so that free white people could have access to inexpensive farmland and
opportunities to build wealth without having to com -
pete with wealthy enslavers and enslaved people . 375 Keeping slavery out of the West became a major goal
for a growing number of northerners and it put them
into conflict with proslavery southerners who wanted
enslavement to keep growing westward and to create
new enslaving states . 376
The conflict over the westward expansion of enslave -
ment caused bitter political battles and violence in the years leading up to the Civil War . 377 In the 1840s, some northerners opposed allowing Texas, an independent
enslaving nation that had broken off from Mexico, to
join the United States . They worried that Texas would add an enormous amount of new territory for enslave -
ment to grow . 378 When the United States declared war on Mexico in 1846 over conflicts related to Texas, many northerners supported the idea of outlawing enslave -
ment in any new lands that the United States might take away from Mexico . 379 In 1848, the U .S . did force Mexico to give up a massive territory that included today’s states of California, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah, as well as parts of present-day Arizona, Wyoming, and Colorado . 380 A political crisis grew over whether enslavement should be allowed into these new territories or closed out for - ever . This crisis intensified when thousands of people rushed to California after the discovery of gold in the state and to set up a new state government with a con - stitution that outlawed enslavement . 381
Northern and southern politicians in Congress tried to
hold the country together by passing a set of laws called the Compromise of 1850 . Together, these laws said
that California could join the U .S . as a free state and that the residents of New Mexico and Utah territories
could decide for themselves whether they wanted to
allow enslavement . 382
The Compromise of 1850 also gave other important
concessions to both the opponents and defenders of en-
slavement . It ended the slave trade in Washington, D .C . 383 It also included a harsher fugitive slave law that gave enslavers greater federal aid in chasing down enslaved
people who escaped to the free states, limited freedom
seekers’ ability to defend themselves in court, and harshly punished people who helped freedom seekers or people
who refused to participate in enforcing the law . 384
This fugitive slave law further divided white northern - ers and white southerners . Northerners hated the new
law for forcing them to participate in enslavement . 385 Southerners viewed northern opposition to the law as
a refusal to enforce the U .S . Constitution . 386 Eventually, this conflict spread all the way to California where
proslavery southerners and antislavery northerners
fought over what should happen to
enslaved people who escaped their
enslavement once they got to the
free state . 387
Enslavers and the Enslaved
in the California Gold Rush
While people in northern and
southern states fought over wheth -
er enslavement should be allowed
to expand west, enslavement al -
ready had moved to California . Even
though California was supposed to
be a free state with an antislavery
constitution, 388 enslavement existed in the state . 389 More importantly, California’s early state government protected the institution of enslavement and greatly limited African Americans’ civil rights . 390
The enslavement of African Americans had already start- ed in California before the state adopted an antislavery constitution in 1849 . California had been part of Mexico By 1861, just under two percent of the entire budget of the United States went to pay for expenses related to enslavement. These expenses included dealing with the illegal transatlantic slave trade; colonization projects to remove formerly enslaved people from the United States and settle them in other parts of the world; enforcing fugitive slave laws; and renting enslaved people to build federal military sites in the South.
69 Chapter 2 Enslavement
before the United States took it in the U .S .-Mexico War of 1846 to 1848 . Mexico had already outlawed enslavement
in 1829, 391 but American enslavers began trafficking en - slaved African Americans into California before, during, and after the U .S .-Mexico War, especially once the gold rush began in 1848 . 392
The exact number of enslaved African descended people
in California is difficult to estimate . Federal and state census records, which counted the number of people in
California, show around 203 enslaved African descend -
ed people living in the state in 1850 and around 178 in 1852 . 393 These are probably undercounts because early census records are very incomplete . 394 These incomplete records, though, do show support for the findings of
historian Rudolph Lapp who estimated that at least 500
to 600 enslaved African Americans lived and worked in
California during the gold rush . 395 But these numbers may be even higher because another gold rush source
estimated that 1,500 enslaved African Americans lived
in California in 1852 . 396
Each of these enslaved people suffered traumatic uproot- ing from their homes and families . Going to California meant a forced separation from family, friends, and
community by a distance of thousands of miles . 397 Even though enslavers thought of the move to California as
only temporary, most gold seekers spent at least two
years in California—and usually many more—due to the
distance and difficulty of traveling between the East and West Coast . 398 For example, an enslaved North Carolina man, known only as John, arrived in California with
slaveholder Robert M . Dickson in 1852 and stayed at least three years, until Dickson suddenly died in 1855 . 399 We do not know how long John remained in California or
whether he ever returned to North Carolina . His journey to California may have resulted in permanent separa -
tion from his family .

Like John, more than 75 percent of the enslaved people
trafficked to California were younger men or teenaged
boys who ended up working as gold miners . 400 These en- slaved miners faced backbreaking and often dangerous
working conditions . Placer mining, the most common
type of mining in the earliest days of the California gold rush, involved digging up soil from the beds and banks of rivers and creeks . Sometimes, miners dammed up these
bodies of water to get at soil deep in the beds . These practices often required standing knee- or waist-deep
in cold water for several hours each day in the broiling summer heat . 401
Overwork, exposure to bad weath -
er, unclean working and living
environments, a lack of nutritious
food, and the absence of medical
care often resulted in long-term
illnesses or death by disease . 402 For
instance, several enslaved men from western North
Carolina died from cholera, a disease caused by con -
taminated food or water, along with their enslaver, in
Tuolumne County in 1852 . 403 Accidents and injury were also common, as seen in the life of an enslaved man
from Kentucky, known only as Rheubin . He drowned
in the American River while working in a mining area
in 1851 . 404
Not all enslaved people worked directly in mining .

Women and girls, who made up less than one quarter
of all recorded enslaved people in California, 405 often worked as servants, cooks, or laundry workers in pri -
vate homes, hotels, restaurants, or boarding houses . 406 People with these skills were so scarce, and their work was so valuable, that enslavers often hired out both
enslaved women and men as servants . Enslavers then
pocketed all or most of the enslaved people’s wages from their rented labor . 407
Enslaved people working in California Gold Mines. (1852) COURTESY OF PHOTO12/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP VIA GETTY IMAGES A gold rush source estimated that 1,500 enslaved African Americans lived in California in 1852.
70 Chapter 2 Enslavement
Violence Against the Enslaved and
Resistance to Enslavement in California
Much like enslaved people in the South, those in
California also faced brutal violence . In 1850, one
slaveholder beat an enslaved man in the town square of
San Jose for disobeying him . The police arrested both
men, but ultimately determined that the slaveholder
was not guilty of assault because his victim was legally his property . 408
In another case from 1850, an el -
derly enslaved couple ran away
near the town of Sonora . When
the slaveholder caught them, he
whipped the elderly man until
his blood flowed so heavily that it
filled his shoes . The couple later es-
caped with the help of a free Black
neighbor . 409 One of the worst vio -
lent events also happened in 1850,
this time in Los Angeles . A group of
white southerners chased, shot at, and captured a hand- ful of escaped enslaved people and then beat them until one almost died . 410
The forced journey to California had different out -
comes for the enslaved people who survived it . Many
people probably worked in California for a few years
before returning to enslavement in the South . Others,
especially those who were allowed to keep a small por - tion of their wages from hiring out or digging gold,
saved enough money to buy their freedom . 411 Finally, some enslaved people worked under formal or infor -
mal “indenture” agreements by which they promised to
work for a certain number of years in California, or to earn a certain amount of money, in exchange for their
freedom . 412 Enslaved people who bought their own free- dom might then also earn enough money to free their
family members . 413
Large numbers of enslaved people also saw California
as a place where they could take their own freedom or
challenge their enslavement . The California gold min - ing country was large, rural, and full of diverse people, including antislavery Black and white northerners . It
was much easier to run away, hide, and find allies in
California than in the southern enslaving states . 414 But it is important to remember that all enslaved people who
went west were forced to leave their family members
and communities behind in the South . For this reason,
escape was not a good option for many enslaved peo -
ple because staying with enslavers was their only way to keep in touch with their families .

In this way, enslavers used their control over enslaved people’s family members to force them to cooperate . For this reason, enslaved people may have been more likely
to resist in other ways besides running away . For exam- ple, some refused to work or escaped temporarily until
they were allowed to keep more of their earnings . 415 This might have been a safer path to freedom than running
away if they could earn enough money to buy themselves
and their family members out of enslavement .

California Legislature’s Complicity
California’s 1849 antislavery state constitution did lit - tle to stop the violence and exploitation that enslaved people suffered . The new constitution said that “neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude, unless for the pun - ishment of crimes, shall ever be tolerated in this State .” 416 The problem was that enslavement already existed in the state and was already being tolerated there . The consti - tution also said nothing about what should happen to
those enslaved people who already lived in California
or those who came after statehood . The California
constitution could say that the state would not tol -
erate enslavement, but this statement did not mean
much without laws making it a crime to keep someone
enslaved, laws to free enslaved people, laws to punish en- slavers, or laws to protect African Americans’ freedom . 417 Proslavery white southerners took advantage of this
lack of specific laws against enslavement to keep en -
slavement going in California . During California’s 1849 Constitutional Convention, a meeting to write the state’s first constitution, proslavery politicians from the South quietly accepted the law banning enslavement . 418 But after statehood, a large number of southern proslavery
men ran for political office in California so that they were overrepresented in the state government com -
pared to their overall population in California . White southerners with proslavery views had a great deal of
power in the state legislature, the state court system, and among California’s representatives in the U .S .

Congress . 419 During the 1850s, these men used their
political power to make sure that California protected
In another case from 1850, an elderly enslaved couple ran away near the town of Sonora. When the slaveholder caught them, he whipped the elderly man until his blood flowed so heavily that it filled his shoes. The couple later escaped with the help of a free Black neighbor.
71 Chapter 2 Enslavement
enslavers . They passed and upheld laws that skirted
around the antislavery constitution .

The California government’s most proslavery action was
passing and enforcing a state fugitive slave law in 1852 . 420 Proslavery southerners were angry when they discov -
ered that the federal fugitive slave law of 1850, a harsh new law to help slavecatchers chase down and re-enslave freedom seekers who escaped enslavement, did not ap -
ply to most cases in California . Enslavers could only
use the federal law to chase down
and re-enslave people who escaped
across state lines, not those who ran
away inside one state’s borders . 421
In 1852, the California state leg -
islature dealt with this issue by
changing the definition of who
counted as a “fugitive slave .” Instead
of just covering people who escaped
across state lines, California’s new
state law said that a fugitive slave
was any enslaved person who ar -
rived before California officially became a U .S . state in September 1850 but who refused to return to the en -
slaving states with their enslavers . These people could be arrested, placed under the control of their enslavers, and forced to return to the South . 422
The legal reasoning behind this law was that California’s antislavery constitution did not become official un -
til the moment of statehood . Before then, California
was a federal territory controlled by the U .S . govern- ment . Proslavery southerners believed that the U .S .

Constitution gave every white citizen the right to move into the federal territories and to take their property with them, including human beings who were con -
sidered property . For this reason, the law’s supporters argued that the state of California had no choice except to help enslavers capture any enslaved person who they
had brought in before official statehood in late 1850 . 423 The California legislature’s decision to pass this fugitive slave law made California a much more proslavery state
than most other free states . In the northeastern U .S ., many free states protested the federal fugitive slave law of 1850 and tried to give African Americans more legal
rights to defend their freedom against slavecatchers .

California did the opposite . 424
The California fugitive slave law of 1852 allowed enslav - ers to use violence to capture enslaved people . The law also required state officials to help enslavers capture and arrest enslaved people . Those who refused to help
could lose their jobs and/or have to pay expensive fines .

Finally, the California fugitive slave law, much like the federal fugitive slave law, said that people accused of being fugitive slaves could not testify in court to defend their rights . 425 Since California had already outlawed non-white people from testifying in any court case in - volving whites, free Black Californians, who were usually involved in helping people escape from enslavement,
could not be witnesses in any of these cases either . 426 California’s fugitive slave law was supposed to be a tem- porary one-year policy, but it ended up lasting much
longer . In 1853, California legislators extended the fu - gitive slave law for another year . 427
They did the same thing again in
1854 . 428 This meant that for three
years, from 1852 to 1855, anyone
accused of being a runaway from
enslavement could be chased down,
dragged before a court, and sent
back to lifelong enslavement in the
South, even if they had been living
in the free state of California for five
years or more . 429
The California Court System’s Complicity
California’s courts, including the California Supreme
Court, also participated in the enslavement of African
Enslaved people who went west were forced to leave their family members and communities behind in the South. For this reason, escape was not a good option for many enslaved people because staying with enslavers was their only way to keep in touch with their families.

Instead of just covering people who escaped across state lines, California’s law said that a fugitive slave was any enslaved person who arrived before California officially became a U.S. state in September 1850 but who refused to return to the enslaving states with their enslavers. These people could be arrested, placed under the control of their enslavers, and forced to return to the South. 72 Chapter 2 Enslavement
Americans . Free Black activists, with the help of white lawyers, challenged the legality of the fugitive slave law because it went against the antislavery state consti -
tution . They took a test case called In re Perkins all the way to the California Supreme Court in 1852 . 430 The state’s supreme court justices finally decided that three Black men—Carter Perkins, Robert Perkins, and Sandy
Jones 431 —should be forced to go back into enslavement in Mississippi because they had arrived with their enslaver before official statehood . 432
The court said that the antislavery law in the California constitution was only a “declaration of a principle .” The constitution said the state would not tolerate enslave - ment, but California had no laws in place to enforce it by actually setting people free . 433 The justices also agreed with the state legislature that California could not give freedom to enslaved people who arrived before official
statehood . The court accepted the extreme proslavery
legal view that the U .S . Constitution gave enslavers the right to bring enslaved people into the federal territo - ries without any limits . 434 This decision came before the similar one in the much more famous case of Dred
Scott v. Sandford five years later in
1857 . In that historic decision, the
U .S . Supreme Court ruled that
the federal government could not
outlaw enslavement in any of the
federal territories . 435
Altogether, California courts were
involved in at least 10 cases, con -
nected to the freedom of 13 people,
under the state fugitive slave law be-
tween 1852 and 1855 . In five of those 10 cases, the courts returned seven freedom seekers to enslavement . These
numbers may seem small, but this list only includes cases that were well-known enough to make it into the news -
papers, or for which court records happen to survive . 436 The small numbers also do not accurately show the ter - ror that all African Americans, free or enslaved, would have suffered under this law . When combined with the
outlawing of Black court testimony against whites, the
California fugitive slave law put every Black person at risk of being accused of running away, arrested, and en- slaved without being able to defend themselves . 437
Finally, the California fugitive slave law was important for symbolic and political reasons . In supporting the
law, California’s legislature and courts sent an important message: they were friendly to the southern enslaving
states, they believed enslaved people should have no le - gal rights, and they thought that the U .S . Constitution should protect enslavers and enslavement . 438
The California legislature finally let the state fugitive slave law expire in 1855 . 439 Still, cases involving free - dom seekers from enslavement continued . At least six
additional cases, involving the freedom of 19 people,
came before the California courts between 1855 and the
official end of enslavement in 1865 . 440 All of these cas - es—including the famous 1856 freedom case of Bridget
“Biddy” Mason in Los Angeles County—eventually led to
enslaved people’s freedom . 441
But in one example, the case of Archy Lee from 1857 to
1858, the proslavery California Supreme Court made
every effort to return him to enslavement . Lee’s en -
slaver, Charles Stovall, forced him to go with him to
California years after the state fugitive slave law had expired . But California’s supreme court justices decid - ed that since Stovall was a young man who suffered
from constant illness, and he did not know about
California’s laws, he should not be punished by losing
his right to own Archy Lee . It took several more law - suits by free Black Californians, and a new decision
from a federal legal official, before Lee finally won
permanent freedom . 442
California’s Political Leadership and
Anti-Black Oppression
During the 1850s, California’s political leaders, includ - ing governors, state assemblymen, and state senators,
supported other anti-Black laws . California’s 1849
Constitutional Convention restricted the right to vote to white male citizens 443 and also debated (put did not pass) an exclusion law to outlaw all future African American
migration to the state . 444
Peter Burnett, California’s first governor, opposed both enslavement and the presence of African Americans, so
he was angry that the new state constitution did not have a Black exclusion law . 445 Before coming to California, Burnett had served in Oregon’s provisional government
and had personally helped pass a Black exclusion law,
the “Lash Law,” which said that African Americans who
arrived in Oregon would be whipped every six months
until they left . 446
California’s legislature and courts sent an important message:
they were friendly to the southern enslaving states, they believed enslaved people should have no legal rights, and they thought that the U.S. Constitution should protect enslavers and enslavement. 73 Chapter 2 Enslavement
Burnett encouraged the California legislature to pass
a Black exclusion law immediately . 447 He said that fail - ing to exclude Black residents would lead to enslavers
bringing more enslaved people into the state . 448 When the California legislature failed to
pass a Black exclusion law in 1850,
Burnett gave another speech in 1851
demanding a law to ban Black resi -
dents . 449 This time he claimed that
any free Black residents would be so
poor, and so upset about not hav -
ing any civil rights under California
law, that they would start a race war against whites . 450 Overall, California tried to pass a Black exclusion law at least four times during the 1850s, but the state legisla - ture was either too politically divided to agree on a law or ran out of time before the legislative session ended . 451 California legislators focused instead on limiting the
rights of African Americans who were already in the
state . In addition to outlawing African American court testimony in cases involving whites, the California leg - islature also made interracial marriage between Black
and white people illegal, 452 excluded African American people from getting homesteads (free or cheap farms)
on state lands, 453 refused to offer state funding for Black children to attend public schools, 454 and would not ac - cept petitions from Black activists who wanted to change these unjust laws . 455
After free Black activists successfully rescued Archy
Lee from enslavement in 1858, angry proslavery legis -
lators tried to make these anti-Black laws even worse .

They tried to pass another state fugitive slave law and to pass yet another Black exclusion law . Although both of these laws failed to pass before the end of the legisla - tive session, the vicious anti-Black tone of state politics prompted many Black Californians to leave the state
in search of greater freedom and equality . 456 Starting in 1858, up to 800 African American men, women,
and children migrated north to the British colonies of
Vancouver Island and British Columbia, in what is now
Canada, where many became British subjects . 457
VIII . The U .S . Civil War and the End of Enslavement
Political Struggles Leading up to the
U.S. Civil War
Between 1850 and the start of the Civil War in 1861, the political fight over enslavement’s westward expansion
and African Americans’ legal rights became more intense and more violent . Proslavery politicians in Congress
pushed through the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, a law
that overturned the 1820 Missouri Compromise that had
outlawed enslavement in most of the Louisiana Purchase
lands . 458 This meant that white settlers in the new west - ern territories of Kansas and Nebraska territories could allow enslavement if they wanted to do so . A bloody civil war broke out in Kansas between proslavery and anti -
slavery settlers who had rushed there to claim the new
territory for their side . 459 The Kansas-Nebraska Act and “Bleeding Kansas,” as this violence came to be called,
shocked many northerners who opposed enslavement
moving into the West . They formed a new political par - ty, the Republican Party, which was based mostly in the North and whose main goal was stopping the westward
expansion of enslavement . 460
As northerners became more antislavery, proslavery
southerners became even louder in their defense of
enslavement . 461 They falsely claimed that enslavement was a gentle and humane institution, and that enslaved
people got just as many benefits from the institution as white people because they received life-long care and
support in exchange for their work . 462 Proslavery people also used scientific racism, the false theory that all white people were naturally smarter and more “civilized”
than African descended people, to argue that enslave -
ment was good for people of African descent because it
“uplifted” them . 463
In the late 1850s, the U .S . Supreme Court supported
these false theories that African Americans were inferi - or to white Americans and helped open the western U .S . to enslavement . In the 1857 case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, the court decided that African Americans were not cit - izens of the United States and did not have any of the
legal rights that white Americans had . 464 Chief Justice Roger Taney, from the enslaving state of Maryland,
explained that white people had always treated Black
people as slaves and that African Americans were “so
far inferior, that they had no rights which the white
man was bound to respect . ” 465 In addition to denying African Americans’ claims to legal rights, the court also said that the federal government had no power to close
enslavement out of the western territories . 466 The U .S .

Overall, California tried to pass a Black exclusion law at least four times during the 1850s.
74 Chapter 2 Enslavement
Constitution allowed slaveholding southerners to take
their property, including property in human beings,
into the western territories . 467
Free African Americans resisted their legal exclusion
from U .S . citizenship both before and after the Dred Scott decision by claiming birthright citizenship . This was the idea that birth on U .S . soil automatically made them citizens of the United States . 468 Across the first half of the 1800s, African Americans used local courthous -
es and everyday interactions with state and municipal
governments to establish that their U .S . birth entitled them to the title and rights of citizenship . 469 The ground- work laid by free African Americans was eventually
the foundation of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the Fourteenth Amendment to the U .S . Constitution, which
made everyone born in the United States a citizen of the United States . 470
The conflict over enslavement’s westward expansion
and African Americans’ rights broke out into a full civil war in 1861 . Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, won the
presidential election of 1860 by promising to keep en - slavement from moving West into any new territories . 471 Proslavery southerners claimed Lincoln’s election was
proof that all northerners wanted to end enslavement,
give citizenship rights to African Americans, and cause a race war in the South . 472
Less than two months after Lincoln’s election, South
Carolina, an enslaving state, voted to leave the United States . 473 Over the next two months, an additional six enslaving states—Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas—also left the United States . They formed the Confederate States of America, also known
as the Confederacy . Once war broke out in 1861, an -
other four enslaving states—Virginia, Arkansas, North
Carolina, and Tennessee—joined the Confederacy . 474 The deadliest war in U .S . history had begun .

The Civil War, and the
Emancipation Proclamation
The Confederate States of America, also known as
the Confederacy, fought to create a new nation built
on the enslavement of people of African descent . The
Confederate Constitution was based strongly on the
U .S . Constitution, except that it outlawed the national government from ending enslavement 475 and it said that white people living in any new Confederate territories
had the right to own enslaved people . 476
Alexander Stephens, the Confederate Vice-President,
declared that, unlike the United States, the Confederacy was not based on the notion that all men were created
equal . Instead, the “cornerstone” of the Confederacy,
the foundation on which it was built, was “the great
truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition .” 477
For many white southerners in the Confederacy,
keeping enslavement was even more important than
winning independence from the United States . When
the Confederacy lacked soldiers to fight in the later
years of the Civil War, Confederate military leaders,
including General Robert E . Lee, supported recruiting
enslaved men as soldiers . The idea was that enslaved
men would fight for the Confederacy in exchange for
their freedom . 478
In the end, recruiting enslaved men as soldiers and giv - ing freedom to those who fought for the Confederacy
was very unpopular because proslavery whites feared
that it would weaken enslavement and go against the
enslaving states’ reason for seceding . 479 For example, Howell Cobb, a Confederate general from Georgia, said
that giving guns to the enslaved was a “suicidal policy” and “[t]he day you make soldiers of them is the begin - ning of the end of the revolution .” 480
Since many white southerners agreed with Cobb, the
Confederacy did not accept the idea of freeing and arm- ing enslaved men as soldiers until March 1865, the last month of the Civil War . The Confederacy organized a
handful of enslaved men as soldiers in these very last
days of the war, but none of them fought in battle . 481 Unlike the Confederacy, the Union made freeing the
enslaved and recruiting enslaved men into the military
a major part of its war strategy . Even though Abraham Lincoln and many Republican politicians were not
interested in freeing the enslaved at first, the actions of enslaved people pushed the United States toward
ending enslavement . 482
Enslaved people began escaping to U .S . military sites even before the war began . 483 When the United States Army began moving into the Confederacy, large num -
bers of refugees from enslavement—as many as 500,000
people or 12 .5 percent of the entire enslaved popula - tion—sought freedom in U .S . Army camps . 484 These
freedom seekers worked as wagon drivers, laundry
workers, cooks, manual laborers, and nurses for the U .S . army . 485 However, not all African Americans served in the Army voluntarily, as a small number were kidnapped
and forced to enlist against their will . 486
Congress understood that these freedom seekers
would play a key role in winning the war against the
75 Chapter 2 Enslavement
Confederacy . Every formerly enslaved person working
for the U .S . took away resources from the South and
helped the Union . 487 In 1861 and 1862, Congress passed laws called “confiscation acts,” which allowed the U .S . military to give shelter and work to enslaved people who were being forced to work for the Confederacy, and,
later to any enslaved person whose enslaver supported
the Confederacy . 488
Even as the United States was dismantling enslavement,
the Union could not immediately or completely abolish
the institution . With the secession of 11 Southern states, the number of enslaving congressmen decreased ac -
cordingly, which did give opponents of enslavement a
political advantage . 489 However, more than 20 percent of the members of Congress during the Civil War re -
mained either current or former slaveholders, mostly
from the border states that had not seceded . 490
Abraham Lincoln was also slow to use his presiden -
tial power to free enslaved people . In September
1862, Lincoln wrote a preliminary version of the
Emancipation Proclamation, which
freed all the enslaved people in any
area still in rebellion against the
United States on the first day of
the new year in 1863 . 491 Lincoln’s
preliminary proclamation also
recommended transporting new -
ly-freed African Americans out of
the United States and resettling
them elsewhere 492 (a scheme that
Lincoln considered seriously for
years until it was clear that most
African Americans refused to leave
the land of their birth) . 493 Then, on
January 1, 1863, Lincoln signed his
final Emancipation Proclamation,
setting enslaved people free ev -
erywhere in the Confederacy,
except the parts already con -
trolled by the U .S . Army, 494 and
making no reference to removing African Americans
overseas . 495 The Emancipation Proclamation also left out the enslaving Border States that had not joined
the Confederacy—Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware, and
Missouri—to keep them loyal to the Union . 496
Enslaved People Tear Down Enslavement
and Fight for their Freedom
Enslaved people set the Emancipation Proclamation
in motion by seeking freedom by the thousands, and
they also fought for their freedom on the battlefield .

Congress stopped excluding Black men from the U .S .

Army in 1862 497 and the Emancipation Proclamation
opened the way for Black men to
join the army and navy . 498 Free
African Americans in Union states
quickly organized military units,
including the 54 th Massachusetts
Volunteer Infantry . 499
But most Black Civil War soldiers
were formerly enslaved men re -
cruited in the South as part of
the United States Colored Troops
(USCT) . Altogether, 178,000 Black
men served in 175 USCT regiments . 500 Another 29,000 Black men served in the U .S . Navy . 501 By the end of the Civil War, Black servicemen made up roughly 10 per -
cent of the entire Union military . 502 They fought in every major Union military campaign between 1864
and 1865, 503 and participated in 39 major battles and 410 smaller armed conflicts . 504 Around 40,000 of these men (around 20 percent) died during the Civil War . 505 The 107th U.S. Colored Infantry stand guard during the United States Civil War. (c. 1860-1865)

COURTESY OF CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES
Even as the United States was dismantling enslavement, the Union could not immediately or completely abolish the institution.

More than 20 percent of the members of Congress during the Civil War remained either current or former enslavers, mostly from the border states that had not seceded.
76 Chapter 2 Enslavement
The federal government and the U .S . military did not treat Black soldiers equally . Black soldiers faced doing hard labor, being fed less nutritious food than white
soldiers, and having less access to medical care . 506 The federal government also paid Black soldiers less than
white soldiers, and Black soldiers were closed out of
opportunities to lead their units as high-ranking offi - cers because these positions were given to white men
only . 507 Black soldiers’ resistance
to poor treatment helped fix some
of these inequalities . 508 After Black
soldiers protested strongly against
lower pay, Congress finally began
paying Black and white soldiers
equally in 1864 . 509 By the end of the
war, 80 Black men also won their
promotion to high-ranking officer
positions . 510 For a further discussion
the U .S . military’s discriminatory
treatment of African Americans,
see Chapter 10, Stolen Labor and
Hindered Opportunity .

These Black servicemen fought
bravely to win their freedom and
to claim equal rights with white Americans . Sattira
A . Douglas, a Black woman whose husband, H . Ford
Douglas, fought in the war, explained that Black soldiers wanted “to strike the blow that will at once relieve them of northern prejudice and southern slavery .” 511 They fought courageously because they had “everything to
gain in this conflict: liberty, honor, social and political position,” and losing the war would result in “slavery, [and] prejudice of caste .” 512
For instance, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the most famous northern Black unit, and the one in
which Frederick Douglass’s two sons served, led a heroic attack on Fort Wagner, South Carolina in July 1863 . 513 More than 40 percent of the men died or were wound -
ed in the attack . 514 One of the survivors of Fort Wagner, Sergeant William Harvey Carney, eventually was award -
ed the Medal of Honor, the highest military honor in
the United States, for saving the 54th Massachusetts flag from the enemy . 515 Carney was among 26 Black Civil War soldiers who earned this prestigious medal for bravery
above and beyond the call of duty . 516
Black soldiers also faced more violence on the battle - field than white soldiers . The Confederacy threatened
to kill or enslave Black soldiers who Confederates cap - tured as prisoners of war . 517 Abraham Lincoln tried to protect Black soldiers by warning the Confederacy
that the Union would kill or force into hard labor one
Confederate prisoner of war for every Black soldier that Confederates killed or enslaved . 518
Still, some Confederates targeted Black servicemen with violence . In 1864, Confederates attacked a much small - er Union force of mostly Black soldiers at Fort Pillow in Tennessee . The Confederates entered the fort and killed 300 men, 200 of whom were Black . 519 Witnesses said that Confederates killed these Black soldiers instead of cap - turing them as prisoners of war . 520 After this massacre, it became popular for Black soldiers to shout “Remember
Fort Pillow!” as they went into battle to fight for their lives and their freedom . 521
The End of the Civil War and the
Thirteenth Amendment
The United States won the Civil War against the
Confederacy in 1865, effectively ending enslavement
in all of the ex-Confederate states . Enslaved people in Texas, one of the very last places reached by the United States Army, did not hear that they had been legal -
ly freed until June 19, 1865 . 522 This was two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation . Formerly
enslaved Black Texans began celebrating June 19 th as
“Juneteenth,” a day to remember their hard-fought bat-
tle for freedom . 523
Six months later, on December 6, 1865, the required
number of states finally approved the Thirteenth
Amendment to the U .S . Constitution outlawing en -
slavement and making emancipation permanent . 524
The Amendment said that “neither slavery nor invol -
untary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,
shall exist within the United States, or any place sub - ject to their jurisdiction . ” 525 Section 2 of the Thirteenth By the end of the Civil War, Black servicemen made up roughly 10 percent of the entire Union military. The federal government and the U.S. military did not treat Black soldiers equally. Black soldiers faced doing hard labor, being fed less nutritious food than white soldiers, and having less access to medical care. The federal government also paid Black soldiers less than white soldiers, and Black soldiers were closed out of opportunities to lead their units as high-ranking officers because these positions were given to white men only.
77 Chapter 2 Enslavement
Amendment also empowered Congress to pass “ap -
propriate legislation” to enforce the elimination of
enslavement, 526 which the U .S . Supreme Court later interpreted as the power to outlaw all “badges and in - cidents of slavery .” 527
IX . Reconstruction and the Lost Cause
Reconstruction Begins
After the end of the Civil War and the outlawing of enslave- ment, the United States went through a process known
as Reconstruction, a period of rebuilding and reuniting the country . 528 Abraham Lincoln had begun this process during the Civil War . 529 But Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865 put Reconstruction in the hands of his vice-president, Andrew Johnson, and Republicans in Congress . 530
President Johnson was a former Democrat from
Tennessee who remained loyal to the Union . He dis -
approved of the Confederacy and wanted to punish
wealthy enslavers who participated in it . 531 But he also wanted to keep white people in charge of the South
and opposed giving equal political rights to African
Americans . 532 As Johnson wrote in an 1868 letter to the governor of Missouri: “This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President; it shall be a gov - ernment for white men .” 533
Johnson fought with Republicans in Congress over the
direction of Reconstruction and African Americans’
civil rights, which eventually led to Johnson’s impeach - ment . 534 Congressional Republicans took over the
process of Reconstruction and passed new laws aimed
at giving formerly enslaved people basic legal rights . 535 Congressional Republicans had several overlap -
ping goals: re-growing the southern cotton economy,
rebuilding the ex-Confederate states’ governments be -
fore allowing them to come back fully into the United
States, and making sure that formerly enslaved people
could no longer be held in enslavement . 536 Some of
the most progressive Republicans (known as Radical
Republicans) wanted to completely change social, eco -
nomic, and political life in the South to support Black equality . 537 But moderate and conservative Republicans mostly focused on laws that would give African
Americans basic legal and economic rights such as mak - ing contracts to work and getting paid for their work . 538 The formerly enslaved and former enslavers in the
South had their own goals . Formerly enslaved people
wanted more than just basic legal rights . They wanted to be independent, out of the control of their former en - slavers, and to own small farms where they could work
for themselves . 539 They wanted to educate themselves and their children . 540 They wanted the ability to move around in search of family members sold away during
enslavement . 541 Finally, they wanted political rights such as the right to vote and hold office . 542
Former enslavers refused to acknowledge African
Americans’ new freedom . In every ex-Confederate state, white southerners passed laws called “Black Codes . ”
543 Black Codes included vagrancy laws that allowed
police to arrest any Black person without an employ -
er and force them to work . Black Codes in some states
also forced Black parents to give control over their chil - dren to their former enslavers . State courts generally punished African Americans more harshly than white
Americans charged with the same crimes . 544
Republicans in Congress would have to force former en-
slavers in the South to treat the formerly enslaved fairly, equally, and with basic human dignity . Republicans
briefly considered passing laws that would take away
land from wealthy Confederates and give it to formerly
enslaved people so that they could support themselves
as independent farmers . 545
Immediately before the end of the Civil War, Congress
created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and
Abandoned Lands to provide for the welfare of for -
merly enslaved African Americans, including through
“issues of provisions, clothing, and fuel, as [necessary] In every ex-confederate state, white
southerners passed laws called the
Black Codes. Examples include:
• Vagrancy laws that allowed police to arrest
any Black person without an employer and
force them to work
• Laws that forced Black parents to give control
over their children to their former enslavers .
• Laws that did not allow African Americans to
change employers without permission
78 Chapter 2 Enslavement
for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply
of destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen and
their wives and children,” according to the statute . 546 Commonly known as the Freedmen’s Bureau, the agen-
cy had the authority to supervise labor relations in the South, with the mandate to provide education, medical
care, and legal protections for formerly enslaved African Americans, along with the authority to rent out and
eventually sell allotments of abandoned or confiscated
land to free African Americans . 547
The original goal of the Freedmen’s Bureau Act was the
more radical notion of allowing African Americans the
means to become self-sufficient . 548 In the closing days of the Civil War, Union General William Tecumseh
Sherman issued Special Field Order No . 15, setting
aside 400,000 acres of confiscated land for those who
had been freed, and two months later, the Freedman
Bureau’s Act formalized the field order, “providing that each negro might have forty acres at a low price on long credit .” 549 Many free African Americans and northern Republicans believed that land reform in the South—
granting formerly enslaved African Americans access
to their own land—was the true way that formerly en -
slaved people would be free from their enslavers . 550 The resulting independent Black farmers would provide a
power base for a new social and political order in the
postwar South . 551
This new vision of social relations in the South was op - posed by white southerners as well as northerners who
opposed enslavement but did not believe in full equality for African Americans . 552 Most white Americans, even in the North, thought these policies were too “radical” because they took away ex-Confederates’ individu -
al property rights and set a dangerous precedent that
wealth could be redistributed to poorer members of so - ciety . 553 Moreover, a large number of Black landowners would threaten plantations and disrupt the southern
economy and social system . 554 White capitalists in the North and South believed that Black freedom should
mean Black workers continuing to work on a planta -
tion, although they would now be paid . 555 They did not believe that African Americans should be able to support themselves independently through subsistence farming,
which would have led to less cotton being grown and
posed a threat to the interests of cotton merchants and other capitalists in the South, elsewhere in the United States, and in Europe . 556 In less than a full harvest sea - son, the land that Sherman had given to freed persons
was returned to the prior owners . 557
Although the Freedmen’s Bureau tried to assert and
protect the rights of the formerly enslaved, it also
perpetuated racist stereotypes, paternalistic attitudes, and continued to limit African Americans’ economic
and social power . Bureau agents often viewed formerly enslaved African Americans as children, unprepared for
freedom, and needing to be taught the importance of
work and wages . 558 The Freedmen’s Bureau abandoned
the possibility of land reform in the South, and focused mostly on labor relations between Black and white
southerners instead . 559
Republicans’ other major Reconstruction policies fo -
cused on making sure that formerly enslaved Black
southerners had access to basic civil rights, such as
rights to make contracts, own property, keep their
families together, have physical safety, and be treated fairly by the courts and the criminal justice system . 560 In 1866, Congress passed a civil rights act that made
anyone born in the United States a citizen, without re - gard to their race, color, or previous enslavement . 561 Newly freed Black citizens were supposed to have
the same equality under the law “as is enjoyed by
white citizens .” 562
Republicans feared that a federal law like the Civil Rights Act of 1866 could be overturned easily if another political party came into power . They pushed for a constitutional amendment that would make Black citizenship and civil
rights permanent . 563
The Fourteenth Amendment, approved by Congress in
1866 and ratified by the required number of states in
1868, said that any person born in the United States was a citizen (birthright citizenship); that state governments could not take away the life, liberty, or property of any “Gibbs, Judge M.W.” Judge Mifflin Wistar Gibbs (1823-1915) was a prominent civil rights and entrepreneur in San Francisco who fought against California’s anti-black laws. (c. 1901-1903)

COURTESY OF LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
79 Chapter 2 Enslavement
person (citizen or non-citizen) without due process of
law (following standard legal procedures); and that the states had to treat every person equally under the law . 564 Black activists had finally won their decades-long bat - tle for birthright citizenship, and all people born in the United States now benefitted from their work . 565
Congress soon decided that formerly enslaved peo -
ple’s legal and economic rights could not be protected
unless African Americans had political rights, specif - ically rights to vote and hold office . 566 The Fifteenth Amendment, approved by Congress
in 1869 and ratified by the re -
quired number of states in 1870,
made it illegal for states to dis -
criminate against voters based on
“race, color, or previous condition
of servitude .” 567 The intention was
to stop the states from denying
voting rights to African American
men . 568 As with the Thirteenth
and Fourteenth Amendments,
the Fifteenth Amendment gave
Congress the power to pass future
legislation to ensure that the states
followed the law . 569
California Rejects Reconstruction Civil
Rights Legislation
The legislature and governor of California strongly
opposed Congress’s Reconstruction civil rights laws
and tried to stop them . 570 During the Civil War, Black Californians had fought for and won new rights, such
as the right to testify in court cases involving whites . 571 This was because white Republicans controlled the legis- lature and governorship during the early 1860s and took power away from the proslavery Democrats who used
to control the state . 572 But many white Californians op - posed Congressional civil rights laws to protect formerly enslaved people and worried that these laws would apply to other non-white people in the state . 573
Democrats came back into power in California in
1867 by promising white voters that they would fight
against Reconstruction and any new law that would
make African Americans, Native Americans, or Chinese
Americans equal to whites or give them voting rights . 574 California Democrats who controlled the state legisla - ture kept this promise when it came time to ratify the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments . 575 California’s legislature ignored the Fourteenth Amendment and
never considered it . 576 The legislature voted to reject ratifying the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 . 577 Enough other states had ratified the amendments that they be - came part of the U .S . Constitution without California’s approval . 578 Still, California would continue its resistance to Reconstruction civil rights legislation by refusing to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment until 1959 579 and the Fifteenth Amendment until 1962 . 580
California also led the way in establishing the legal de - fense for segregation during Reconstruction . In 1874,
the Supreme Court of California made a destructive
decision that the rest of the United States eventually fol- lowed . In the case of Ward v. Flood, California’s Supreme Court justices decided that segregation in the state’s pub- lic schools did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment as long as Black children and white children had equal ac - cess to similar schools and educational opportunities . 581 Twenty-two years later, the U .S . Supreme Court made a similar “separate but equal” decision in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson . This decision supported the segregation of public facilities in the United States for almost 60 years . 582 The Destruction of Reconstruction
African Americans fought for and took advantage of
many new legal rights during Reconstruction, but this
time period of growing legal equality was short . White supremacist terrorist groups, first the Ku Klux Klan
and then later militias such as the White League of
Louisiana and the Red Shirts of South Carolina, even -
tually overthrew the Reconstruction governments
that Black and white Republicans had established to -
gether in the South . 583 (For a detailed discussion of African Americans’ political accomplishments during
Reconstruction and white supremacist terrorism in the
U .S . South, see Chapters 3, Racial Terror, and 4, Political Disenfranchisement, of this report) .

In the case of Ward v. Flood, California’s Supreme Court justices decided that segregation in the state’s public schools did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment as long as Black children and white children had equal access to similar schools and educational opportunities. Twenty-two years later, the U.S. Supreme Court made a similar “separate but equal” decision in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. This decision supported the segregation of public facilities in the United States for almost 60 years.
80 Chapter 2 Enslavement
White southern Democrats, who wanted to keep African
Americans working on plantations and out of politics,
retook control of the southern states . 584 The long and ex- pensive process of Reconstruction lost popularity with
white northerners, and many of them wanted to give up
on the project of trying to change the racial, legal, and economic relationships of the South . 585
During the U .S . presidential election of 1876, white northern Republicans abandoned Reconstruction in
the South in exchange for keeping control of the pres - idency of the United States . 586 After the election, Ohio Republican Rutherford B . Hayes and New York Democrat
Samuel Tilden both claimed to be the winner . 587 It was well-known that white southerners had used violence,
threats, and fraud to keep African Americans from vot - ing for the Republican Hayes . 588 The national leadership of the Republican and Democratic parties made a secret
deal: in exchange for Democrats acknowledging Hayes’s
victory in the presidential election, Republicans would reduce federal support for Reconstruction . 589 Soon after Hayes became president in 1877 , he pulled U .S . troops out of key areas in the South where they had been protect - ing African Americans’ political rights and Republican
officeholders . 590 Hayes’ action effectively ended direct federal protection of African Americans’ political rights in the South . 591
The U .S . Supreme Court played its own important role
in defeating Reconstruction . 592 In the 1870s, the court made several decisions that greatly reduced the power of the Fourteenth Amendment and federal laws to protect
Black equality . 593
The last of these decisions happened in the 1883
Civil Rights Cases , a group of several cases that African Americans had brought under the federal Civil Rights
Act of 1875 . 594 That act had made it illegal for theaters, hotels, and public transportation companies such as
railroads to exclude African Americans . 595
The Supreme Court decided in 1883 that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional because the Fourteenth Amendment, on which it was based, only gave Congress
the power to stop state governments from discrimi -
nating against African Americans . Congress could not
outlaw individual people and private business owners
from discriminating against African Americans; only the state governments themselves could do that . 596
The Supreme Court decision in the Civil Rights Cases le- galized racial discrimination and segregation in most
public places . It set the stage for the “separate but equal” decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and practices such as housing discrimination and education segregation . 597 The Rise of the Lost Cause Myth
After Reconstruction ended, white southerners creat -
ed the myth of the Confederate “Lost Cause” in order
to downplay the horrors of enslavement and terror -
ize African Americans . 598 Southerners who opposed
Black civil rights falsely argued that the Civil War had little to do with enslavement . The Lost Cause myth
claims that the Confederacy had fought a heroic war
to save the southern way of life from being destroyed
by the North . 599 This untruthful history also claims that the Confederacy lost the Civil War only because the
more populated, industrialized North overpowered
white southerners, not because enslavement or the
Confederate cause was wrong . 600
The Lost Cause is not just a story that white southerners tell . It is a weapon of terror against African Americans and a rejection of the southern defeat in the Civil War and Black civil rights . At the end of the 1800s and the start of the 1900s, white southerners began building
thousands of monuments and
statues all over the South to cele -
brate famous Confederates, and
to name important buildings after
Confederate figures . 601
In the 1910s, the Ku Klux Klan,
which the federal government had
broken up during Reconstruction,
re-emerged and began terrorizing
and murdering African Americans .

The combination of violence against African Americans
and the constant sight of monuments celebrating the
enslaving Confederacy were terrorist tactics meant to
silence African Americans and keep them from challeng-
ing white supremacy . 602
Lost Cause symbols became especially important to
white southerners who tried to stop the Civil Rights
Movement in the 1950s and 1960s . White southern -
ers who opposed African American civil and human
At the end of the 1800s and the start of the 1900s, white southerners began building thousands of monuments and
statues all over the South to celebrate famous Confederates, and to name important buildings after Confederate figures. White Californians also built Confederate monuments across the state. 81 Chapter 2 Enslavement
rights beat and murdered Black (and some white) civil
rights activists . They also began regularly flying versions of the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia (the Confederate “Stars and Bars,” popularly known as the
“Confederate Flag”) to threaten civil rights activists and to show that they were determined not to give equality to African Americans . 603
Even though defenders of the Lost Cause have argued
that Confederate monuments and flags stand for “heri -
tage, not hate,” and they claim that removing them erases history, this argument ignores the true history of these objects . White southerners have used them strategically as symbols of terror to try and keep African Americans
from fighting for full equality . 604
California and the Lost Cause
In California, white Americans popularized the Lost Cause mythology with national audiences . The Hollywood film
industry was responsible for bringing the Lost Cause to movie screens and making it popular with many white
Americans, North and South, during the first half of the 1900s . 605
D .W . Griffith’s blockbuster film, The Birth of a Nation (1915), falsely showed members of the Ku Klux Klan as heroes
who were protecting white women and southern hon -
or against violent African Americans (mostly played by
white actors who painted their faces black) . This film was the main factor behind the revival of the Ku Klux
Klan in the early 1900s . 606 Gone with Wind (1939) celebrat- ed the pre-Civil War South by showing a world of kindly enslavers, loyal and happy enslaved people, and heroic
Confederates fighting for the southern way of life . 607 White Californians also built Confederate monu -
ments across the state . For example, a plaque honoring Confederate President Jefferson Davis, set up by the
United Daughters of the Confederacy, stood along a
Bakersfield, California, highway for almost 80 years . 608 A monument in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los
Angeles, California, built in 1925, cel-
ebrated all Confederates who died
on the Pacific Coast . 609 Although
both of these monuments have now
been removed, their existence re -
minds us of California’s complicity
in the United States’ long history of
enslavement, white supremacist ter-
rorism, and systemic racism against
African Americans .

X . Conclusion
In order to steal and profit from the labor of millions of human beings for 244 years, the colonial American and
U .S . governments built an institution of enslavement that was markedly different from the type of slavery that the world had seen before . Americans passed laws that en - shrined a racial hierarchy with white people at the top and Black people at the bottom . This hierarchy was based on the false idea that all white people were naturally su - perior in intelligence and morality to all Black people, and white Americans then used these ideas to justify the lifelong enslavement of people of African ancestry and
their descendants . American law enslaved babies from
the moment they were born, through adulthood, until
the moment they died, and ensured that all their descen- dants suffered the same fate . During certain time periods, state governments even passed laws that made it illegal for enslavers to voluntarily free enslaved people from
their bondage . Enslavement was a badge pinned on peo-
ple of African descent because of the color of their skin .

When slavery formally ended in 1865, this racial hierar - chy continued functioning . The end of Reconstruction
and the rise of the Lost Cause brought a long period
of political, social, economic, and legal inequality for African Americans that white people enforced through
terrorism, violence, and exploiting legal loopholes . This period was known as “Jim Crow,” after a racist stereo - typed character popular with white Americans, and it
lasted roughly 60 to 70 years, from the 1890s to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s . Without the
laws that made enslavement legal, American citizens,
aided by government officials, terrorized, murdered,
and abused their Black neighbors to maintain this leg - acy of slavery, as discussed in Chapter 3, Racial Terror .

During this period, white southerners gradually took
The Hollywood film industry was responsible for popularizing white supremacist movies, like The Birth of a Nation , during the first half of the 1900s. This film was the main factor behind the revival of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1900s.
82 Chapter 2 Enslavement
away Black southerners’ rights to vote by using violent intimidation against and legal loopholes such as lit -
eracy tests and poll taxes to disqualify Black voters, as discussed in Chapter 4, Political Disenfranchisement . As Black people fled violence and oppression in the rural
South to find economic opportunity in the North and the West, government officials maintained the racial hier - archy by putting up barriers to prevent Black and white Americans from living in the same neighborhoods, as
discussed in Chapter 5, Housing Segregation, and al -
lowing private companies to prevent Black and white
Americans from holding the same jobs, as discussed in
Chapter 10, Stolen Labor and Hindered Opportunity .

New systems of forced labor, such as convict leasing,
sharecropping, and debt peonage kept formerly en -
slaved African Americans working for white Americans
on cotton plantations or in other industries, as dis -
cussed in Chapter 10 . Much of this forced labor rested on discrimination in law enforcement, judicial decisions,
and prison sentencing that doomed African Americans
to slavery-like conditions, as discussed in Chapter 11, An Unjust Legal System .

Government actions relegated African Americans
to mostly urban neighborhoods with underfunded
schools, as discussed in Chapter 6, Separate and Unequal Education, and menial and service jobs . U .S . Supreme Court decisions such as the Civil Rights Cases (1883) and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) excluded African Americans from using public facilities such as schools on equal terms
with white Americans and validated discrimination in
housing that excluded African Americans from desirable
neighborhoods . These legal decisions and violent prac - tices caused direct physical harm to African Americans
by segregating them in polluted, unhealthy neighbor -
hoods, as discussed in Chapter 7 , Racism in Environment and Infrastructure, and denying them equal access to
quality healthcare, as discussed in Chapter 12, Mental
and Physical Harm and Neglect .

The racial hierarchy that laws created during enslave - ment also created deeply harmful and untrue racial
stereotypes, which have followed African Americans
throughout American history, as discussed in Chapter
9, Control over Spiritual, Creative and Cultural Life .

Inequalities in the criminal justice system, child welfare laws, housing, and healthcare harmed the survival of
Black families, as discussed in Chapter 8, Pathologizing the Black Family, while discriminatory, predatory bank- ing practices and employment discrimination prevented
many African Americans from accumulating genera -
tional wealth to pass down to their children, as discussed in Chapter 13, The Wealth Gap .

Four hundred years of discrimination has resulted in an enormous and persistent wealth gap between Black and
white Americans, as discussed in Chapter 13 The Wealth
Gap, and continuous and compounding harm on the
health of African Americans, as discussed in Chapter 12, Mental and Physical Harm and Neglect .

As the following chapters will show, these effects of
slavery continue to be embedded in American soci -
ety today and have never been sufficiently remedied .

The governments of the United States and the State of
California have never apologized to or compensated
African Americans for these harms .
“This is a white man’s government” (1868)

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84 Chapter 2 Enslavement
Endnotes
1 Balkansky, What, to the American Slave, is
Your 4th of July? (July 15, 2020)
Library of Congress (as of Jan .
16, 2022) (Balkansky) .
2 Ibid .
3 Douglass, What to the Slave is the Fourth of
July? (July 5, 1852) Teaching
American History (as of Nov .
3, 2021) (What to the Slave) .
4 Ibid .
5 Ibid .
6 Ibid .
7 Ibid .
8 Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our
Discontents (Oprah’s Book Club
Edition, 2020), pp . 28–29 (Wilkerson) .
9 Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A
Comparative Study (1982),
pp . vii – viii (Patterson) .
10 Davis, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and
Fall of Slavery in the New World
(2006), pp . 53 – 54 (Davis); Kolchin,
American Slavery: 1619 – 1877
(1993), pp . 5–6 (Kolchin) .
11 Davis, supra, at pp . 53–54 .
12 Kolchin, supra, at pp . 17-18 .
13 Id. at pp . 4–5 .
14 Slavery in Ancient Rome, British Museum
(as of Jan . 23, 2022) .
15 Patterson, supra, at pp . 152–157 .
16 Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning:

The Definitive History of Racist Ideas
in America (2016), pp . 19 – 21 (Kendi) .
17 Patterson, supra, at pp . 105–130 .
18 Id. at pp . 134–147 , 262–263 .
19 Kolchin, supra, at p . 4 .
20 Ibid .; Patterson, supra, at pp . 62–64,
92–93, 173–175 .
21 Kolchin, supra, at p . 5 .
22 Guasco, The Fallacy of 1619: Rethinking the
History of Africans in Early America (Sept .
4, 2017) Black Perspectives, African
American Intellectual History Society
(as of Jan . 17 , 2022) (Guasco); Kolchin,
supra, at pp . 5–6; Eltis, A Brief Overview of
the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: Introduction
(2007) SlaveVoyages (as of Jan . 17 ,
2022) (Brief Overview-Introduction) .
23 Kolchin, supra, at pp . 6–7 .
24 Id. at pp . 7–8 .
25 Ibid .; Brief Overview-Introduction, supra .
26 Eltis, A Brief Overview of the Trans-Atlantic
Slave Trade: Early Slaving Voyages (2007)
SlaveVoyages (as of Jan . 17 , 2022) (Brief
Overview-Early Slaving Voyages) .
27 Ibid .
28 Ibid .
29 Ibid .
30 Guasco, supra; Trans-Atlantic Slave
Trade—Estimates (2007) SlaveVoyages
(as of March 12, 2022) .
31 Guasco, supra .
32 Torres-Spelliscy, Everyone is talking about
1619. But that’s not actually when slav-
ery in America started (Aug . 23, 2019)
Washington Post (as of Jan . 17 , 2022) .
33 Kendi, supra, at p . 38 .
34 Kolchin, supra, at pp . 8–10 .
35 Ibid .
36 Id. at 15-16 .
37 Id. at 14-16 .
38 Morgan, American Slavery, American
Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial
Virginia (1975), pp . 327–328 (Morgan) .
39 Id. at p . 328 .
40 Id. at pp . 338–346 .
41 Id. at pp . 369, 385–386 .
42 Kendi, supra, at p . 53 .
43 Kolchin, supra, at pp . 17-18
44 Kendi, supra, at pp . 38–41 .
45 Ibid .
46 Id. at pp . 40–41 .
47 Id. at p . 48 .
48 Morgan, supra, at p . 337 .
49 Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The
First Two Centuries of Slavery in North
America (1998), pp . 123 – 124 (Berlin) .
50 Ibid .
51 Morgan, supra, at pp . 334–335 .
52 Kendi, supra, at p . 41 .
53 Berlin, supra, at p . 124 .
54 Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told:

Slavery and the Making of American
Capitalism (2014), pp . 32-35 (Baptist) .
55 Sterling, Through a Glass, Darkly: Systemic
Racism, Affirmative Action,
and Disproportionate Minority
Contact (December 2021) 120
Mich . L . Rev . 462-463 .
56 Kendi, supra, at pp . 8–10 .
57 Id. at pp . 31–32 .
58 Id. at pp . 9–10 .
59 Kolchin, supra, at pp .18–19 .
60 Fogelman, Migrations to the Thirteen
British North American Colonies, 1700 –
1775: New Estimates (Spring 1992) 22 J . of
Interdisciplinary Hist . 700 (Fogelman) .
61 Id. at pp . 697–698 .
62 Ibid .
63 Kolchin, supra, at p . 11 .
64 Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade—Estimates,
SlaveVoyages (2007) (as
of March 12, 2022) .
65 Mintz, Historical Context: American
Slavery in Comparative Perspective
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American
History (as of Jan . 17 , 2022) .
66 Bilow, Royal African Company (Feb . 26,
2009) Blackpast .org (as
of March 15, 2022) .
67 Pettigrew, Freedom’s Debt: The Royal
African Company and the Politics
of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1672
– 1752 (2013), p . 11 (Pettigrew) .
68 Ibid .
69 Davis, supra, at pp . 100–101 .
70 Walvin, Crossings: Africa, the Americas
and the Atlantic Slave Trade (2013), pp .
31 – 32 (Walvin); Davis, supra, at p . 89 .
71 Davis, supra, at pp . 12–13; Walvin, supra,
at pp . 31-32; Kolchin, supra, at p . 20 .
72 Kolchin, supra, at p . 20 .
73 Walvin, supra, at pp . 31–32 .
85 Chapter 2 Enslavement
74 Kolchin, supra, at p . 20 .
75 Ibid .
76 Ibid .
77 Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery: A
Middle Passage from Africa to American
Diaspora (2007), pp . 23–24 (Smallwood) .
78 Walvin, supra, at pp . 40–41 .
79 Davis, supra, pp . 100–101; Smallwood,
supra, 20 – 32 .
80 Davis, supra, pp . 100–101; Mustakeem,
Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and
Sickness in the Middle Passage
(2016), pp . 30-32 (Mustakeem) .
81 Davis, supra, at pp . 12–13 .
82 Id. at p . 100; Wilson-Fall, Memories of
Madagascar and Slavery in the
Black Atlantic (2015), pp . 2 – 3 .
83 Davis, supra, at p . 100 .
84 Mustakeem, supra, at p . 31 .
85 Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human
History (2007), pp . 12-13 (Rediker) .
86 Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade—Estimates
(2007) SlaveVoyages (as of March 13,
2022) . This estimate is calculated by sub-
tracting the number of enslaved people
who disembarked after a slaving voyage
from the entire number of enslaved
people who embarked from Africa .
87 Walvin, supra, at pp . 83–86 .
88 Ibid .
89 Id. at pp . 48, 83 .
90 Id. at p . 83 .
91 Ibid .
92 The Middle Passage, National Museum of
American History, Smithsonian
Institution (as of March 13, 2022) .
93 Haines, McDonald, and Shlomowitz,
Mortality and Voyage Length in the
Middle Passage Revisited (Oct . 2001) 38
Explorations in Econ . Hist . 506 .
94 Smallwood, supra, at p . 71 .
95 Davis, supra, at p . 100 .
96 Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human
History (2007), p . 68 (Rediker) .
97 Eltis, A Brief Overview of the Trans-Atlantic
Slave Trade: The Middle Passage (2007)
Slavevoyages (as of March 13, 2022) .
98 Mustakeem, supra, at p . 59 .
99 Mustakeem, supra, at p . 59 .
100 Kolchin, supra, at p . 21 .
101 Rediker, supra, at pp . 68–69 .
102 Mustakeem, supra, at pp . 55–58 .
103 Walvin, supra, at p . 91 .
104 Olaudah Equiano quoted in
California Task Force to Study and
Develop Reparation Proposals for
African Americans (September 23,
2021), Testimony of Dr. Daina Ramey
Berry, (as of Jan . 26, 2022) .
105 Mustakeem, supra, at pp . 59–62 .
106 Walvin, supra, at pp . 95–96 .
107 Mustakeem, supra, at pp . 64–70 .
108 Id. at pp . 132–136 .
109 Walvin, supra, at pp . 86, 91–92;
Mustakeem, supra, at pp . 136–144 .
110 Mustakeem, supra, at pp . 81–90 .
111 Id. at pp . 62–64, 71-72 .
112 Id. at pp . 82–90 .
113 Id. at pp . 76–82, 94–101 .
114 Id. at pp . 188–189 .
115 Kolchin, supra, at p . 19 .
116 Walvin, supra, at pp . 90-91 .
117 –Ibid .
118 Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade—Estimates,
SlaveVoyages (as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
119 Rediker, supra, at p . 5 .
120 Mustakeem, supra, at pp . 160–165 .
121 Patterson, supra, at p . 5 .
122 See Section VI below on these new
communities and culture .
123 Foner, Forever Free: The Story of
Emancipation and Reconstruction
(2005), p . 8 (Forever Free) .
124 Ibid .
125 Kolchin, supra, at pp . 24–26 .
126 Ibid .
127 African Impact on Colonial Agriculture,
The American Revolution,
Colonial Williamsburg (as of
March 15, 2022) (African Impact) .
128 Seck, Bouki fait Gombo: A History of
the Slave Community of Habitation
Haydel (Whitney Plantation) Louisiana,
1750 – 1860 (2014), chapter 3; Schafer,
Indigo Cultivation: Life at Governor James
Grant’s Villa Plantation, Florida History
Online (as of March 15, 2022) .
129 African Impact, supra .
130 Kolchin, supra, at pp . 26–27 .
131 Ibid .
132 Id. at p . 27 .
133 Forever Free, supra, at p . 8 .
134 Id. at pp . 8–9 .
135 Baptist, supra, at p . 4; American
Revolution, Slavery and Remembrance:

A Guide to Sites, Museums, and
Memory, Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation (as of Dec . 10, 2021) .
136 Forever Free, supra, at pp . 8–9 .
137 Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776)
(as of Jan . 24, 2022) (Declaration) .
138 Forever Free, supra, at p . 9 .
139 Thomas Day, quoted in Chernow,
Alexander Hamilton (2004), p . 307 .
140 Forever Free, supra, at p . 9 .
141 Abigail Adams, quoted in Forever
Free, supra, at p . 9 .
142 Jefferson’s Attitudes Toward Slavery,
Jefferson and Slavery, Monticello
(as of Nov . 2, 2021) .
143 Jefferson, Jefferson's "original Rough
draught" of the Declaration of Independence,
Declaring Independence: Drafting the
Documents, Library of Congress (as of
Jan . 24, 2022) (Original Rough Draught) .
144 Ibid .
145 Jefferson, Notes of the Proceedings in the
Continental Congress, 7 June – 1 August,
1776, Library of Congress, Founders
Online (as of Jan . 24, 2022) (Notes) .
146 Ibid .
147 Ibid .
148 Ibid .
149 Declaration, supra .
86 Chapter 2 Enslavement
150 Forever Free, supra, at p . 9 .
151 Nash, The African Americans’ Revolution,
in the Oxford Handbook of the
American Revolution, edited by
Jane Kamensky and Edward G .

Gray (2012), p . 261 (Nash) .
152 Kolchin, supra, at pp . 70–71 .
153 Nash, supra, at pp . 258–259 .
154 Id. at pp . 259–260 .
155 Kolchin, supra, at pp . 72–73 .
156 Id. at p . 73 .
157 Nash, supra, at pp . 256–257 .
158 Id. at pp . 254–256 .
159 Id. at p . 254–255 .
160 Id. at p . 254 .
161 Kolchin, supra, at p . 78 .
162 Id. at pp . 78–79 .
163 Id. at p . 78; Massachusetts Constitution of
1780, Part 1, Article 1 (as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
164 Nash, supra, at p . 258 .
165 Kolchin, supra, at p . 78 .
166 Id. at pp . 78-79 .
167 –Ibid .
168 Id. at p . 77 .
169 Id. at pp . 77–78 .
170 Ibid .
171 Forever Free, supra, at pp . 9–10 .
172 Ibid .
173 Slaves who Gained Freedom, Thomas
Jefferson Encyclopedia, Monticello,
(as of Jan . 24, 2022) (Gained Freedom) .
174 Gained Freedom, supra; The Life of Sally
Hemings, Monticello (as of Jan . 24,
2022) . After Jefferson’s death, his family
allowed Sally Hemings to leave without
pursuing her, effectively setting her free .
175 Baptist, supra, at p . 18 .
176 Kolchin, supra, at pp . 85–86 .
177 Baptist, supra, at p . xxiii .
178 Ibid .; Bourne, Slavery in the United
States, EH .Net, Economic
History Association .
179 Baptist, supra, at p . 18 .
180 Forever Free, supra, at pp . 10–11 .
181 Baptist, supra, at pp . 18, 82 .
182 Kolchin, supra, at pp . 94–96 .
183 Krauthamer, Black Slaves, Indian
Masters: Slavery, Emancipation, and
Citizenship in the Native American
South (2013), pp . 7–8 (Krauthamer) .
184 Id. at pp . 17–19, 38–39 .
185 Baptist, supra, at pp . 228–229 .
186 Krauthamer, supra, at pp . 42–43 .
187 Naylor, African Cherokees in Indian
Territory: From Chattel to
Citizens (2008), p . 1 .
188 Baptist, supra, at pp . 9–11 .
189 US Constitution, Article I, Section 9,
Clause 1 .
190 Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade—Estimates,
SlaveVoyages (as of March 14, 2022) .
191 US Constitution, Article I, Section 8,
Clause 15; and US Constitution,
Article IV, Section 4 .
192 Waldstreicher, How the Constitution was
Indeed Pro-Slavery (Sept . 19,
2015) The Atlantic (as of Jan .
24, 2022) (Waldstreicher) .
193 US Constitution, Article IV, Section 2,
Clause 3 .
194 Rael, A Compact for the Good of
America?: Slavery and the Three-Fifths
Compromise (Dec . 19, 2016) Black
Perspectives, African American
Intellectual History Society
(as of Feb . 9, 2022) (Rael) .
195 Ibid .
196 Ibid .
197 Ibid .
198 Ibid .
199 US Constitution, Article I, Section 2,
Clause 3 .
200 Rael, supra .
201 Baptist, supra, at pp . 9–10 .
202 US Constitution, Article II, Section 1,
Clause 2 .
203 Baptist, supra, at p . 9 .
204 Wilentz, Constitutionally, Slavery is no
National Institution (Sept . 16,
2015) New York Times (as of Jan .
24, 2022) (Constitutionally) .
205 US Constitution, Article IV, Section 2,
Clause 3 .
206 US Constitution, Article I, Section 2,
Clause 3 .
207 Wilentz, No Property in Man: Slavery
and Antislavery at the Nation’s
Founding (2018), pp . 10–11 .
208 Constitutionally, supra .
209 Ibid .
210 Waldstreicher, supra .
211 Richards, The Slave Power: The Free
North and Southern Domination, 1780
– 1860 (2000), pp . 41–45 (Richards) .
212 Waldstreicher, supra .
213 Presidents who owned enslaved peo-
ple while in office included George
Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James
Madison, James Monroe, Andrew
Jackson, John Tyler, James K . Polk,
and Zachary Taylor . See Rosenwald,
Slave-owning presidents become tar-
gets of protestors (June 3, 2020)
Washington Post (as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
214 Richards, supra, at p . 9 .
215 Ibid .
216 Weil and Adrian Blanco, More than
1,700 Congressmen Once Enslaved Black
People. This Is Who They Were, and
How They Shaped the Nation (Jan . 20,
2022) Washington Post (As of January
24, 2022) (Weil and Blanco) .
217 iIbid .
218 Baptist, supra, at p . 12 .
219 Richards, supra, at pp . 48–49 .
220 Khalil Gibran Muhammad, The Sugar
that Saturates the American Diet
has a Barbaric History as the “White
Gold” that Fueled Slavery (August
14, 2019) New York Times (as of
March 14, 2022) (Muhammad) .
221 Ibid .
222 Forever Free, supra, at pp . 28–29;
Richards, supra, pp . 78–79 .
223 Baptist, supra, at pp . 154–158 .
224 Kolchin, supra, at pp . 94–97 .
87 Chapter 2 Enslavement
225 Baptist, supra, at pp . 2–3 .
226 Pritchett, Quantitative Estimates of
the United States Interregional
Slave Trade, 1820 – 1860 (June
2001) 61 J . of Econ . Hist . 474 .
227 Baptist, supra, at pp . 2–3 .
228 Id. at p . 17 .
229 Id. at pp . 17–19, 23 .
230 Id. at pp . 18–32 .
231 Ibid .
232 Rothman, The Ledger and the Chain:

How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped
America (2021), pp . 91–92 .
233 Baptist, supra, at pp . 1–2 .
234 Ibid .
235 Ball, Slavery in the United States: A
Narrative of the Life and Adventures of
Charles Ball, a Black Man (1837), p . 69 .
236 Baptist, supra, at pp . 87 – 88 .
237 Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the
Antebellum Slave Market (1999),
pp . 2-3 (Soul by Soul) .
238 Id. at pp . 119–121 .
239 Id. at pp . 2–3 .
240 Id. at p . 164 .
241 Id. at pp . 129–130 .
242 Id. at pp . 121–123 .
243 Id. at pp . 141–142, 145 .
244 Id. at pp . 130 .
245 Id. supra, at pp . 143–144, 147–149 .
246 Id. supra, at p . 58 .
247 Berry, The Price for their Pound of
Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from
Womb to Grave, in the Building of
a Nation (2017), pp . 66–70 (Berry) .
248 Baptist, supra, at pp . 102–103 .
249 Soul by Soul, supra, at pp . 153–154;
Berry, supra, at p . 18 .
250 Berry, supra, at pp . 46–47 , 136–137 .
251 Id. at p . 18, 78–83 .
252 Id. at p . 18; Baptist, supra, at pp .
240–243 .
253 Soul by Soul, supra, at pp . 143–144 .
254 Northup, Twelve Years a Slave (1853),
pp . 80–82, 84–88 (Northup) .
255 Baptist, supra, at pp . 116–124 .
256 Dattel, Cotton in a Global Economy:

Mississippi (1800 – 1860) (October
2006) Mississippi History Now
(as of March 15, 2022) .
257 Northup, supra, at pp . 163–165 .
258 Id . at pp . 165–167 .
259 Id. at p . 168 .
260 Id. at pp . 163–168 .
261 Id. at p . 171 .
262 Id. at p . 172 .
263 Baptist, supra, at pp . 116–117 .
264 Ibid .
265 Rosenthal, Reckoning with Slavery:

How Revisiting Management’s
Uncomfortable Past Can Help Us
Confront Challenges Today (2021)
20 Academy of Management
Learning & Ed . 467-472 .
266 Baptist, supra, at pp . 120–123 .
267 Douglass, Narrative of the Life of
Frederick Douglass, An American
Slave . Written by Himself
(1845), p . 11 (Douglass) .
268 Northup, supra, at p . 165 .
269 Id. at pp . 165, 167–168 .
270 Id. at p . 177 .
271 Id. at pp . 127–128 .
272 Id. at p . 128 .
273 Ibid .
274 Id. at pp . 170–171 .
275 Id. at p . 170 .
276 Douglass, supra, at pp . 10-11 .
277 Id. at pp . 26–27 .
278 Id. at p . 27 .
279 Northup, supra, at 168 .
280 Berry, supra, at pp . 78–83 .
281 Douglass, supra, at pp . 3–4 .
282 Ibid .
283 Berry, supra, at pp . 78–80 .
284 Douglass, supra, at pp . 62–63 .
285 Forever Free, supra, at p . 16 .
286 Id. at pp . 16–17 .
287 Berlin, supra, at pp . 130–131 .
288 Id. at p . 130; Forever Free, supra, at p .
16; Kolchin, supra, at p . 140 .
289 Kolchin, supra, at p . 140; Berlin, supra,
at pp . 130–131 .
290 Berlin, supra, at p . 130 .
291 Id. at pp . 132–133 .
292 Forever Free, supra, at p . 16 .
293 Ibid .
294 Kolchin, supra, pp . 149–150 .
295 Ibid .
296 Raboteau, African American Religion
(1999), p . 54-56 (Raboteau) .
297 Id. at pp . 55–57 .
298 Forever Free, supra, at p . 20 .
299 Ibid .
300 Id. at pp . 19–20 .
301 Id . at pp . 20–21 .
302 Ibid . quoting Alice Sewall .
303 Forever Free, supra, at p . 23 .
304 Id. at pp . 22–23 .
305 Farrow et . al, Complicity: How the
North Promoted, Prolonged, and
Profited from Slavery (2005),
p, 95–99 (Complicity) .
306 Id. at pp . 98–99 .
307 Ibid .
308 Id. at p . 95 .
309 Ibid .
310 Ibid .
311 Mintz, Historical Context: Was Slavery the
Engine of American Economic Growth?,
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American
History (as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
312 Complicity, supra, at pp . 6, 25–26 .
313 U .S . Bureau of the Census,
Manufactures of the United States in
1860; complied from the original re-
turns of the Eighth Census under the
direction of the Secretary of the Interior
(1865), p . x (1860 Census) . (as of
Jan . 24, 2022) (1860 US Census) .
88 Chapter 2 Enslavement
314 Ibid .
315 White New Yorkers in Slave Times, Slavery
in New York virtual exhib-
it, p . 1 (as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
316 Slave Market, Mapping the African
American Past, Columbia
University Center for Teaching and
Learning (as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
317 Foner, Gateway to Freedom: The
Hidden History of the Underground
Railroad (2015), pp . 43–44 (Gateway) .
318 Id. at pp . 44–45 .
319 Ibid .
320 –Ibid .
321 Sidel, A Historian's Quest Links J.P. Morgan
To Slave Ownership; Bank's Distant
Predecessor Took Human Collateral For
Rich Client's Debt (May 10, 2005) Wall
Street Journal (as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
322 Swarns, Insurance Policies on Slaves: New
York Life’s Complicated Past (Dec .
18, 2016) New York Times (as
of Jan . 24, 2022) (Swarns) .
323 Supporting the Trade, Purchased Lives,
The Historic New Orleans
Collection, (as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
324 Swarns, supra.
325 State of California, Slavery Era Insurance
Policies, SB 2199, Chapter 934
(2000), (as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
326 Thomas, The hidden links between slavery
and Wall Street (Aug . 29, 2019) BBC
News (as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
327 Gateway, supra, at p . 45 .
328 White, Building Havemeyer Hall: Charles
Frederick Chandler and the Sugar
Refining Industry, Columbia University
and Slavery, Columbia University
(as of Jan . 24, 2022) (White) .
329 Ibid .
330 Domino Sugar Factory, NYC-Arts: The
Complete Guide (as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
331 Domino Sugar, ASR Group (as of Jan .
24, 2022) .
332 Staples, A Fate Worse Than Slavery,
Unearthed in Sugar Land (Oct .
27 , 2018) New York Times (as
of Jan . 24, 2022) (Staples) .
333 Ibid .
334 Hardy, Angola Inmates Make Sugar Cane
Syrup the Old-Fashioned Way (Dec . 23,
2014) The Advocate (as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
335 Beckert, Katherine Stevens, et al .,
Harvard and Slavery: Seeking a Forgotten
History (2011), p . 11 (as of Jan . 24,
2022) (Harvard and Slavery) .
336 Id. at pp . 11-12, 15–17 .
337 Slavery and Justice: Report of the Brown
University Steering Committee on Slavery
and Justice (2006), pp . 14–17 (as of Jan .
24, 2022) (Slavery and Justice) . One
of the Brown brothers, Moses, con-
verted to Quakerism, emancipated
the enslaved people he owned, and
became an antislavery activist .
338 Id. at pp . 12–13 .
339 Id. at pp . 13–14 .
340 Gutmann, Statement on Penn’s
Connections to Slavery (June 28, 2018)
Penn Today (as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
341 Sandweiss and Craig Hollander,
Princeton and Slavery: Holding the Center,
Princeton University (as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
342 Foner, Columbia and Slavery: A
Preliminary Report, Columbia
University (as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
343 Remnick, Y ale Grapples With Ties to
Slavery in Debate Over a College’s
Name (Sept . 11, 2015) New York
Times (as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
344 Cano, A Complicated History: Slavery at
Dartmouth (Feb . 19, 2020) The
Dartmouth (as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
345 Oast, Institutional Slavery:

Slaveholding Churches, Schools,
Colleges, and Businesses in
Virginia, 1680 – 1860 (2016), p .
10 (Institutional Slavery) .
346 Ibid .
347 Ibid .
348 Oast, “The Worst Kind of Slavery”:

Slave-owning Presbyterian
Churches in Prince Edward County,
Virginia (November 2010) 76 J .
of Southern Hist . 867–868 .
349 Institutional Slavery, supra, at p . 131 .
350 Id. at pp . 131, 133–136 .
351 Id. at p . 147 .
352 Id. at p . 156 .
353 Swarns, 272 Slaves were Sold to Save
Georgetown. What Does it Owe their
Descendants? (April 16,2016) New
York Times (as of Jan . 24, 2022)
(Sold to Save Georgetown) .
354 Ibid . Another enslaving Jesuit institu-
tion was Saint Louis University . See
Dorn, Confronting SLU’s History With
Slavery (Oct . 4, 2019) The University
News (as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
355 Report of the Working Group on Slavery,
Memory, and Reconciliation to the President
of Georgetown University (2016), pp . 13-15
(as of Jan . 24, 2022) (Working Group) .
356 Id. at p . 14 .
357 Id. at p . 16 .
358 Id. at p . 15 .
359 Baptist, supra, p . 239 .
360 Ericson, The Federal Government and
Slavery: Following the Money Trail
(Spring 2005) 19 Stud . in Amer .

Pol . Dev . 107 (Ericson) .
361 Id. at pp . 108 – 110 .
362 Id. at pp . 110 – 112 .
363 Id. at pp . 112 – 115 .
364 Id. at p . 115 .
365 Fehrenbacher and McAfee, The
Slaveholding Republic: An Account
of the United States Government’s
Relations to Slavery (2002), pp .
61–62 (Slaveholding Republic) .
366 Id. at p . 63 .
367 Id. at p . 67 .
368 Jeff Forret, The Notorious “Yellow House”
that Made Washington, D.C. a Slavery
Capital (July 22, 2020) Smithsonian
Magazine (as of March 14, 2022) .
369 Northup, supra, at p . 43 .
370 Bell, Commentary: Enslaved Labor and
the Capitol (2003) United States Capitol
Historical Society (as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
371 Mann, Building the White House, The
White House Historical Association,
(as of Jan . 24, 2022) .
89 Chapter 2 Enslavement
372 Forever Free, supra, at pp . 25–27 .
373 Ibid .
374 Gateway, supra, at pp . 4–7 .
375 Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free
Men: The Ideology of the Republican
Party Before the Civil War (1970),
pp . 11–18, 27–29, 54-58 .
376 Forever Free, supra, at pp . 28–31 .
377 Id. at pp . 28–29 .
378 Rathbun, The Debate over Annexing
Texas and the Emergence of
Manifest Destiny, 4 Rhetoric
and Pub . Affairs 459-494 .
379 Kendi, supra, at p . 186 .
380 Smith, Freedom’s Frontier: California
and the Struggle over Unfree Labor,
Emancipation, and Reconstruction
(2013), p . 7 (Freedom’s Frontier) .
381 Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at pp . 7–8 .
382 Forever Free, supra, at pp . 29–30 .
383 Gateway, supra, at pp . 119–120 .
384 Id. at pp . 124–125 .
385 Id. at pp . 125–130 .
386 McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom:

The Civil War Era (1988),
p . 86 (McPherson) .
387 Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at p . 9 .
388 Id. at pp . 7–8 .
389 Id. at p . 9 .
390 Smith, Remaking Slavery in a Free
State: Masters and Slaves in Gold
Rush California (Feb . 2011) 80 Pacific
Hist . Rev . 33 (Remaking Slavery) .
391 Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at p . 7 .
392 Lapp, Blacks in Gold Rush California
(1977), pp . 4–9, 130–139 (Lapp) .
393 Id. at pp . 240–245 .
394 Poor census taking in isolated mining
camps, the constant population flux, the
loss or destruction of census returns,
and the possible desire of enslavers to
hide enslavement from census tak-
ers, make it impossible to construct a
complete picture of enslavement in
1850s California . On these difficulties,
see Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at pp .
237–238; and Lapp, supra, at pp . 64-65 .
395 Lapp, supra, at p . 65 .
396 Freedom’s Frontier, su-
pra, at pp . 40, 257 .
397 Id. at p . 44 .
398 Rohrbough, Days of Gold: The
California Gold Rush and the American
Nation (1997), pp . 256–261 (Rohrbough) .
399 Id. at pp . 211–214 .
400 Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at pp .
239–245 .
401 Rohrbough, supra, at pp . 136–138 .
402 Baur, The Health Factor in the Gold Rush
Era (Feb . 1949) 18 Pacific
Hist . Rev . 97–105 .
403 Inscoe, Mountain Masters: Slavery
and the Sectional Crisis in Western
North Carolina (1996), p . 73 .
404 Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at p . 259 .
405 Id. at pp . 239–245 .
406 For some examples, see Beasley, The
Negro Trail Blazers of California
(1919), pp . 70–71 .
407 Remaking Slavery, supra, at pp . 38-39;
Lapp, supra, at pp . 132–133 .
408 A Slave Flogged in San Jose (Feb . 16, 1850)
Daily Alta California, p . 2, col . 3 .
409 Slaveholding in California (Aug . 30,
1850), Liberator, p . 140, col . 5 .
410 An Illustrated History of Los Angeles
County, California (1889), pp . 358
– 359; Letter from California (Oct . 11,
1850) Liberator, p . 161 col . 3 .
411 Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at pp . 52-54 .
412 Id. at pp . 57–63 .
413 Id. at p . 54 .
414 Id. at pp . 50–52 .
415 Id. at pp . 52–54 .
416 Cal . Const . of 1849, art . I, § 18 .
417 Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at p . 65 .
418 Id. at p . 7 .
419 Id. at p . 8 .
420 An Act Respecting Fugitives from
Labor, and Slaves brought to this State
prior to her Admission into the Union,
April 15, 1852, ch . 33, California Statutes,
at 67–69 (An Act Respecting Fugitives) .
421 Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at pp . 66–67 .
422 An Act Respecting Fugitives;
Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at pp . 67–70 .
423 Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at pp .
67–70 .
424 Id. at pp . 67–68 .
425 An Act Respecting Fugitives;
Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at pp . 67–69 .
426 Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at pp . 71–72 .
427 An Act to Amend an Act respecting
Fugitives from Labor and Slaves
Brought to this State prior to her
Admission into the Union, Act of April
15, 1853, ch . 67 , Cal . Stat ., at 94 .
428 An Act Amendatory to an Act to
Amend an Act respecting Fugitives
from Labor and Slaves Brought to
this State prior to her Admission
into the Union, Act of April 13,
1854, ch . 22, Cal . Stat ., at 30 .
429 Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at pp . 71–72 .
430 In re Perkins, 2 Cal . 424 (1852);
Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at pp . 70–71 .
431 The three men had arrived in
California in 1849 with Charles Perkins,
the son of their enslaver . When Charles
Perkins went back to Mississippi in 1851,
he informally emancipated the men .

Once he heard about the new California
fugitive slave law, Perkins decided to
use it to reclaim the men and force
them to return to Mississippi as slaves .
432 In re Perkins, 2 Cal . 424 (1852) .
433 Id. at pp . 455–457 .
434 Id. at pp . 452–455 .
435 Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) 60 U .S . 393;
In fact, one California antislavery attor-
ney asserted that the lawyers for Dred
Scott’s enslavers cited the California
case of In re Perkins as a precedent to
support Scott’s continued enslave-
ment . For this evidence, see Cornelius
Cole, “Judicial Influence--Politics
upon the Bench, no . 3,” scrapbook
no . 1, box 38, Cole Family Papers,
Charles E . Young Research Library,
Department of Special Collections,
University of California-Los Angeles .
436 These include: 1) the Lathrop case,
described in Lapp, supra, at pp . 141–142;
90 Chapter 2 Enslavement
2) the Perkins case, described in In re
Perkins, 2 Cal . 424 (1852); 3) the case of
Harriet Jordan, described in Another
Fugitive Slave Case (Sept . 22, 1852) Daily
Alta California p . 2, col . 2 and A Fugitive
Slave Case (Sept . 22, 1852) Placer Times
and Transcript p . 3, col . 1; 4) an anon-
ymous enslaved woman in El Dorado
County, described in Fugitive Slave Case
(Oct . 2, 1852), Sacramento Daily Union
p . 2, col . 3; 5) the case of Lucy Brown,
described in Fugitive Slave (April 20,
1853) Daily Alta California, p . 2, col . 2;
6) the O’Neil case, described in Habeas
Corpus (Jan . 19, 1854) Sacramento Daily
Union p . 3, col . 2; 7) the case of an
anonymous enslaved boy in Marysville,
described in Kidnapping (March 31,
1854), Daily Alta California p .2, col . 2
and The Kidnapping Case (April 1, 1854)
Placer Times and Transcript p . 2, col .
4; 8) the case of Stephen Spencer Hill,
described in Johnson, Roaring Camp:

The Social World of the California
Gold Rush (2000), pp . 67 – 68, 191
(Roaring Camp); 9) the Kibbe case,
described in untitled article (April 7 ,
1855) Daily Alta California, p . 2, col .
4; and 10) the case of George Mitchell,
described in Lapp, supra, at p . 147 .
437 Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at pp . 71–73 .
438 Remaking Slavery, supra, at pp . 49–50 .
439 Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at pp .
75–76 .
440 These include: 1) The case of Bridget
“Biddy” Mason, Hannah, and their
enslaved children and grandchildren,
described in Taylor, In Search of the
Racial Frontier: African Americans in the
American West, 1528 – 1990 (1998), pp .
79–80 (Taylor); 2) the case of Archy Lee,
described in Freedom’s Frontier, supra,
at pp . 76–78; 3) the Mathews case, de-
scribed in Alleged Abduction Case (Jan . 21,
1859) San Francisco Bulletin, p . 3, col . 2;
4) the case of Nathaniel Rice, described
in Almost an ‘ Archy Case’ (Aug . 20, 1860)
San Francisco Bulletin, p . 3, col . 5; 5) the
case of John Turner, described in Attempt
to Kidnap (Jan . 25, 1861) Sacramento
Daily Union p . 3, col . 2; and 6) the case
of Ada (Edith) Blue, described in Smith,
California’s Last Slave Case (March 5, 2014)
New York Times (as of Jan . 26, 2022) .
441 Taylor, supra, at pp . 79–80 .
442 Freedom’s Frontier, su-
pra, at pp . 76-78 .
443 Cal . Const . of 1849, art . II, § 1 .
444 Richards, The California Gold Rush
and the Coming of the Civil
War (2007), pp . 73–77 .
445 Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at p . 61 .
446 Greg Nokes, Black Exclusion Laws in
Oregon, Oregon Encyclopedia
(as of December 7 , 2021) .
447 Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at p . 61 .
448 Ibid .
449 State of California, Journal of the
Senate, 2nd sess . (1851) 19 – 21 .
450 Ibid .
451 Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at pp . 61–63 .
452 An Act Regulating Marriages, April 22,
1850, ch . 140, § 3, Cal . Stat ., at 424 .
453 An Act extending the Privileges of the
Homestead Law to certain Persons,
and to Regulate the Creation of
the Same, March 18, 1860, ch .
120, § 2, Cal . Stats ., at 87-88 .
454 Smith, Dred Scott on the Pacific:

African Americans, Citizenship, and
Subjecthood in the North American
West (Spring 2018) 100 S . California
Hist . Q . 50 (Dred Scott on the Pacific) .
455 Lapp, supra, at pp . 196–197 .
456 Id. at pp . 239–245 .
457 Dred Scott on the Pacific,
supra, at p . 46 .
458 Forever Free, supra, at pp . 30–31 .
459 McPherson, supra, at pp . 145–149 .
460 Forever Free, supra, at pp . 30–32 .
461 McPherson, supra, at pp . 56–57 .
462 Ibid .
463 Kendi, supra, at pp . 179 – 180 .
464 Id. at pp . 203–204 .
465 Ibid .
466 Id. at p . 203 .
467 Baptist, supra, at p . 377 .
468 Jones, Birthright Citizens: A History of
Race and Rights in Antebellum
America (2018), p . 1 (Jones) .
469 Id. at pp . 1, 9 – 10, 12 – 13 .
470 Id. at p . 14 .
471 Kendi, supra, at p . 212 .
472 Id. at p . 214 .
473 Baptist, supra, at pp . 389–390 .
474 Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham
Lincoln and American Slavery
(2010), pp . 161–162 (Fiery Trial) .
475 Constitution of the Confederate States,
March 11, 1861, Article I, section 9,
clause 4 (as of Apr . 25, 2022) .
476 Id. at Article IV, section 3, clause 3 .
477 Alexander H . Stephens, ‘Cornerstone’
Speech, March 21, 1861 <>
(as of Apr . 25, 2022) .
478 Levine, Confederate Emancipation:

Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves During
the Civil War (2006), pp . 26–36 (Levine) .
479 Id. at pp . 40–49 .
480 Letter from Howell Cobb to James A.

Seddon, January 1, 1865, Encyclopedia
Virginia (as of Apr . 25, 2022) .
481 Martinez, Black Confederates (April 23,
2021) Encyclopedia Virginia
(as of March 15, 2022) .
482 Forever Free, supra, at pp . 42–44 .
483 Berlin, Who Freed the Slaves?:

Emancipation and its Meaning, in Union
and Emancipation: Essays on Politics
and Race in the Civil War Era, edited by
David W . Blight and Brooks D . Simpson
(1997), p . 111 (Who Freed the Slaves?) .
484 Woodward, Marching Masters:

Slavery, Race, and the Confederate Army
During the Civil War (2014), p . 107 .
485 Who Freed the Slaves?, supra, at p . 111 .
486 Army Engineer to the Headquarters
of the Department of the South (Apr . 3,
1863), cited in Berlin, Reidy & Rowlands,
eds ., Freedom: A documentary History of
Emancipation, 1861-1867, Series II: The
Black Military Experience (1982) p . 56 .
487 Confiscation Acts, Mr . Lincoln and
Freedom: An American History
91 Chapter 2 Enslavement
Project of the Lehrman Institute (as
of March 15, 2022) (Confiscation Acts) .
488 Ibid .
489 Weil and Blanco, supra .
490 Ibid .
491 Who Freed the Slaves?, supra, at p . 117 .
492 Ibid .
493 Forever Free, supra, at p . 48 .
494 Emancipation Proclamation, Jan 1 . 1863
(as of Apr . 25, 2022) .
495 Forever Free, supra, at p . 51 .
496 Id. at p . 50 .
497 Militia Act of 1862, 12 Stat . at 597–600 (as
of Apr . 25, 2022) .
498 Forever Free, supra, at p . 52 .
499 Ibid .
500 Mouser, The United States Colored
Troops (1863-1865) (July 22,
2017) BlackPast .org . (as of
Jan . 26, 2022) (Mouser) .
501 Mintz, Historical Context: Black Soldiers
in the Civil War, Gilder Lehrman Institute
of American History (as of Jan . 26,
2022) (Black Soldiers in the Civil War) .
502 Black Soldiers in the Civil War, supra .
503 Mouser, supra .
504 Hanna, African American Recipients
of the Medal of Honor: A Biographical
Dictionary, Civil War through
Vietnam War (2002), p . 10 (Hanna) .
505 Black Soldiers in the US Military During the
Civil War (Sept . 1, 2017) National Archives
(as of Jan . 26, 2022) (National Archives)
506 Black Soldiers in the Civil War, supra .
507 Ibid .
508 Ibid .
509 National Archives, supra .
510 Ibid .
511 Douglas to Robert Hamilton (June 9,
1863) quoted in The Black Abolitionist
Papers, Volume V, The United
States, 1859 – 1865, edited by C .

Peter Ripley (1992), p . 212 .
512 Id. at p . 213 .
513 Black Soldiers in the Civil War, supra .
514 Ibid .
515 Hanna, supra, at pp . 22–25 .
516 Id. at p . vii .
517 Forever Free, supra, at p . 53 .
518 Lincoln, Order by the President, July 30,
1863, Freedmen and Southern
Society Project (as of Apr . 25, 2022) .
519 The Fort Pillow Massacre, 1864: A Spotlight
on a Primary Source, Gilder Lehrman
Institute of American History (as
of Jan . 26, 2022) (Fort Pillow) .
520 Ibid .
521 Ibid .
522 The Historical Legacy of Juneteenth (June
19, 2019) National Museum of
African American History and
Culture, Smithsonian Institution
(as of Jan . 26, 2022) (Juneteenth) .
523 Ibid .
524 Kolchin, supra, at p . 207 .
525 US Constitution, Amdt . 13, section 1,
clause 1 .
526 US Constitution, Amdt . 13, section 2,
clause 1 .
527 Greene and McAward, A Common
Interpretation: The Thirteenth Amendment
(Dec . 6, 2016) National Constitution
Center (as of March 11, 2022) .
528 Forever Free, supra, at pp . xix–xx .
529 Id. at pp . 61–63 .
530 Id. at pp . 79–80,
531 Id. at pp . 78–79 .
532 Id. at pp . 79–80, 109–110 .
533 Petrella and Loggins, “This is a Country
for White Men”: White Supremacy and U.S.

Politics (Jan . 5 . 2017) Black Perspectives,
African American Intellectual History
Society (as of March 15, 2022) .
534 Forever Free, supra, at pp . 107–113,
116–117 , 145-146 .
535 Id. at pp . 113–122 .
536 Id. at pp . 111–115 .
537 Id. at pp . 111–113 .
538 Id. at pp . 113-115, 142 .
539 Id. at pp . 82-83, 91 .
540 Id. at pp . 88–89 .
541 Id. at pp . 83–84 .
542 Id. at pp . 89–90 .
543 Id. at pp . 95–96 .
544 Id. at pp . 95–96 .
545 Id. at pp . 112, 141–42 .
546 Freedmen’s Bureau Bill (Mar . 3, 1865)
Chap . XC, § 2, 13 Stat . 507 .
547 Reich, A Working People, supra, p . 13 .
548 See Foner, Reconstruction: America’s
Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877
(2011) pp . 68-69; Gates, Jr ., The Truth
Behind “40 Acres and a Mule” African
Am . Hist . Blog (2013) (as of Apr . 10,
2022); see also Reich, A Working
People, supra, p . 11 (discussing freed-
men’s view of land ownership as
key to economic autonomy) .
549 Baradaran, The Color of Money, supra,
p . 16, citing Fleming, “Forty Acres and a
Mule” (1906) 182 North Am . Rev . 721, 729 .
550 Reich, A Working People: A History of
African American Workers Since
Emancipation (2013) pp . 11-12 .
551 Id. at p . 12 .
552 Id. at pp . 13-15 .
553 Id. at pp . 141–42 .
554 Id. at p . 12 .
555 Baradaran, The Color of Money, supra,
p . 19; Reich, A Working
People, supra, p . 10
556 Baradaran, The Color of Money, supra,
p . 19 .
557 Baradaran, The Color of Money, supra,
p . 17 .
558 Reich, A Working People, supra, p . 15 .
559 Id. at pp . 13-15; see also Baradaran,
The Color of Money, supra, p . 18 (dis-
cussing President Johnson’s view that
capitalism, free trade, and the law
of supply and demand would suffice
to allow freedmen to secure remu-
neration and acquire land without
the help of the state, even as the
government was aiding private in-
dustry and after the government had
given away land to white settlers) .
92 Chapter 2 Enslavement
560 Id. at pp . 113–115 .
561 Ibid .
562 An Act to Protect all Persons in the
United States in their Civil Rights,
and furnish the Means of their
Vindication (the Civil Rights Act of
1866), US Statutes, Chapter 31, sec . 1
563 Forever Free, supra, at pp . 117–118 .
564 US Constitution, Amdt . 14, section 1 .
565 Jones, supra, at pp . 5, 14 .
566 Pildes and Smith, Common
Interpretation: The Fifteenth Amendment,
National Constitution Center (as of
March 15, 2022) (Common Interpretation) .
567 US Constitution, Amdt . 15, section 1 .
568 Common Interpretation, supra .
569 US Constitution, Amdt . 15, section 2 .
570 Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at pp .
209–214 .
571 Lapp, supra, at pp . 206–209 .
572 Freedom’s Frontier, supra, at pp .
177–178 .
573 Id. at pp . 207–208 .
574 Id. at pp . 207–213 .
575 Id. at pp . 210–213 .
576 Id. at p . 210 .
577 Id. at p . 213 .
578 Ibid .
579 Waite, Early California lawmakers also
preached #resistance—but against
immigration (Aug . 3, 2018) Los Angeles
Times (as of Jan . 26, 2022) .
580 Cottrell, It took 92 years for California to
ratify the 15th Amendment (June 26, 2020)
The Union (as of March 15, 2022) .
581 Ward v. Flood, 48 Cal . 36 (1874) .
582 Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U .S . 537 (1896) .
583 Forever Free, supra, at pp . 171–177 ,
194–197 .
584 Forever Free, supra, at pp . 195–197 ,
200–203 .
585 Id. at pp . 190–193, 197 .
586 Id. at p . 198 .
587 Id. at pp . 197–198 .
588 Ibid .
589 Id. at p . 198 .
590 Id. at p . 198–199 .
591 Ibid .
592 Id. at p . 194 .
593 Ibid . The key cases in the 1870s were
the Slaughter-House Cases, 83
U .S . 36 (1873) and United States v.

Cruikshank, 92 U .S . 542 (1876) .
594 Civil Rights Cases, 109 U .S . 3 (1883) .
595 An Act to protect all Citizens in their
Civil and Legal Rights, 18
US Stat . 335-337 .
596 Civil Rights Cases, 109 U .S . 3 (1883) .
597 Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U .S . 537 (1896) .
598 Janney, The Lost Cause (Feb . 24, 2022)
Encyclopedia Virginia (as of
March 15, 2022) (Janney) .
599 Ibid .
600 Ibid .
601 Whose Heritage? Public Symbols of the
Confederacy (February 1, 2019)
Southern Poverty Law Center (as of
Jan . 26, 2022) (Whose Heritage?) .
602 Ibid .
603 Ibid .
604 Ibid .
605 Boyd, Gone with the Wind and the dam-
aging effect of Hollywood racism (June
13, 2020) The Guardian (as of
March 15, 2022) (Boyd) .
606 Forever Free, supra, at pp . 217–219
(photo essay by Joshua Brown) .
607 Boyd, supra .
608 Knight, Commentary: A Fitting End to the
Last Confederate Monument in Southern
California (July 8, 2020) Los Angeles
Times (as of Jan . 26, 2022) .
609 Waite, The Struggle over Slavery Was Not
Confined to the South, LA Has a Confederate
Memorial Problem Too (August 4, 2017)
Los Angeles Times (as of Jan . 26, 2022) .

THIS PAGE INTENTIONALL Y LEFT BLANK
Racial Terror
CHAPTER 3
I . Introduction
Enslavement was followed by decades of violence and in- timidation intended to subordinate African Americans
across the United States . 1 Racial terror, and lynchings in particular, pervaded every aspect of pre- and post-en - slavement Black life . 2 African Americans faced threats of violence when they tried to vote, when they tried to buy homes in white neighborhoods, when they tried to swim
in public pools, and when they made progress through
the courts or in legislation . 3 Led and joined by promi - nent members of society, and enabled by government
officials, ordinary citizens terrorized African Americans to preserve a caste system that kept African Americans
from building the same wealth and political influence
as white Americans . 4 Racial terror also continued the generational trauma that began during enslavement . 5
While lynching, mob violence, and other forms of racial terror are no longer socially acceptable, the threat and legacy of terror continue to haunt Black communities . 6 Such violence has found a modern form in extrajudicial
killings of African Americans by police and vigilantes . 7 Racial terror targeted at successful African Americans
has contributed to the present wealth gap between Black and white Americans . 8 Today, the monitoring of polling places by white supremacist groups evokes a history of
violent suppression of Black voters . 9
This chapter chronicles the racial terror inflicted on
African Americans, including in California, and the last - ing impact of racial terror . First, this chapter addresses the overarching purpose of racial terror as a method
of social control . Second, this chapter will identify the perpetrators of racial terror, most notably the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), and their objective of preserving their dom- inance in society . This chapter pays special attention to the KKK’s history and spread in California . Third, this chapter will discuss the various forms of racial terror, such as lynching, mob violence, and sexual violence . The chapter also identifies numerous instances of racial ter - ror in California . This chapter shows how racial terror allowed white Americans to politically, economically,
and socially subordinate African Americans . Finally, this chapter will discuss the consequences of racial terror, such as intergenerational trauma and the racial wealth
gap, which continue to this day .

COURTESY OF JACK BENTON/ ARCHIVE PHOTOS VIA GETTY IMAGES Ku Klux Klan members. (c. 1920)
95 Chapter 3 Racial T error
II . Objectives of Racial Terror: Social, Political,
and Economic Oppression
The practice of racial terror began during enslavement
and has continued ever since, developing through
Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the 20th century, and today .

A critical key to understanding the widespread use of
racial terror is recognizing how its perpetrators sought to oppress African Americans socially, psychological -
ly, politically, and economically in order to maintain a racial hierarchy .

As the journalist Isabel Wilkerson argues, a caste system is a social hierarchy created by people in a community that separates groups of human beings based on ancestry, skin color, or other characteristics that cannot be changed . 10 In a caste system, one group of human beings is believed to be superior, while other groups are believed to be in - ferior and treated as less than human . 11 In the racially ordered caste system of the United States, white people occupy this higher social position . 12 One pillar holding up the American racial caste system is the use of physical and psychological terror, which serves to control African Americans and prevent resistance . 13 For this caste system to continue functioning, the rest of society, including government officials, only need to look the other way . 14 For state and local government officials, this is a neglect of their duty to protect . 15 In America, for centuries, the perpetrators of racial terror have rarely been held ac - countable for their violence, and so they have continued to enforce their dominant caste position . 16
The system of racial terror in America started during
enslavement, when whipping was a tool to control en -
slaved people and break their spirit . 17 Enslavers openly publicized their use of violence . 18 When an enslaved per- son sought freedom by escaping, enslavers sometimes
turned to torture, or invited others to kill the freedom seeker . 19 White enslavers could thus use a public display of violence to demonstrate their power over Black en -
slaved persons, scare enslaved persons into submission, and uphold the institution of enslavement . 20
Rebellions of the enslaved were also violently sup -
pressed . 21 For example, white officials purportedly
discovered an extensive conspiracy of insurrection in
Charleston, South Carolina in 1822 . 22 The enslaved, led by the free Black carpenter Denmark Vesey, alleged -
ly plotted to take over the city and kill all of its white residents, including women and children . 23 After the discovery of the alleged conspiracy, Vesey was arrested, along with dozens of enslaved persons . 24 Confessions and testimony against the alleged conspirators were
procured in at least some instances by coercion and
torture . 25 The prosecution had no physical evidence
to support its case . 26 In the end, Vesey and thirty-four others were executed, although no insurrection ever
occurred and no white person was actually killed . 27
Indeed, there is significant doubt as to whether any
such insurrection plot ever existed . 28 Then-governor of South Carolina Thomas Bennet
condemned the trial as hasty and
unreliable; his brother-in-law,
Supreme Court Justice William
Johnson, described the proceedings
as perjury and “legal murder .” 29
After the formal end of enslave -
ment, Black southerners began to
gain political and economic influence . As discussed in Chapter 2 on Enslavement, the Reconstruction Acts of
1867 gave voting rights to African Americans, and fol - lowing the laws’ enactment, Black voter turnout reached nearly 90  percent in many jurisdictions . 30 During
Reconstruction, approximately 2,000 Black men held
a public office, including 600 Black state legislators, 18 Black state executive officials, 16 Black representa - tives elected to Congress, and two of the nation’s first Black senators . 31 Nearly twenty percent of all public officials in the South were Black between 1870-1876 . 32 In spite of violence and other obstacles, Black south - erners began owning land, particularly in the Upper
South (Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, North
Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington, D .C .) . 33 Black land ownership grew to such an extent that by
1910, nearly half of the Black farmers in the Upper South owned land . 34 In addition, Black literacy rates surged from approximately 20 percent in 1870 to approximately
70 percent in 1910 . 35
In 1876, partially as a result of a disputed presidential election, Reconstruction came to an end . In ex -
change for Democrats not blocking the certification of
Republican Rutherford B . Hayes as President, Hayes and other Republicans agreed to remove federal troops from
key locations of political conflict in the South . 36 With the In America, for centuries, the perpetrators of racial terror have rarely been held accountable for their violence, and so they have continued to enforce their dominant caste position.
96 Chapter 3 Racial T error
end of Reconstruction, supporters of white supremacy
returned to power . 37 They regained political, social, and economic control, and prevented African Americans
from voting . 38 After federal troops no longer had a strong presence in the South, white southerners intensified the violent oppression of African Americans . 39 As shown in detail below, racial terror took on
many forms throughout American
history: lynchings, massacres, in -
timidation, murders, beatings, and
police killings . Today, extrajudicial
killings of African Americans by
police and vigilantes represent a
modern form of racial terror . 40
White Americans feared that newly empowered African
Americans would destroy the racial hierarchy . 41 The Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists beat, burned,
and killed African Americans . 42 Terror pervaded every aspect of Southern life and had a devastating effect on the psyche of African Americans . 43 The perpetrators’ principal goal was to use violence and intimidation to
prevent Black people from voting, achieving equality, 44 and amassing political and economic power . 45 For ex - ample, white supremacists murdered Black political
activists in the 1873 Colfax massacre and Black military members in the 1876 Hamburg massacre . 46 The Supreme
Court’s 1876 decision in United States v. Cruikshank en - abled such violence to continue by making it more
difficult to prosecute . 47 According to the then-governor of Louisiana, Cruikshank “establish[ed] the principle that hereafter no white man could be punished for killing
a Negro .” 48
White supremacists often targeted the greatest perceived threats to the caste system: Black political, economic, and social activities, and those perceived to be accom - plished members of the Black community . After the end
of Reconstruction, government actors in the South did
little to correct the view that Black people did not deserve human dignity or basic legal and political rights . 49 Across the country, white people often rejected the idea that
African Americans were equal to white Americans, 50 and used violence to preserve America’s racial caste system . 51 As explained below, racial terror advanced three main
goals: maintaining the superior social position of white people; destroying Black economic competition and
stealing Black wealth; and limiting the political influ - ence of Black people while advancing white supremacy
through government offices .

III . Perpetrators of Terror: Private Citizens,
Government Support
Throughout American history, from enslavement to
the present day, private citizens and government actors have perpetrated and enabled racial terror . Ordinary
people committed heinous acts of violence, while oth -
ers did nothing, watched, or obstructed investigations . 52 Meanwhile, government officials often did nothing to
prevent or prosecute racial terror—and sometimes en -
couraged or assisted the perpetrators . 53 Indeed, white supremacists and Ku Klux Klan members have held po -
sitions in all levels of American government . 54
Among the numerous perpetrators of racial terror, the
Ku Klux Klan was especially prominent . The KKK is not
the only hate group in American history, and oftentimes racial violence was and is committed by individuals un - associated with an organized group . 55 But because the KKK has been active and influential for several inter - vals during its long history, it is centrally important to the history of racial terror in the United States . 56 Throughout its history, the Klan has targeted members
of all racial groups, as well as Jews, Catholics, and others, but its origins were anti-Black . 57
The KKK was especially powerful during three periods .

The first iteration of the KKK lasted from 1866 until
1869 . After several decades of dormancy, the second it - eration of the KKK lasted from 1915 until about 1944 . The third version of the KKK arose in the 1950s and 1960s
and went into decline in the 1980s . Each of these itera - tions will be discussed in greater detail below .

Origins of the Ku Klux Klan
The first iteration of the Ku Klux Klan took shape in
early 1866, during Reconstruction, and formally dis -
banded in 1869 . 58 After the Civil War ended, many white According to the then-governor of Louisiana, Cruikshank “establish[ed] the principle that hereafter no white man could be punished for killing a Negro.”
97 Chapter 3 Racial T error
southerners resented Reconstruction and its policies,
which threatened their superiority . 59 Reconstruction policies led to social, political, and economic gains by formerly enslaved people . 60
Around this time, the KKK emerged to oppose
Reconstruction, led by former Confederate General
Nathan Bedford Forrest and a group of Confederate vet-
erans in Pulaski, Tennessee . 61 This first version of the KKK consisted of ex-Confederates
and other white southerners, and it
was tacitly supported by most white
southerners . 62 Their hooded cos -
tumes were intended to represent
the ghosts of Confederate soldiers
and evoke the history of slave pa -
trols . 63 Their hoods also allowed
KKK members to remain anon -
ymous as they spread fear and violence . 64 In order to re-exert control over the Black labor force and main -
tain white supremacy, the KKK used fear tactics and
violence, such as robbery, rape, arson, and murder . 65 The KKK was effective at targeting its violence and in - timidation tactics at Black voters, including hanging and beating Black officeholders . 66 It is unknown how many Black people were killed by white supremacists during
Reconstruction, though it is estimated to be in the high thousands, if not tens of thousands . 67
In the late 1860s, the KKK began to decline as it suc - cumbed to infighting and increased federal scrutiny . 68 The federal Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871, in con - junction with federal policing, helped weaken the
KKK . 69 When the KKK formally disbanded by the end
of Reconstruction, the KKK had achieved its objec -
tives, as white southerners were able to openly revive
many aspects of life during enslavement . 70 Having ef - fectively intimidated and suppressed Black voters, and
without the presence of federal troops to protect Black voters, white southerners were successful in retaking
control of state governments . 71 Once in control, white supremacists passed laws to take away the rights that
Black southerners had gained during Reconstruction . 72 It also became less necessary to wear a mask to com -
mit violent crimes against African Americans, as public lynching became an openly accepted part of Southern
culture and was tolerated by law enforcement . 73
State and local governments often looked the other way
or supported the KKK . Although state governments
passed laws in response to the KKK’s violence, these laws were seldom locally enforced . 74 Sheriffs, prosecutors, local witnesses, and jurors were sympathetic to white
supremacy or afraid of retaliation . 75 Some attacks were even led by local police . 76 Thus, few KKK members ever went to prison for their crimes . 77 And while the federal Enforcement Acts of the early 1870s helped lead to the
dissolution of the KKK, the Supreme Court largely nulli- fied the Enforcement Acts with its 1876 decision in United States v. Cruikshank, which hindered federal prosecutions and enabled white supremacist violence . 78
Second Iteration of the Ku Klux Klan
The second iteration of the Ku Klux Klan began in 1915, continued through the late 1920s and 1930s, and dis -
banded by 1944 . 79 After the end of Reconstruction, the KKK remained dormant until 1915, when the California
film industry played a unique role in reviving the KKK .

That year, celebrated filmmaker D .W . Griffith released The Birth of a Nation, which was based on Thomas Dixon’s novel The Clansman . 80 Made in and around Los Angeles, The Birth of a Nation is acknowledged both as one of the most pioneering and most rac -
ist films in cinematic history . 81
President Woodrow Wilson praised
The Birth of a Nation and showed the
film at the White House—a federal
government endorsement of white
supremacy and anti-Blackness . 82
In writing The Clansman , Dixon
openly wished to depict the “suffer-
ing” of white Southerners during
Reconstruction and to advocate
white supremacy . 83 The Birth of a
It is unknown how many Black people were killed by white supremacists during Reconstruction, though it is estimated to be in the high thousands, if not tens of thousands.
“ Armed crowds searching for a negro,” Chicago. (1922)

COURTESY OF SCHOMBURG CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN BLACK CUL TURE/THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY 98 Chapter 3 Racial T error
Nation, recognized as historically inaccurate racist propa- ganda, adhered closely to the source material’s racism . 84 For instance, the film portrayed lynching as rightful retri- bution against a Black man accused of sexually assaulting a white woman . 85 Griffith would later say that the heroic depiction of the KKK coming to rescue the South from
Black advancement during Reconstruction “was needed
to serve the purpose .” 86
The Birth of a Nation was a nationwide blockbuster, and its popularity led directly to the KKK’s revival just months after its release . 87 During a five-year national roadshow of the film from 1915 to 1919, a scholar found that the film incited significant increases in racial violence . 88 The counties where the film was shown were five times
more likely to have a lynching or race riot, and three
times more likely to have a KKK chapter after the mov - ie’s arrival . 89 As a result of this surge in recruitment, there were four to five million KKK members by the
mid-1920s . 90 The film remained a KKK recruiting tool for decades . 91
Unlike the first iteration of the KKK, this version had a broader geographic base of support beyond the South,
including in California . 92 This second version of the KKK was generally considered to be less violent, as it
focused on gaining influence through the political pro - cess . 93 In this regard, it succeeded: during the 1920s, the KKK’s membership included state government officials
in Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana,
Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas . 94 Neither major political party was willing to formally repudiate the KKK out of
fear of political repercussions . 95
Regardless of its political turn, the second iteration
of the KKK remained violent . In the summer of 1921,
the KKK engaged in whippings and tar-and-feather
raids . 96 According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the KKK also “use[d] acid to brand the letters ‘KKK’ on the foreheads of [African Americans], Jews, and others” whom the KKK considered to be anti-American . 97 In
the mid-1920s, the KKK launched a terror campaign
including lynchings, shootings, and whippings against
African Americans, Jews, Catholics, Mexicans, and other immigrant groups . 98
Eventually, after a series of scandals, in-fighting, and a change in public perception of its image, the second it - eration of the KKK lost credibility, and its membership declined in the late 1920s and 1930s . 99
Third Iteration of the Ku Klux Klan and
Hate Groups Today
A third version of the Ku Klux Klan arose in the 1950s
and 1960s . 100 While the KKK still exists today, it has been in decline since the late 1980s . 101 This time, the KKK re - turned to its anti-Black roots to counter the social and political gains sought by the Civil Rights Movement . 102 This version of the KKK was particularly violent against African Americans and civil rights workers in the South . 103 For example, in 1963, the KKK detonated a bomb at a
Birmingham Baptist church that killed four Black girls
and injured several more . 104 KKK members also mur - dered three civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964 . 105 As recently as 1981, Klansmen in Mobile, Alabama lynched Black 19-year-old Michael Donald . 106 His mother brought a civil suit against the KKK and won a
$7 million award after one of the per-
petrators admitted he was carrying
out an organization-wide directive
to harass, intimidate, and murder
Black people . 107
An essential part of the success of the
KKK is that their actions and ethos
were sanctioned by white society—a
recurring theme in the history of racial terror . 108 Rarely did the perpetrators face punishment, as ministers, edi- tors, sheriffs, police officers, judges, and elected officials ignored or participated in the violence . 109 Having sup - porters and members in prominent positions of power
allowed the KKK to act with impunity . 110 For example, the KKK was able to commit lynchings in front of a public
audience and leave bodies on display—all without inter - vention by law enforcement . 111 Witnesses often obstructed any investigation or prosecution for these acts by refusing to give information . 112 Police not only refused to inter - vene, but also gave the KKK information about potential targets . 113 Thus, where the KKK led, white society fol - lowed, participated, and looked on .

While the KKK no longer enjoys the degree of sociopoliti- cal power it once held, 114 contemporary white supremacist groups have taken up the KKK’s mantle to threaten the
dignified existence of African Americans and others . The 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, 115 the Proud Boys, 116 and a 2021 “White Lives Matter” rally in Orange County 117 have variously invoked the symbols, propagan- da, and ideology of the KKK .

Having supporters and members in prominent positions of power allowed the KKK to act with impunity. For example, the KKK was able to commit lynchings in front of a public audience and leave bodies on display—all without intervention by law enforcement. 99 Chapter 3 Racial T error
California
Neither racial terror nor the Ku Klux Klan were con -
fined to the South . 118 During Reconstruction, the federal government did not send troops to California, as a non- slave state . 119 This allowed white supremacy groups to flourish in the West . 120 The western KKK complemented their southern counterparts by violently asserting white superiority against the perceived threat of racial outsid - ers . 121 As the Black population in California was relatively small at the time, the KKK and other hate groups mainly terrorized Chinese communities . 122
During the second iteration of the KKK, California be - came a “strong Klan state” with a sizable and violent
Klan resurgence in the 1920s . 123 Shortly after the re - lease of The Birth of a Nation , the KKK emerged in San Francisco, establishing a KKK presence in California for the first time . 124 KKK chapters in Los Angeles, Oakland, Fresno, Riverside, Sacramento, Anaheim, and San Jose
soon followed . 125
The KKK’s national magazine, Imperial Night-Hawk ,
shows that California ranked 11th out of all 48 states in terms of the number of KKK events held between
March 1923 and November 1924 . 126 By hosting 89 events in that 20month period, California even outranked the
old enslavement states of Mississippi, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Tennessee . 127
California’s KKK consisted of prominent individuals
who held positions in civil leadership and police de -
partments . 128 Its members were largely middle-class, educated Protestants who, in socioeconomic terms,
were not much different from their neighbors . 129 These KKK members registered to vote (in higher percentages
than non-members), joined civic organizations like the
Chamber of Commerce and rotary club, and sought po -
litical power by running for elected office or supporting candidates who sympathized with the KKK . 130
The California KKK exerted significant political influ - ence in the 1920s, winning seats on city councils, gaining control of the press and airwaves in some towns, and
pressuring other public officials . 131 In 1922, for example, Democrat Thomas Lee Woolwine lost his bid for gov -
ernor, suggesting that his fight against the KKK was a
political liability . 132 The KKK backed winning candidate Republican Friend Richardson—who was believed to
have been a KKK member, and which he never denied . 133 While the KKK declined on a na -
tional scale in the 1930s with the
Great Depression, and after the 1925
trial and conviction of the KKK’s
then-leader, California’s KKK re -
mained active through the 1940s
and into the 1950s . 134 As detailed
below, the KKK had branches—and
spread terror—throughout the state,
and exercised significant power in
local governments .

The Ku Klux Klan in Southern California.

Los Angeles was the epicenter of Ku Klux Klan activity in California . 135 Prominent and numerous city government About fifty members of the Ku Klux Klan held a cross burning ceremony on a small ranch outside of Sacramento. Gun-toting guards wearing Klan outfits and helmets surrounded the ranch, while members made speeches and paraded around the burning cross. (May 3, 1980)

COURTESY OF BETTMANN VIA GETTY IMAGES
In 1922, for example, Democrat Thomas Lee Woolwine lost his bid for California governor, suggesting that his fight against the KKK was a political liability. The KKK backed winning candidate Republican Friend Richardson—who was believed to have been a KKK member, and which he never denied.
100
Chapter 3 Racial T error
officials were KKK members or had KKK ties, including
the mayor, district attorneys, and police officers . 136 Due to aggressive recruitment efforts beginning in 1921, several KKK branches formed in Los Angeles . 137 KKK chapters also formed in the nearby communities of Santa Monica,
Huntington Park, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, Long
Beach, Glendale, San Pedro, and Anaheim . 138
By the 1920s, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD)
was “a den of corruption” that was infiltrated with KKK members who practiced retaliatory policing in the city’s Black neighborhoods . 139 “In speaking to the police, you are frequently talking to the Klan,” warned the Eagle,
a Black Los Angeles newspaper . 140 Los Angeles Deputy Sheriff Nathan Baker regularly recruited KKK members
to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and was
thought to be a member of the KKK himself . 141
On April 22, 1922, more than 100 armed and hooded
Klansmen broke into the Inglewood home of Spanish
immigrants . 142 The Klansmen forced the couple’s two
teenage daughters to disrobe and ransacked the house . 143 The Klansmen then brutally beat, bound, and gagged
the father and his brother, dragged them to a car, and
dumped them six miles away . 144 Thirty-seven Klansmen were indicted for the Inglewood raid, but in a trial that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) called a “farce,” all were acquitted . 145 The raid prompted an investigation by the District
Attorney, who obtained membership lists revealing that
the KKK had infiltrated all levels of state and local govern- ment . 146 There were 3,000 KKK members in Los Angeles County, over 1,000 in the city limits, and three KKK mem- bers on the District Attorney’s own staff . 147 LAPD Chief Louis D . Oaks and County Sheriff William I . Traeger were also identified as members . 148 Law enforcement from nearly every city in California appeared on the list, in - cluding 25 San Francisco police officers . 149
Even after the Inglewood raid exposed the breadth of
KKK membership, and after the Legislature passed an
anti-KKK bill, the KKK still proceeded to hold nine events in Los Angeles between March 1923
and April 1924 . 150 The raid and its
aftermath inspired KKK members
and caused the KKK to redouble its
efforts . 151 In 1929, KKK supporters
helped elect John C . Porter, who
had a past with the KKK, as mayor
of Los Angeles . 152 And in the 1930s,
even after enthusiasm for the KKK
began to subside, the KKK still remained active in Los
Angeles and the surrounding community, with rallies
attended by thousands of people and cross-burnings . 153 In December 1939, the KKK ceremoniously marched
through downtown Los Angeles burning crosses in full
view of thousands of people . 154
Beyond Los Angeles, the KKK was active throughout
Southern California, including in Orange County,
Riverside, and San Diego . 155
In Anaheim, by 1923, the KKK had almost 900 mem -
bers, 156 out of a total city population of about 6,000 . 157 Its members generally held more prestigious jobs than
the rest of the white population and were politically and civically active . 158 The Anaheim KKK burned crosses and held rallies drawing thousands of people . 159 One such event, an initiation in July 1924, attracted 20,000 peo - ple and included a parade of Klansmen with a marching
band, airplanes, and fireworks . 160 By spring 1924, the KKK dominated the Anaheim city council, which had
initiated a program to replace non-KKK city employees
with its own members . Their plan succeeded: ten new
policemen, out of 15, were members of the KKK . 161
In Brea, five of the town’s first eight mayors were
Klansmen, as were six of the 10 councilmen who sat on
the board of trustees, half of the city’s treasurers, half of the city’s engineers, half of its city clerks, half of its city marshals, and two-thirds of its fire chiefs between 1924 In the 1920s, Los Angeles Deputy Sheriff Nathan Baker regularly recruited KKK members to the Los Angeles Police Department and was thought to be a member of the KKK himself.

Half the treasurers, engineers, clerks and marshals
6 of 10 councilmen on board of trustees
5 of the first 8 mayors
2/3 of the fire chiefs
KLANSMEN IN THE TOWN OF BREA 1924-1936
101
Chapter 3 Racial T error
and 1936 . 162 And in Fullerton, from 1918 to 1930, seven of 18 city councilmen were Klansmen . 163
The Riverside KKK were successful recruiters, claim -
ing over 2,000 members in the 1920s . 164 In Riverside, the KKK held mass events that at -
tracted thousands of people and
included parades with marching
bands, floats, and KKK members
in full regalia . 165 The Riverside KKK
prioritized policing interracial
contact, which meant monitoring
Black residents’ activities . 166 For
example, the KKK was preoccu -
pied with the City’s 1922 settlement
with the NAACP to desegregate a white-only pool . 167 In response, they targeted Black swimmers with humilia -
tion and violence . 168 The Riverside KKK gained political influence, and in 1927 , helped elect a mayor, Edward M .

Deighton, who openly boasted about his support from
the KKK . 169 In the 1930s, Riverside Sheriff Carl Rayburn openly sympathized with the KKK, and “KIGY,” meaning
“Klan I Greet You,” was painted on streets and sidewalks throughout the county . 170 The KKK’s membership in
Riverside decreased in the 1930s, but they still made
appearances and burned crosses . 171
The San Diego KKK, in the 1920s and 1930s, focused on
using violence and other intimidating tactics to “chas[e] the wetbacks across the border .” 172 The KKK in the 1930s also merged with other racist and fascist groups, such as the Silver Shirts League, that were focused on attacking African Americans, Latino Americans, and Jews . 173
The Ku Klux Klan in the Central Valley
The Ku Klux Klan had an active presence in Fresno and
Kern County . 174 As of 1922, a local Fresno newspaper re - ported over 240 alleged Klansmen in Fresno County, and
the KKK held public events and parades with as many
as 600 attendees during the early to mid-1920s . 175 The investigation in the aftermath of the Inglewood raid
also revealed that a number of Fresno officials were
KKK members . 176
In the early 1920s, the KKK actively recruited in Kern
County and developed what was considered the most
violent KKK chapter in California . 177 In Kern County, in 1922 alone, there were over 100 cases of KKK violence,
which included extrajudicial beatings, kidnappings,
and tar-and-feathering . 178 In 1922, a local newspa - per reported that several high-ranking officials in
Kern County were associated with the KKK, includ -
ing the deputy sheriff, the police chief, the Board of
Supervisors chair, and a former assistant district attor - ney . 179 Although the KKK’s influence started to decline in the 1930s, 180 white supremacist culture persisted in Kern County in the decades that followed . 181 As recent - ly as the 1960s, a sign across the Kern River between
Oildale and Bakersfield read “Nigger, Don’t Let the
Sun Set on You in Oildale . ” 182 There were also uncon - firmed reports that a similar sign was spray painted
on the same bridge as recently as the late 1990s . 183 In 1981, three KKK members were arrested for burning
a cross on the front lawn of a Black family in the Kern County town of Boron, and KKK rallies were reported
as recently as 1987 . 184 In the early 1990s, Black motor - ists were attacked on the streets of Oildale by whites
hurling racial slurs and epithets . 185 In the 2000s, mem - bers of the white supremacist group the Peckerwoods
were involved in multiple violent attacks against Black, Hispanic, and Asian American residents that involved
the use of racial slurs . 186
The Ku Klux Klan in Northern California and
the Bay Area.

The Ku Klux Klan established a presence in the Bay Area during the 1920s . 187 By 1922, there were KKK chapters in San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose . 188 In addition to burning crosses, KKK chapters in the Bay Area held
rallies, initiation events, and public parades, which were attended by thousands . 189 In Oakland, the politically ac- tive KKK took control of the city government to create
policy that would limit Black home ownership, includ -
ing by embracing restrictive covenants . 190 Between 1921 and 1924, the Oakland KKK grew to at least 2,000, and
the chapter enjoyed political success well into the 1920s, winning an election for county sheriff in 1926 and city commissioner in 1927 . 191 The Oakland KKK also operated as a vigilante group, accompanying federal agents on
prohibition raids . 192
During the 2000s in the California Central Valley, members of the white supremacist group the Peckerwoods were involved in multiple violent attacks against Black, Hispanic, and Asian American residents that involved the use of racial slurs. 102
Chapter 3 Racial T error
IV . Forms of Racial Terror: Violent Tools of Social Control Racial terror has taken many forms throughout its long
history . Although the primary component of racial ter - ror is physical violence, perpetrators of racial terror have also destroyed and repossessed Black property . And given the public nature of racial terror, overt action has often been unnecessary . Threats and intimidation have often successfully kept African Americans from voting,
living in certain neighborhoods, and exercising other
civil rights . As one scholar has argued, “fear of physical death not only hinders the possibility of freedom, but
also limits productive and meaningful living… . [A]s [the oppressed] submit to oppression and preserve biological life, they invariably suffer a degree of psychological and social death .” 193
From Reconstruction onward, racial terror undermined
African Americans’ legal rights, with lasting social re - percussions . By attacking African Americans who were
never found guilty in a court of law, racial terror popu - larized the idea that Black people bear a presumption of guilt—contrary to the presumption of innocence, which
the Supreme Court has described as “foundation[al]”
to “our criminal law .” 194 Many white lynch mobs killed Black criminal suspects who were later found to be inno- cent . 195 Some Black men were even lynched after a jury found them innocent of their alleged offense . 196 White people justified racial terror as a mode of self-defense against African Americans, as a tactic to deter future
perpetrators, regardless of whether a crime had actually been committed . 197 This history of racial terror rein - forced a view that African Americans were dangerous
criminals who posed a threat to white society . 198
Lynching
Key Features of Lynching
The most gruesomely iconic form of racial terror was
lynching: violent and public acts of torture, which
were largely tolerated by officials at all levels of gov - ernment . 199 Such violence traumatized Black people
throughout the country, although it most frequently oc- curred in the South . 200 Although lynchings were carried out against individual victims, the practice of lynching was ultimately aimed at the entire Black community . 201 Indeed, historians have described the trauma of lynch - ing as a “contagion” that has a “multiplier effect” across families, communities, and generations . 202 Much like Jim Crow laws and racial segregation, lynching was pri - marily a method of enforcing the political, economic,
and cultural exploitation of African Americans . 203 For instance, after Booker T . Washington visited the White House to meet with President Theodore Roosevelt, South
Carolina Senator Benjamin Tillman remarked, “now
that Roosevelt has eaten with that nigger Washington,
we shall have to kill a thousand niggers to get them back to their places .” 204
Lynching was often carried out as a public spectacle . It did not simply involve hanging; rather, public lynching often featured the prolonged torture, mutilation, dis - memberment, and/or burning of the victim . 205 These
events attracted large crowds of white people, often
numbering in the thousands, which included elected
officials, prominent citizens, and entire families, includ- ing children . 206 Children were given front-row views of the victim, imprinting upon their minds for the rest of their life the concept that Black people do not deserve human dignity . 207 The white press justified and promot- ed these carnival-like events, while vendors sold food, and printers produced postcards featuring photographs
of the lynching and corpse . 208 Spectators would fight over fingers, ears, toes, sexual organs, and other body parts as souvenirs . 209 The physical objects associated with a lynching were prized mementos for the crowd . 210 The publicity of lynchings not only terrorized African
Americans, but also allowed white communities to eco -
nomically and politically benefit . The terror of being lynched prevented African Americans from achieving
political power, and preserved them as a compliant, in - timidated workforce . 211 This, in turn, largely maintained the Southern economy as it was during enslavement . 212 And while lynching was overwhelmingly (though not
exclusively) a Southern phenomenon, 213 its effects
were felt throughout the United States—just as white
supremacists intended to victimize and oppress all
African Americans . 214
Large crowd looking at the burned body of Jesse Washington, 18 year-old African American, lynched in Waco, T exas. (May 15, 1916)

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103
Chapter 3 Racial T error
Lynchings to Maintain White Supremacy
Lynchings were based on a broad range of perceived
violations of the racial caste system . Hundreds of Black people were lynched after being accused of murder or
rape, though almost none were legally convicted of their alleged crimes . 215 Regardless, lynching is never an accept- able form of punishment . Many lynchings were based on
weak or contrived evidence . 216 For example, white men perpetuated the myth of the “unbridled, brutish, black
rapist” to justify lynching Black men for allegedly sexually assaulting white women . 217 The lynchings of Black men ac- cused of rape or sexual assault often involved castration, which underscored how white men felt threatened by
Black men and used lynching to attack Black manhood . 218 Many lynchings were based on much more minor
accusations . According to the Tuskegee Institute, ap - proximately 30 percent of lynching victims were accused of nonviolent “offenses .” 219 Some victims were lynched only for minor social transgressions, or for demand -
ing basic rights and fair treatment . Black victims were lynched for referring to a white police officer by name, associating with white women, accidentally bumping
into a white woman, “passing” as white, speaking out
about racial equality, testifying on behalf of a Black de - fendant, and refusing to take off an Army uniform after returning from World War I . 220
African Americans were also lynched for asserting their labor rights and economic rights . For example, in 1918, a Black man in Earle, Arkansas refused to work on a
white-owned farm without pay . 221 In response, the white citizens of the city cut him into pieces with butcher
knives and hung his remains from a tree . 222 In numer - ous instances, African Americans were also lynched after disputes over wages or debts: in such disputes, if a white person became violent and a Black person reacted in
self-defense, the Black person was often lynched for
murder or assault . 223 By killing African Americans for seeking fair treatment or for trivial social disputes, white Americans continued to assert the total control they had held over Black lives during slavery .

Apart from responding to specific accusations, lynchings were used to drive Black residents from a community .

For example, after a 1912 lynching in Forsyth County,
Georgia, white vigilantes distributed leaflets demanding that all Black people leave the county or suffer dead - ly consequences . 224 As a result, the Black population dropped from 1,100 to 30 in eight years . 225 And in 1918, in Unicoi County, Tennessee, after lynching a Black man, a group of white men rounded up 60 Black residents—in - cluding children—and forced them to watch the corpse
burn . 226 The white people told the Black people in the town to leave the county within 24 hours . 227
Lynchings also united white
Americans of all socioeconomic lev-
els . The public violence of lynchings
portrayed the white population as
strongly allied against the perceived
threat of African Americans . 228
White mobs asserted their racial su-
periority by publicly torturing and
killing Black victims . 229 Through
the Jim Crow period, white Americans experienced di -
visions along political, economic, and social lines . 230 Although poor white Americans may have lived in con -
ditions more similar to those of poor African Americans, lynching helped prevent interracial class-based allianc - es by unifying white Americans around a core purpose
and identity . 231
Complicit Government Officials
Government actors, including police officers, prose -
cutors, judges, and elected officials, tacitly approved of or assisted in lynchings . 232 Law enforcement offi - cers released Black people who had been incarcerated
to mobs, placed Black prisoners in areas where lynch
mobs were known to gather, joined mobs to find African
Americans, and assisted with lynchings . 233 Prosecutors and law enforcement regularly failed to identify and
try lynchers for their crimes . 234 Only one percent of all lynchings after 1900 resulted in a conviction . 235 Judges contributed to these outcomes by presiding over a
Judges contributed to these outcomes by presiding over a process that systematically excluded African Americans from juries, mistreated Black witnesses, and held trials in jurisdictions with a racist bias.

Americans Lynched After 1900
Only 1% of lynching perpetrators convicted
90%
Black 1%
104
Chapter 3 Racial T error
process that systematically excluded African Americans
from juries, mistreated Black witnesses, and held trials in jurisdictions with a racist bias . 236
Local coroners and coroners’ ju -
ries refused to indict lynchers and
made impossible conclusions—such
as ruling a death was a suicide after
a Black farmer was found riddled
with bullets . 237
Throughout the South, state and
local politicians protected the per -
petrators of violent acts instead of protecting Black
southerners from extrajudicial violence . 238 Some gover- nors, rather than condemn lynchings, made statements
that focused on the accused crime of the lynched Black
person—suggesting that the lynching was justified—and
in other cases, affirmatively supported the lynching . 239 And government officials outside the South did little to stop the campaign of widespread lynching . 240 National leaders, for their part, failed to pass even one of more than 100 anti-lynching bills that were proposed in
Congress between 1852 and 1951 . 241
The public was also complicit . Studies show that
thousands of white people, at all levels of class and ed - ucational status, participated directly in lynch mobs .

Many more participated as spectators, and millions did
nothing . 242 Participants, meanwhile, were protected by a code of silence . 243 Because witnesses refused to cooper - ate with law enforcement, criminal investigations were
thwarted, and the perpetrators of lynchings were able
to avoid accountability . 244
The Prevalence of Lynching over Time
Despite numerous efforts, it is impossible to know how
many Black people were killed by lynching . In the late 19th century, Ida B . Wells started the Red Record Efforts to identify incidents of extreme racial violence for re - search, advocacy, and public policy purposes . 245 Other researchers and activists have followed Wells’ lead, but there is disagreement on figures among those who study
racial terror . Researchers use different criteria of what counts as a lynching, and perpetrators hide their crimes— to list just two reasons that there is no definitive number of Black lynching victims . 246 By any measure, however, lynching occurred in every region of the United States, with victims of all races and genders . 247 And despite disagreement over exact numbers, there is a consensus
that between the Civil War and World War II, thou -
sands of African Americans were lynched in the United
States and were the primary targets of lynch mobs . 248 The nonprofit organization Equal Justice Initiative, for example, counts nearly 6,500 lynchings nationwide
between 1865 and 1950 . 249 Any count of lynchings, how - ever, will fall short of the true number, as a result of inadequate reporting at the time,
lack of documentation, cover-ups
by perpetrators and local officials,
and other gaps in the evidence . 250
In the 1890s, when the frequency
of lynchings peaked, an average of
104 Black people were estimated to
have been killed each year by lynch
mobs . 251 Then, as Black southerners
moved north and west, lynching
rates steadily declined during the
1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, and lynch -
ings eventually became extraordinary events . 252 Thus, when 15-year-old Emmett Till was lynched in 1954 for
allegedly whistling at a white woman, 253 and when a
white mob abducted Mack Charles Parker from his jail
cell and lynched him in 1959, 254 the killings provoked national public outrage . 255 However, the decline in lynchings did not correspond with an end to the racial
caste system that led to lynchings in the first place . 256 Rather, the decline can be attributed to strict segrega - tion laws, tactics of disenfranchisement, and the surge of the death penalty . 257
Beginning in the early 1900s, white Southerners began to fear that the barbaric imagery of lynching would harm
the Southern economy . 258 The death penalty offered a more respectable form of violence and the appearance
of the rule of law . 259 As early as the 1930s, lynchings were often avoided when government actors made clear that
the accused would receive a swift judicial conviction
Equal Justice Initiative estimates 6,500 lynchings nationwide between 1865 and 1950, although any count is an underestimate because of gaps in the evidence like inadequate reporting at the time, lack of documentation, and cover-ups.

While there is no conclusive evidence proving that the death penalty replaced lynching in the South, data shows that executions increased as lynchings declined. Indeed, Southerners themselves referred to these executions as “legal lynchings,” and Southern leaders argued that African Americans could be intimidated and controlled just as effectively with the death penalty.
105
Chapter 3 Racial T error
and execution . 260 While there is no conclusive evi - dence proving that the death penalty replaced lynching
in the South, data shows that executions increased as
lynchings declined . 261 Indeed, Southerners themselves referred to these executions as “legal lynchings,” and
Southern leaders argued that African Americans could
be intimidated and controlled just as effectively with
the death penalty . 262 And “legal lynchings,” like actu - al lynchings, disproportionately victimized African
Americans . 263 From the 1890s to the
1950s, between 53 and 81 percent
of lynchings and executions were
of African Americans, although
African Americans represented ap -
proximately only 10 percent of the
entire U .S . population . 264
By 1915, court-ordered executions
outpaced lynchings in the former
slave states for the first time, and by the 1930s, two- thirds of those executed were Black—a trend that would
continue . 265 While Black people were executed for al - legedly killing white people, the reverse was not true .

As lynchings declined from 1930 to 1970, there was a
sharp increase in the number of African Americans who
were executed for rape, but there is no evidence that a white person was executed for raping a Black woman . 266 According to one study, out of more than 11,000 exe -
cutions in the United States, only two white men were
executed for killing a Black person . 267 Another study of approximately 15,000 executions, from colonial times
to the 1990s, found that white people were executed
for killing Black people in only 29 cases—and in most of those cases, the defendants had also killed white peo - ple . 268 These trends in executions reinforce a central theme of lynching: that the lives of Black people were
worth less than those of white people . 269
Mob Violence
Whereas lynching involves group action against a per -
son as a response to that person’s alleged wrongdoing,
mob violence involves assaults by civilians of one eth - nic group on members of another ethnic group on the
basis of their ethnicity . 270 These tactics were often used together against the Black community . 271 Lynchings were sometimes followed by mob violence, with white mobs
burning Black homes, devastating Black neighborhoods,
and forcing Black residents to relocate . 272 Mob violence was motivated by the same objectives as lynchings,
including extinguishing African Americans’ political
influence and economic gains, and maintaining social
control over African Americans . 273
The racial hierarchy benefited from mob violence . Mob
violence was a ritual that built a sense of community
among white people and helped the South to sustain a
cohesive culture of white supremacy and enforce legal
segregation . 274 (As discussed above, mass participation was a typical element of lynchings, which drew upwards
of thousands of spectators . 275 ) But mass violence was not strictly a Southern phenomenon . White mob vio -
lence occurred in several Northern states prior to 1865, including New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio . 276 These Northern white mobs, which numbered in the hundreds
or thousands, attacked and killed Black people and set
fire to Black properties . 277 The violence was often ac - companied by inaction or inadequate response by law
enforcement . 278 Virtually none of the perpetrators were prosecuted or convicted; those that were, received ex - tremely lenient punishments . 279
When white Americans felt African Americans threat -
ened their superiority, mob violence sometimes escalated into massacres, destroying cohesive Black communities
and the prosperity that they built . 280 Historically, these attacks have often been called “riots” or “race riots,” but these terms obscure the nature of this violence .

Throughout Reconstruction, segregation, and the civ -
il rights era, so-called riots were actually massacres .

Postcard depicting the lynching of Lige Daniels, Center, TX. A mob of over 1,000 men stormed the county jail and took the young man who was both charged with and confessed to the murder of a local farmer’s wife. (1920)
A study of approximately 15,000 executions, from colonial times to the 1990s, found that white people were executed for killing Black people in only 29 cases—and in most of those cases, the defendants had also killed white people.
106
Chapter 3 Racial T error
In these attacks, white mobs proactively killed African Americans and destroyed Black property, though the
Black victims were often blamed for inciting the violence in the immediate aftermath . 281 This pattern of violence has evolved and continued through the 20th and 21st
centuries, as is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 11 An Unjust Legal System .

Massacres inflicted tremendous damage upon Black
lives and property . 282 It is estimated that over 100 such massacres occurred between the end of the Civil War
and the 1940s . 283 Among several notable examples, 284 the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre is especially prominent .

In Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921, a Black man was arrested
for allegedly assaulting a white woman . 285 In response, a white mob looted, burned homes and businesses, and
murdered at least 300 Black people
in Greenwood, a prosperous Black
neighborhood known as “Black
Wall Street .” 286 Over the course of
24 hours on May 31 and June 1, the
mob destroyed 35 square blocks,
more than 1,200 Black-owned
homes, over 60 businesses, a hos -
pital, a public library, and a dozen
Black churches . 287 Thousands of
Black Tulsans were left homeless
and placed in internment camps . 288
Lawyer and reparations advocate
Eric J . Miller has testified that, in
addition to death and destruction,
the massacre inflicted catastroph -
ic mental and emotional trauma
upon the Black survivors and their
descendants . 289 The destruction re -
mained over generations as the city,
state, and chamber of commerce
worked to prevent rebuilding and
turned away funding that could
have benefited Greenwood . 290
The Tulsa Race Massacre Commission confirmed that
Tulsa officials not only did nothing to prevent the
massacre, but also participated in the violence and
provided firearms and ammunition to the mob . 291
Indeed, the city and county police deputized hun -
dreds of white people to participate in the massacre,
and the Oklahoma National Guard joined the massacre
as well . 292 The Commission’s report confirmed that no one prosecuted or punished any of the perpetrators for
the violent acts that occurred, despite overwhelming
evidence of their guilt . 293 Instead, the all-white grand jury falsely blamed Black people for the massacre . 294 As stated in the grand jury report: “There was no mob
spirit among the whites, no talk of lynching and no
arms . The assembly was quiet until the arrival of the
armed Negros, which precipitated and was the direct
cause of the entire affair .” 295
This example also highlights the role of the government, at all levels, in mob violence, just as government had
once enforced the legal regime of slavery . By looking the other way, declining to prosecute mob members, or by
actively fomenting and assisting mob violence, govern - ment officials enabled violent white mobs to devastate
Black communities .

Torture
Southern lynchings often included torture of the victim before death, in addition to burning, mutilation, and
decapitation after death . 296 The torture preceding public killings usually lasted hours, and could involve shoving a hot poker iron down the victim’s throat and pressing it against their body; gouging out eyes; castration; cutting off hands and feet; tearing into the flesh with a large corkscrew; and burning the victim alive . 297 As historian Leon F . Litwack explains: “The story of a lynching  .  .  . is the story of slow, methodical, sadistic, often highly inventive forms of torture and mutilation . ” 298
Torture was thus another method with which white peo-
ple sought to punish Black people for stepping beyond
their relegated social roles . 299 Victims were often tor - tured even if they were not convicted of any crime, such Photograph shows destroyed houses and billowing smoke during the Tulsa Race Massacre, when a white mob attacked the predominantly African American Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma. (1921)

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Chapter 3 Racial T error
as when two brothers in Paris, Texas were tortured for
trying to escape abusive work conditions . 300
As lynching became less common, so too did the accom -
panying torture . But just as lynching was replaced with the “legal lynching” of state executions, the police used torture to extract confessions from Black suspects . 301 The police objective was to quickly convict the suspects . 302 Thus, even facing the death penalty, Black suspects were frequently denied a fair and impartial trial . 303
For example, in 1938, Dave Canty, a Black man, was ar - rested for killing a white woman and wounding another
in the course of a robbery in Montgomery, Alabama . 304 After hours of police questioning, Canty signed a written confession, admitting responsibility for the attack . 305 At trial, however, Canty testified from the witness stand
that the police had forced him to confess by torturing
him . 306 He gave detailed information about the torture and his torturers, and he showed his wounds and scars
to the jury . 307 Police officers and prison staff, however, denied Canty’s account of his torture, and at the con - clusion of his three-day trial, Canty was sentenced to
death . 308 After a new trial reduced his sentence to life in prison, Canty died in the same
prison in which he claimed to have
been tortured . 309
Unlike lynching, this form of torture
was not public . 310 In fact, hiding it
was critical to supporting a racist
system . 311 It was difficult for victims
and advocates to realize the prev -
alence of torture, and denials and
secrecy made it more difficult to
fight the practice . 312 When torture
was reported and individuals tried
to bring charges, allegations and
evidence were ignored and invali -
dated by white judges, prosecutors,
and other officials . 313 While this
practice occurred throughout the
country, it was especially prevalent
in large cities like Chicago and New
York City, as well as the American
South . 314 There were very rarely any
consequences for violence used by
police in coercing confessions . 315 Police officers often denied the use of such violence, while claiming that reg- ulating police work would lead to an
increase in crime . 316 Thus, the de -
cline of lynching and public torture
was not a sign of enlightenment . 317
Rather, lynching and torture devel -
oped into more modern forms of
racial violence—namely, swift exe -
cutions and coerced confessions . 318
Evidence suggests that police con -
tinue to coerce confessions from suspects, including
Black suspects, leading to wrongful convictions and
years of undeserved jail time . 319 From the early 1970s to the early 1990s, for example, then-Chicago Police
Commander Jon Burge led officers in torturing over 125
suspects into confessing to crimes, most of whom were
African American, and many of whom have said their
confessions were false . 320 Burge was convicted for lying under oath about the torture . 321
Police Killings and Vigilantism
State-sanctioned violence against African Americans
continues today in the form of extrajudicial violence by police officers and vigilantes .

Police Violence as a Modern Form of Lynching
Throughout American history, including the present
day, the police have held the power to strip Black peo - ple of their rights and lives for any reason—or for no
reason at all . Police violence is a leading cause of death Like slave patrols, police violence during Jim Crow was intended to intimidate Black communities and subordinate African Americans within the segregated social order.

Print shows a scene during a riot between Irish American and African American railroad workers employed by the Easton and Amboy Railroad to build the Musconetcong Tunnel, in which Denis Powell, an African American man, is beaten to death by a mob of white men, during the Pattenburg Massacre, Pattenburg, New Jersey. (1872) COURTESY OF THEODORE R. DAVIS/BETTMANN VIA GETTY IMAGES 108
Chapter 3 Racial T error
for Black people in America . 322 Today’s extrajudicial killings have historical roots in the social control of slave patrols, 323 the lynchings of the late 1800s and early 1900s, and police violence against Black southerners
during legal segregation . 324 Slave patrols, which began in the early 1700s, were made up of white volunteers . 325 Patrollers were empowered to forcibly discipline en -
slaved persons, crush potential uprisings, and return
enslaved persons who had escaped to their enslavers . 326 Like slave patrols, police violence during Jim Crow
was intended to intimidate Black communities and
subordinate African Americans within the segregated
social order . 327
From the end of the Civil War through the early 20th
century, racialized policing was often tailored to lo - cal concerns . 328 In urban areas,
in response to growing economic
competition between white workers
and Black workers moving to cities,
the police targeted Black residents
with curfews, high incarceration
rates, and violence—often deadly
violence . 329 In rural areas, sheriffs
and deputy sheriffs enjoyed essen -
tially unchecked power from their
white constituents . 330 As a result, the police violently enforced the racist social order against Black citizens, even for seemingly minor transgressions . 331
As recognized by the United Nations Working Group of
Experts on People of African Descent, “contemporary
police killings and the trauma that they create are rem - iniscent of the past racial terror of lynching . ” 332 Recent incidents of police violence demonstrate this connec -
tion . The British Broadcasting Company has collected a list of recent high-profile killings of African Americans by police, 333 highlighting just a fraction of the more than 1,500 African Americans killed by police since 2015 . 334 In 2016, after a Minneapolis police officer killed Philando Castile during a traffic stop, 335 Castile’s sister said, “It’s just like we’re animals . It’s basically modern-day lynch- ing that we’re seeing going on, except we’re not getting hung by a tree anymore—we’re getting killed on cam -
era .” 336 Similarly, in 2020, George Floyd was stopped for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill, which could have been handled with a ticket . 337 Instead, Floyd was killed by an officer kneeling on his neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds . 338 Historian Arica Coleman described Floyd’s death as “a modern-day lynching .” 339
Vigilantism Continues Today
In addition to extrajudicial police violence, our coun - try’s history of lynching is reflected in the vigilantism taken against Black people, even when they have
not committed any offense . 340 The Southern Poverty
Law Center has compiled a list of African Americans
(and white activists) killed during the Civil Rights
Movement . 341 More recent examples of this violence
are the killings of Trayvon Martin and Ahmaud Arbery .

In 2012, George Zimmerman shot and killed the un -
armed, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who Zimmerman
described as a “suspicious person” in his neighbor -
hood . 342 After Zimmerman was acquitted for the
shooting, in the tradition of lynching, he auctioned
his gun as a souvenir . 343
In 2020, while Ahmaud Arbery was out for a jog, he was
chased, attacked, and killed by three white men who
claimed he resembled a suspect in local break-ins (al - though no police reports were filed about the alleged
break-ins) . Arbery was unarmed, and as he lay dying on the ground, one of the white men called him a “fucking
nigger .” 344 Arbery’s family called the killing a lynching . 345 The three men attempted to use a citizen’s arrest pro - vision added into the Georgia Code of 1863 . 346 The men argued that the 1863 provision allowed them to arrest
another person if a crime was committed “within his
immediate knowledge .” 347 The Georgia Code was draft - ed in part by Thomas R .R . Cobb, a legal scholar who
claimed that a Black mother “suffers little” when her
children are stolen from her, since she lacked mater -
nal feelings . 348 Cobb helped write principles of white supremacy into Georgia law, including a provision that
presumed African Americans were enslaved people
unless proven otherwise . 349 The citizen’s arrest provi - sion was significantly weakened in 2021 in the wake of
Arbery’s murder . 350
As with lynchings, a lack of accountability appears to
exist for police violence and vigilantism . The Guardian reports that out of 1,136 killings registered in 2015, only 18 law enforcement officers were charged with crimes . 351 Moreover, the United Nations found that federal, state, and county regulations on use of force and firearms do
not comport with international standards, which makes
it more likely that extrajudicial violence against Black individuals will continue . 352
Moreover, the United Nations found that federal, state, and county regulations on use of force and firearms do not comport with international standards, which makes it more likely that extrajudicial violence against Black individuals will continue. 109
Chapter 3 Racial T error
Sexual Violence and Eugenics
As further discussed in Chapter 12, Mental and Physical Harm and Neglect, the Black female body has been bru -
tally and routinely compromised in the absence of legal protection . Black women faced forced procreation during enslavement, while after enslavement, Black women were
forcibly sterilized . 353 As with other forms of racial terror, sexual violence served the social, economic, and political goals of white supremacy .

As discussed in Chapter 2 Enslavement, enslavers used
sexual violence and the threat of sexual violence as a
way to control enslaved Black people . Enslavers also
used sexual violence and forced procreation to grow
their fortunes .

While the end of enslavement as an institution may have removed an economic incentive for sexual violence, Black women have continued to suffer from the violence that
arises from stereotypes projected upon them . During the Jim Crow era, white men used rape and threats of rape to oppress African Americans, and particularly Black wom-
en . 354 Throughout their daily routines, Black women and girls faced the threat of sexual violence by white men . 355 Rapes during Jim Crow were intended to maintain white
domination and for white men’s sexual gratification . 356 Some rapes also took place during other instances of
racial violence, such as attacks to steal Black land and de- stroy Black property . 357 White men were rarely punished for committing sexual violence against Black women and
girls, while African Americans frequently faced retalia - tion for reporting such attacks . 358
As discussed in Chapter 11 An Unjust Legal System,
Black women continue to be depicted through tropes
of hypersexuality, creating a myth that Black women
cannot credibly claim to be victims of sexual violence . 359 Black women also suffered a different kind of sexual
violence as a result of the eugenics movement . During
the early 20th century, the eugenics movement, which
claimed to be acting according to “scientific” princi - ples and for the good of human society, scrutinized
Black sexual behavior and reproduction . The result
was that Black people, and especially Black women,
were disproportionately forced into sterility . 360 This is discussed in detail in Chapter 12, Mental and Physical
Harm and Neglect .

Family Separation and Violence
Against Children
The threat of selling non-compliant enslaved people
away from their families was one of the most terrify -
ing tools of coercion that enslavers wielded to control enslaved persons and suppress rebellions . 361 As discussed above, under the laws of slave states, the status of a new- born followed the status of their mother . 362 Separation was horrifying and traumatic to the parents and their
children . 363 Children and their parents were treated not as people, who loved and cared for each other, one gen - eration after another, but as bodies used exclusively for labor . 364 Frederick Douglass said that he began to under- stand himself as a slave following the separation from
his mother, as in the absence of nurturing kin, he was
completely subjected to the will of others . 365 The practice of selling away infants was so common that it was a focus of the northern abolitionist movement, and according
to Professor Laura Briggs, in the 1850s, many Southern
states outlawed taking infants from their mothers in an effort to prove that slavery was not as bad as antislavery northerners claimed . 366
After enslavement, southern states re-enslaved Black
children, removing them from their parents, and forc -
ing them into so-called apprenticeships to white former enslavers . 367 The children, sometimes as young as six, worked for white families as if they were enslaved . 368 Throughout the 20th century, government officials dis - proportionately separated Black children from their
families to threaten and coerce mothers into withdrawing from welfare programs . 369 A detailed discussion of family separation is in Chapter 8 Pathologizing the Black Family .

Mass incarceration, another tool of racist social control, has also had the consequence of breaking up Black fam - ilies . The war on drugs, beginning with Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign, was explicitly designed to
target the antiwar left and African Americans . 370 Due to “Whites stoning Negro to death,” Chicago. (1922)

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Chapter 3 Racial T error
these policies, by 2015, one in nine Black children had at least one parent in prison . 371 At the same time, Black families were targeted by racist policing of parenting . 372 Black children were increasingly placed in the child
welfare system due to parental neglect—but in reali -
ty, this “neglect” was often only poverty . 373 These two forms of racist policing combined to double and then
triple the rate of incarceration of Black women during
the 1980s . 374 Eighty percent of these women had chil - dren living with them at the time of the arrest, many
of whom were then placed in foster care . 375 As a re - sult, between 1985 and 1988, the number of children
in out-of-home placement—foster care, psychiatric in -
stitutions, and the juvenile justice system—increased
by 25 percent . 376
Finally, Black children have faced disproportionate
police violence . As discussed above, law enforcement
continues to treat Black people as a dangerous criminal group; Black children are no exception . 377 A 2020 study led by Children’s National Hospital researchers found
that Black youth are six times likelier than white youth to be shot and killed by police . 378 A detailed discussion of the criminalization of Black children is in Chapter 11 An Unjust Legal System .

Economic Terror
White people have used various types of racial violence in order to erase Black economic gains, allowing the
unrestricted theft of Black labor during enslavement to carry on in new forms . In the 1890s, the prominent jour- nalist and anti-lynching advocate Ida B . Wells conducted a detailed study of lynchings and found that the vast ma- jority were not in response to sexual crimes, but were
rather motivated by economic or political concerns . 379 For example, perpetrators initiated attacks as a form of economic intimidation against African Americans who
disputed labor contracts . 380 Employers also whipped and lynched Black freedmen who argued with them or left
the plantations where they were contracted to work . 381 Once African Americans became successful, ran
businesses, and owned homes, they were even more
targeted . In the South, even be -
fore the Civil War, the Associated
Press reports that 24,000 acres of
land were stolen from 406 Black
landowners, including by means of
racial terror . 382 The success of Black
neighborhoods and Black individu -
als triggered white mobs to initiate
violence, 383 as white Americans felt
threatened by the growing eco -
nomic power and independence
of Black communities . 384
There are numerous historical ex -
amples of economically motivated
violence against prosperous Black communities . 385
Perhaps the most significant example is the 1921 Tulsa
massacre, discussed above in relation to mob vio -
lence, in which a white mob devastated the prosperous
Black neighborhood of Greenwood . 386 In 1997 , the
Oklahoma legislature formed the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot
Commission (recently renamed the Tulsa Race Massacre
Commission 387 ), which was tasked with investigating the Tulsa massacre and recommending methods for repa -
rations . 388 The Commission confirmed that hundreds
of white people were responsible for looting, killing,
and destroying property, enabled and assisted by Tulsa
government officials . 389 The Commission found that the massacre caused $1 .8 million in property damage—$25
million in today’s dollars, though others estimate that the damage totaled $50 to $100 million in today’s dol - lars . 390 However, the Commission found that no one,
except one white pawnshop, was given any compensa -
tion for the damage to their property, and there was no other benefit or restitution for victims . 391
Economically motivated violence was also directed
at prosperous Black individuals, not just communi -
ties and neighborhoods . An illustrative case is that of Elmore Bolling, a successful Black man in Lowenesboro,
Alabama . 392 He owned a small fleet of trucks that ran livestock and made deliveries, and he also leased a plan - tation where he had a general store with a gas station and a catering business . 393 At the peak of his business, Bolling employed 40 other Black people . 394 In December 1947 , a group of white men showed up at Bolling’s home where
he lived with his wife and seven children, shot him sev - en times, and left him in a ditch to die . 395 At the time of Bolling’s death, the family had $40,000 in the bank and Hundreds of white people were responsible for looting, killing, and destroying property, enabled and assisted by Tulsa
government officials. The massacre caused $1.8  million in property damage—$25 million in today’s dollars, though others estimate that the damage totaled $50 to $100 million in today’s dollars. However, no one, except one white pawnshop, was given any compensation for the damage.
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Chapter 3 Racial T error
more than $5,000 in assets (approximately $500,000 in
today’s dollars), but creditors (or those who purported to be creditors) took the money, leaving the family with nothing . 396 As someone told the local newspaper at the time, “He was too successful to be a Negro . ” 397
In addition to attacks on successful Black business
owners, white people also committed racial violence
against Black individuals who moved into white neigh -
borhoods . 398 Their goal was to pressure the new Black residents to move away and maintain housing segrega -
tion, as discussed in Chapter 5, Housing Segregation . 399 Such violence consisted of pelting homes with rocks,
throwing bricks and firebombs at homes, setting garages on fire, and beating Black neighbors in the streets . 400 Political Terror
Just as groups of white people responded violently to
Black economic gains, they also resorted to violence to set back Black political gains . Black voters, and political candidates favored by Black voters, were intimidated
and sometimes murdered . 401 By using violence, white Americans kept their grip on political power . They used this power to oppress African Americans and prevent
African Americans from achieving equal levels of wealth and political influence . In this way, even after slavery ended, African Americans were often prevented from
achieving political power and influence .

Reconstruction—and the resulting political gains made
by African Americans—provoked violent backlash
from white southerners . 402 Violence typically soared right before elections, as the Ku Klux Klan and other
white supremacist groups strategically targeted their
violence to deny Black voters access to the polls, or to sway election results by forcing Black voters to vote for Democrats . 403 As white supremacists killed thousands of African Americans over numerous attacks during
Reconstruction, 404 the balance of power began to shift against Reconstruction and Republicans . 405
For example, in 1868, in response to growing Black sup - port for Republican candidates in St . Landry Parish,
Louisiana, white people terrorized the Black commu -
nity . 406 Over the course of two weeks, the attacks left more than 100 Black people dead—and by some esti -
mates, over 200 . 407 The white attackers achieved their intended effect: although the parish gave 5,000 votes
to the Republican governor in the spring 1868 election, there was not a single Republican vote counted in the
fall 1868 election in the parish . 408 The Republican Party was unable to recover in the parish for the remainder
of Reconstruction . 409
White supremacists also assassinated political figures .

On the eve of the 1868 election, KKK members mur -
dered James Hinds, a white Republican member of the
U .S . House of Representatives who advocated for Black civil rights . 410 This was the first-ever assassination of a U .S . congressman . 411 When Benjamin Franklin Randolph, a Black state senator from South Carolina, was assassi - nated in 1868, the Ku Klux Klan was suspected of his
murder, though no one was convicted of the crime . 412 Similarly, in 1875, election results split the Florida leg - islature evenly between Republicans and Democrats . 413 White supremacist assassins broke the tie by killing E .G .

Johnson, a Black state senator, to give the Democrats
a majority . 414
After Reconstruction, Southern white politicians sought to advance white supremacy in state governments and
to push back against federal laws protecting Black voting rights . 415 They relied on lynching and vigilante vio - lence to achieve these political goals . 416 As the national lynching rate soared, in 1892, the Southern-dominated
Democratic Party was able to win the White House and
a majority of Congress . 417 In response, the Republican Party abandoned racial equality as part of its platform . 418 White supremacists were thus able to take control of state governments and pass laws that, in combination with
racial terror, suppressed Black voters . 419 For instance, Ku Klux Klan parade on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D.C. with the U.S. Capitol Building in the background. (1926)
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Chapter 3 Racial T error
while more than 90,000 Black citizens voted in South
Carolina in 1876, by the end of the 19th century, less than 3,000 Black citizens voted . 420 While Black people rep - resented a majority of registered voters in Mississippi in 1868, only six percent of eligible Black people were registered to vote in Mississippi
in 1890 . 421 And in Louisiana, the
number of Black registered voters
dropped from 130,344 to 5,320 be -
tween 1896 and 1900 . 422
Voter suppression was not always
enough for white supremacists . In
one instance, they also directly over-
threw the local government . After
the 1898 election in Wilmington,
North Carolina, armed white
men overtook the Republican-led city government . 423
A months-long voter suppression agenda culminat -
ed on Election Day, when armed white men patrolled
Wilmington to intimidate Black voters and their allies, and white supremacists threatened poll workers as they
counted ballots . 424 In one precinct, a group of 150 to 200 white men caused a scuffle, and in the process, stuffed ballot boxes to secure their party’s victory . 425 After the election, Black people were massacred in the street . 426 A mob of nearly 2,000 white people indiscriminately
murdered between 30 and 100 Black men, women, and
children, and forced 2,000 other Black residents off
their property . 427
Meanwhile, a mob of over 100 white men occupied the
Wilmington city hall and forced city officials to resign under threat of violence . 428 All of those elected offi - cials resigned and were replaced by men selected by an
all-white committee . 429 The new city leadership fired all Black municipal employees, and banned promi -
nent Black leaders, Black businessmen, and white
Republicans from the city . 430 There was no state inves - tigation of the violence in Wilmington, and the federal investigation produced no indictments . 431 To date, this has been the only successful coup d’état of a U .S .

American government . 432
Similar political violence continued into the 20th centu - ry . In Ocoee, Florida, on Election Day 1920, a mob of 250 white people, including KKK members, killed dozens
of African Americans, set fire to their homes, and drove them out of the city to prevent them from voting . 433 This massacre has been called the “single bloodiest election day in modern American history .” 434
Due to this extensive history of violence and political repression, it was not always necessary for the KKK or
other white supremacists to take direct violent action
to intimidate Black voters from the polls . Threats were often just as effective . For example, in August 1922, just a year after the Tulsa massacre, the KKK reportedly flew over Oklahoma City in airplanes, dropping cards into
Black neighborhoods, warning people to be cautious be - fore heading to the polls . 435 That same year, the Topeka State Journal reported that the KKK committed to stak - ing out polling places in Texas to “take careful note of the voting procedure .” 436
Racist voter intimidation continues in contemporary
times . During the 2016 election, neo-Nazi and white
supremacist groups, including the KKK and the Oath

SOUTH CAROLINA

BLACK VOTING IN
DECLINED 97%
1876-1900

BECAUSE OF POLITICAL TERROR

IMAGE SUPPLIED BY BETTMANN/BETTMANN VIA GETTY IMAGES
After the 1898 election in Wilmington, North Carolina, armed white men overtook the government, murdered between 30 and 100 Black men, women, and children, and forced 2,000 other Black residents off their property. T o date, this has been the only successful coup d’état of a U.S. American government.
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Chapter 3 Racial T error
Keepers, organized poll watchers in all 50 states, focus - ing on urban areas . 437 In the 2020 presidential debate, President Trump told his supporters to “go into the polls and watch very closely,” and told a white supremacist
organization, the Proud Boys, to “stand by .” 438
The racist overtones that surrounded the 2020 election
culminated in the January 6, 2021 Capitol Riot, where
armed white people violently stormed the U .S . Capitol while Congress was counting the electoral vote . 439
The rioters shouted racist epithets at Black Capitol
Police officers, paraded around the Capitol waving a
Confederate flag, 440 and built a gallows to hang a noose in front of the Capitol building . 441 This was the first time the Confederate flag was brought into the Capitol as an act of insurrection, something that was not even done
during the Civil War . 442
Further discussion of the use of violence and terror to suppress the development and rise of Black political
power is in Chapter 4 Political Disenfranchisement .

Cross-Burning and Other Forms
of Intimidation
Even when not physical in nature, the perpetrators of
racial terror used the threat of violence to intimidate African Americans and preserve the American racial
hierarchy . The Ku Klux Klan, for example, often con -
ducted masked rides through towns at night to frighten
Black residents, an intimidation technique that mir -
rored antebellum slave patrols . 443 As discussed above, slave patrols used violence to discipline enslaved per - sons, prevent uprisings, and capture enslaved persons
who managed to escape . 444 Furthermore, the KKK’s dis- guises were designed to capitalize on the superstitions of formerly enslaved people, and their activities resembled plantation scare tactics . 445
The KKK also frequently burned crosses . 446 While the cross-burning itself may not have physically harmed
anyone, it undoubtedly became a well-known symbol
of racial terror to intimidate minorities . 447 During oral argument in Virginia v. Black , a 2002 case contemplat - ing whether a state could criminalize burning a cross,
Justice Thomas made a point of connecting the “symbol”
of cross-burning to its terrorizing effect: the burning cross is “unlike any symbol in our society  .  .  .  . There’s no other purpose to the cross, no communication, no
particular message . ” 448 As he explained, the burning cross “was intended to cause fear and to terrorize a pop- ulation .” 449 In his opinion in the case, Justice Thomas observed that a cross-burning could serve only to “ter - rorize and intimidate”: “In our culture, cross burning
has almost invariably meant lawlessness and under -
standably instills in its victims well-grounded fear of physical violence .” 450
Government entities have also used tactics of racial in - timidation to subjugate Black citizens and enforce white supremacy . The State of Mississippi, for example, creat- ed the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, which
formally existed from 1956 to 1977 , and was funded
from the state budget . 451 The Sovereignty Commission was an intelligence organization targeting civil rights activists and engaged in spying, intimidation, false im - prisonment, and jury tampering . 452 The Sovereignty
Commission served as a model for similar agencies
fighting to oppose racial justice in other states . 453 The Sovereignty Commission’s activity was involved in the
false imprisonment of Clyde Kennard . 454 Kennard,
a Black man, attempted to integrate a segregated lo -
cal college in Hattiesburg, Mississippi . 455 Files of the Sovereignty Commission reveal that state officials
openly discussed that they would prefer to kill or frame Kennard rather than allow him to enroll . 456
California
Western Vigilantism
In its first decades of statehood, California had a repu - tation for vigilantism, including extralegal executions by hanging . 457 For example, the lynching of people who committed crimes was a common method of “justice”
in gold mines, 458 and Placerville was originally known as “Hangtown .” 459 As in the South, California lynchings involved active participation by law enforcement . 460 Ken Gonzales-Day, an expert in California lynchings,
found evidence of 352 lynchings that occurred between
1850 and 1935, including of eight African Americans, but mostly of Native, Chinese, and Latino Americans . 461 (As discussed above, counts of lynchings are lower than the true number, due to lack of documentation and cover-up
efforts . 462 ) As was the case elsewhere in the United States, Black Californians were often lynched in response to
labor disputes or alleged crimes . 463 In the 1871 Chinese massacre, 10 percent of Los Angeles (500 people) formed a mob and lynched 17 Chinese men and boys because they
believed that Chinese people had killed a white saloon
owner . 464 Barely anyone was held accountable for these and the other many murders of people of color . 465
A 1933 lynching of two white kidnappers in San Jose put a stamp of approval on lynching nationwide . 466 The lynch- ing received more attention than any other lynching in
U .S . history, partly because the victims were white—an anomaly for lynchings . 467 Then-California Governor
James Rolph praised the lynchers and vowed to pardon
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Chapter 3 Racial T error
them if they were charged . 468 Although the victims in the San Jose lynching were white, anti-lynching activists un- derstood at the time that African Americans, who were
the typical target of lynchings, would face the repercus - sions for the glorification of the San Jose lynching . 469 As such, they swiftly and widely condemned the lynching
and the Governor’s response . 470
The anti-lynching activists were correct: mobs in other parts of the country followed the Governor’s enthusi -
astic endorsement to perpetrate their own lynchings,
mostly of African Americans . 471 The fact that the San Jose lynching occurred in the West underscored that lynch -
ing was a national, not solely Southern, problem . 472 But the lynching and the subsequent praise of the mob
by the Governor also lent credibility to the practice of lynching and decoupled its exclusive association with
Jim Crow . 473 The New York Times reported in 1933 that southerners widely reacted to the San Jose lynching by
remarking, “California’s my address from now on,” or
“those Westerners are learning how the South handles
‘em .” 474 The Times concluded that, by endorsing the prac- tice of lynching, the Governor of California had gone
further than some Southern governors who had sought
to prevent lynchings . 475
Backlash against Black Prosperity
As was the case elsewhere in the country, the Ku
Klux Klan and other perpetrators of racial violence
in California focused their attacks against those who
threatened the system of racial and socioeconomic sub - jugation of African Americans—those Black people who
found well-paying jobs, amassed wealth, bought homes,
used public pools and parks, and otherwise engaged in
civil society .

The surge of KKK activity, and its accompanying vio -
lence, was connected to the migration of over a quarter million African Americans to California during World
War II—the state with the largest increase in its Black population during that time . 476 The “Great Migration” was inspired, at least in part, by the recurring incidents of racial terror throughout the South, as well as the poor economic, political, and social conditions that Black
southerners experienced . 477 California, which was ex - periencing a dramatic increase in manufacturing jobs
during World War II, was an appealing destination . 478 California’s Black wartime workers, as the Black press
noted, had a higher standard of living compared to
Black workers in the South . 479 Simultaneously, new
KKK members moved to California
during World War  II just as Black
homeowners renewed their offen -
sive against restricted housing . 480
The comparative freedoms that
Black Californians enjoyed motivat -
ed white supremacists to organize
against Black workers and home -
owners (as well as other non-white
veterans, such as Mexican and
Japanese veterans, returning from
the war) . 481 White people were threatened by African Americans with good jobs who purchased property,
voted, and inhabited public spaces and institutions . 482 Fearful of a growing Black population, and emboldened
by the silence and cooperation of police and govern -
ment officials, the KKK initiated a new wave of violent activity in the late 1930s and 1940s to stem the influx of Black populations—or to keep Black people entirely out
of white communities . 483 For instance, the KKK’s resur- gence in the Inland Empire and Southern California in
the 1940s was linked to the gains made by Black workers, homeowners, and civil rights activists . 484
Throughout California, the revived KKK had one prima-
ry goal: to enforce racial segregation and maintain the social inferiority of African Americans . 485 They aimed to keep neighborhoods, schools, pools, parks, and beaches
all-white and monitor people of color who transgressed
racial boundaries . 486 For further discussion of residen - tial segregation, see Chapter 5, Housing Segregation .

Violence Against Black Homeowners
Violence to stifle and reverse Black advancement was
perhaps most evident in the attacks on Black homeown -
ers during the 1940s . As new Black migrants were able
to afford homeownership, white supremacist backlash
grew . 487 The Ku Klux Klan sought to promote segrega - tion and prevent the integration of Black residents into white neighborhoods . 488 Violence against Black home - owners in California peaked in the 1940s . 489 The KKK mainly relied on arson and physical attacks on home -
owners to intimidate people of color from buying in
majority-white neighborhoods . 490 This practice dates back to 1909, when white Pasadena residents set fire to the homes of Black arrivals in the neighborhood . 491
Fearful of a growing Black population, and emboldened by the silence and cooperation of police and government officials, the KKK initiated a new wave of violent activity in the late 1930s and 1940s to stem the influx of Black populations—or to keep Black people entirely out of white communities.
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Chapter 3 Racial T error
This violence was thoroughly racist . The violence
against Black homeowners was not caused by concern
over a “lower social class of neighbors,” as the Black
homeowners were often of a higher occupational and
social status than the white attackers . 492 Similarly, when Black homeowners moved into a neighborhood, they
took better care of their homes and lawns than their
white neighbors . 493
The murder of O’Day Short, a refrigeration engineer,
is emblematic of the racial terror perpetrated against
Black communities during the 1940s in California . After he and his family moved into the white neighborhood
of Fontana in 1945, Short was threatened by police, and a local vigilante group said it wanted the Shorts out of the neighborhood . 494 On December 6, 1945, two weeks
after they moved in, the Shorts died in a house fire that killed the family of four . 495 As with much of the vio - lence against African Americans, state officials failed to hold anyone accountable for the murder, and inexpli -
cably blamed the fire on the Shorts . 496 ThenCalifornia Attorney General Robert W . Kenny investigated the
murder, but the report failed to confirm that vigilantes caused the fire or that there was any vigilante activity in the community . 497 The NAACP called the report a
“white wash .” 498
The murder of the Shorts, and the subsequent failure
to hold the perpetrators accountable, confirmed to the
power of white supremacy in California . A Los Angeles
Sentinel editorial said: “Jim Crow had kept Short from
finding a home in Los Angeles; Jim Crow had cast him in the role of a violator of Community
traditions if he built a house on the
lot he purchased; Jim Crow had
warped the sense of duty of dep -
uty sheriffs to the extent that they
themselves had joined in a plan to
deprive an American citizen of his
constitutional rights…All the Shorts
are dead . Only Jim Crow is alive .” 499
Within months following the explosion at the Shorts’
home, Black homeowners were increasingly under at -
tack by the KKK in Southern California . 500 For example, the KKK staged a comeback in Big Bear Valley focused
on restrictive covenants, violence, and cross burnings . 501 The KKK’s stated goal was to achieve a “One Hundred
Per Cent Gentile Community .” 502
Coercive Sterilization
As discussed in Chapter 12, Mental and Physical Harm
and Neglect, California was one of the first states to be - gin forcibly sterilizing people in the
early 1900s, and conducted by far
the most sterilizations in the United
States (one third of the nationwide
total) . 503 From 1909 to 1979, under
the state eugenics law, California
state institutions forcibly steril -
ized approximately 20,000 people
deemed “unfit to produce .” 504 While
men made up the majority of steril-
izations at first, by the 1930s, women
were more frequently the subject of
sterilizations, and in the middle of
the century, nearly all of the operations were performed on women . 505 Black people were also disproportionately sterilized in California . 506 They constituted just over one percent of California’s population in the 1920s, yet they accounted for four percent of total sterilizations by the State of California . 507
Extrajudicial Police Violence
Scholars have argued that extrajudicial violence by po - lice officers represents a modern form of lynching . In California, since 2015, 158 Black people were shot and
killed by police, at least 16 of whom were known to be
unarmed . 508 Among those whose race and ethnicity
were known, Black people represent 18 .9 percent of
those killed by the police, despite representing only six percent of the population . 509 Those responsible for these killings have largely never been found to be criminally liable . 510 The Los Angeles Times reports, for example, that since 2001, Los Angeles County law enforcement
has killed over 900 people—nearly 80 percent of whom
were Black or Latino . 511 On average, one police shooting 6% 18.9%

BLACK CALIFORNIANS

POPULATION

BLACK CALIFORNIANS

KILLED BY POLICE
Violence against Black homeowners in California peaked in the 1940s. The KKK mainly relied on arson and physical attacks on homeowners to intimidate people of color from buying in majority-white neighborhoods. This practice dates back to 1909, when white Pasadena residents set fire to the homes of Black arrivals in the neighborhood.
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Chapter 3 Racial T error
occurred every five days . 512 Out of all of those cases, only two officers were charged as a result of a civilian shot on duty, and in virtually all of the cases, the Los Angeles County District Attorney deemed the use of force legal - ly justified . 513 Similarly, officers with the Vallejo Police Department killed 19 people from 2010 to 2020, but no
Vallejo police officer has been found to be criminally
liable for killing a civilian while on duty . 514
Below are only a few examples of the hundreds of inci - dents where police have used extrajudicial violence in
California to inflict pain or cause death, a topic that is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 11 An Unjust Legal System . In general, these acts of violence were often the result of officers enflaming or failing to de-escalate the situation, and sometimes occurred in a manner that ap - peared to show little regard for the Black lives harmed or killed . Taken together, these incidents can be under- stood to perpetuate the myth of Black criminality and
function as a threat to the overall well-being of Black people, whom law enforcement may often consciously
or unconsciously view as dangerous criminals .
• In 1991, four LAPD officers repeatedly beat Rodney
King on the ground with batons for 15 minutes while
a dozen officers stood by and
watched . 515 He was unarmed . 516
The officers had used racial slurs
to refer to King over the LAPD
communications systems . 517
The officers who committed the
beating—three of whom were
white—were acquitted, which
sparked local unrest . 518
• In 1998, four officers were called
to help Tyisha Miller, who had
locked herself in the car and
fallen asleep . 519 When the of -
ficers failed to wake her from
outside, they broke her window
to grab the firearm that was sitting in her lap . 520 That caused Miller to bolt upright, and the officers shot
her out of fear—firing 24 bullets and shooting her 12
times in the chest . 521 While the officers were fired, the U .S . Justice Department’s civil rights division—as well as the California Department of Justice, which
was conducting a civil investigation into the police
department as a whole—declined to bring charges
against the individual officers . 522
• On New Years’ Day 2009, Bay Area Rapid Transit po -
lice officers responded to a report of fighting on a
train . 523 One officer pinned Oscar Grant down with a knee on his neck . 524 While Grant was lying face-down, the other officer purportedly mistook his gun for a
Taser and shot Grant . 525 The officer who shot Grant
was convicted of involuntary manslaughter . 526
• In November 2013, Tyler Damon Woods was shot by
police while on his knees after fleeing a traffic stop
by foot . 527 The officers believed he was armed, which was inaccurate, and shot at Woods approximately 39
times . 528 Nineteen bullets hit him, six of which were each individually enough to kill Woods . 529 The po - lice continued to shoot him, claiming he exhibited
superhuman resilience . 530
• In 2019, Vallejo police responded to a wellness re -
quest for Willie McCoy, a 20-year-old Black man who
was asleep in his car in a Taco Bell parking lot . 531 Six officers surrounded the cars when McCoy started
to wake up . 532 The police claimed that McCoy was
reaching for a firearm—which did not appear to be
supported by the police video—and six police offi -
cers fired 55 shots at McCoy, killing him . 533 All of the officers involved in the shooting returned to their
regular duties . McCoy’s family said McCoy was “exe-
cuted by a firing squad .” 534
• In August 2020, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s
Department stopped Dijon Kizzee for “riding a bi -
cycle on the wrong side of the road” and “splitting
traffic .” 535 Kizzee refused to stop, abandoned his bi - cycle, and fled on foot . 536 The Sheriff’s office claims that deputies fired when Kizzee reached back to
pick up a gun he dropped, but video evidence ap -
pears to contradict this claim . 537 An independent
autopsy concluded that Kizzee was struck 15 times
by two deputies’ 19 rounds . 538 After they fired, the deputies called for backup, and Kizzee bled to death
on the street . 539
In the 1990s, a federal district court found that a group of deputies in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, known as the Lynwood Vikings, was “a neo-Nazi, white supremacist gang” that engaged in “terrorist-type tactics” with the knowledge and acquiescence of their superiors. The court found that these gangs committed “systemic acts of shooting, killing, brutality, terrorism, house-trashing, and other acts of lawlessness and wanton abuse of power,” particularly against Latinos and Black people. 117
Chapter 3 Racial T error
There have also been incidents where law enforcement
officers in California have participated in racist, na - tivist, and sexist social media activity online; showed white supremacist sympathies; or worse, systemati -
cally carried out attacks against minority members of
the community . 540 In the 1990s, a federal district court found that a group of deputies in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, known as the Lynwood Vikings,
was “a neo-Nazi, white supremacist gang” that engaged
in “terrorist-type tactics” with the knowledge and ac - quiescence of their superiors . 541 The court found that these gangs committed “systemic acts of shooting, kill - ing, brutality, terrorism, house-trashing, and other acts of lawlessness and wanton abuse of power,” particularly against Latinos and Black people . 542 In 1996, the Sheriff’s Department paid $9 million in fines and training costs to settle the matter . 543 Despite that settlement, according to independent reports, law enforcement gangs still al - legedly thrive in low-income, high-minority areas of Los Angeles, where they have allegedly committed excessive
force against minority members of the communities,
sometimes using racial epithets while doing so . 544
V . Legacy: Devaluing Black Lives
As discussed above, racial terror played a critical role in white efforts to subjugate Black people to an inferi - or economic, political, and social stature and maintain the caste structure that was established during en -
slavement . As such, racial terror has contributed to
many racial inequities in America today . 545 While Black communities have remained resilient in the face of
numerous structural, social, economic, and political
barriers, the threat of racial violence continues to harm African Americans . 546
Criminal Justice
The legacy of the Ku Klux Klan’s infiltration of law en - forcement continues today . Law enforcement officers
in at least 14 states, including California, have been
tied to white supremacist groups and far-right mili -
tant activities . 547 Advocates and scholars have argued that police killings of unarmed Black people should be
understood as the modern-day equivalent of lynch -
ing . Just as the threat of lynching controlled African Americans, the threat of murder by
police imposes controls on the lives
of African Americans . Today, some
Black parents feel compelled to ed -
ucate their children early on about
how to interact with racialized tar -
geting by the police . 548 As was the
case with lynchings, those involved
in these extrajudicial killings are
only rarely held accountable for
their actions . 549
Created during enslavement in order for white
enslavers to control Black enslaved people, and per -
petuated through lynchings, the racist myth that Black
people are criminals continues today . As discussed
in Chapter 11 An Unjust Legal System, this myth of
Black criminality still contributes to racial disparities between Black and white Americans in arrests, convic -
tions, and imprisonment . 550 The death penalty, which scholars argue is a vestige of racialized violence against African Americans, also discussed in Chapter 11 An
Unjust Legal System, disproportionately kills African
Americans . 551 Death penalty lawyer Stephen B . Bright argues that capital punishment in the United States is
so thoroughly compromised by bias and racial dispari -
ties that it must be understood as “a direct descendent of lynching .” 552
Economic Effects
Violence and terror targeting African Americans has
directly destroyed Black wealth—which has a com -
pounding effect over time to prevent African Americans
from amassing more wealth and thus contributing
greatly to the wealth gap . 553 The disparities are stark:
white Americans have seven times the wealth of African
Americans . 554 Although Black people make up nearly 13 percent of the U .S . population, they hold less than three percent of the nation’s wealth . 555 The median family wealth for white people is $171,000, compared to $17 ,600 for Black people . 556 And 19 percent of Black households have zero or negative net worth, compared to nine per - cent of white families . 557
The effect of violence by the Ku Klux Klan, buttressed by the support of law enforcement, real estate brokers, and federal loan programs, paved the way for segregated neighborhoods with unequal city services for Black neighborhoods.
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Chapter 3 Racial T error
Lynchings, police brutality, and other forms of violence and intimidation were used to seize land from Black
farmers, rendering African Americans landless and
unable to accumulate generational wealth . 558 Although Black farmers collectively increased their land holdings at a greater rate than whites between 1900 and 1920,
Black farm owners lost 57 percent of their land, where - as white farm owners lost 22 percent of their land, from 1900 to 1978 . 559
Similarly, rates of Black homeownership have stagnated
and declined . In 1909, 36 percent of Black residents of Los Angeles were homeowners before the implementa -
tion of policies and carrying out of violent acts designed to prevent Black home ownership . 560 By 2021, the rate of Black homeownership had declined to 34 percent . 561 The effect of violence by the Ku Klux Klan, buttressed
by the support of law enforcement, real estate brokers, and federal loan programs, paved the way for segregat - ed neighborhoods with unequal city services for Black
neighborhoods . 562 In Los Angeles, for example, Black residents were pushed to neighborhoods like Watts,
while the city stopped running street cars that would
have transported Black workers to shipyard and aircraft jobs in other parts of the city, limiting Black employment opportunities . 563 Even though KKK activities declined after the 1940s, the KKK had already succeeded in
restricting Black opportunities for wealth and home -
ownership at a time of significant economic opportunity after the end of World War II . 564
Although the 1968 Fair Housing Act made violence to
prevent neighborhood integration a federal crime, and
the U .S . Department of Justice prosecuted several cas - es, frequent attacks on African Americans attempting
to move into predominantly white areas continued
into the 1980s, with 130 cases of move-in violence in
1989 alone . 565 Not until the late 1980s were a majority of these crimes prosecuted . 566 The broad lack of enforce - ment sent a message that these crimes were tolerable,
which emboldened perpetrators to continue their
violent actions . 567
Impact on Health and Family Life
Fear of racial terror, past and present, has also resulted in trans-generational trauma for African Americans .

Black families and communities were profoundly af -
fected by lynchings . 568 The constant threat of lynching affected interpersonal interactions . 569 Family members of victims could not obtain justice out of fear that they too would be lynched, and they were often frightened
to even attend a funeral of their lynched loved one . 570 Images of mutilated bodies on pub -
lic display or dragged through the
streets traumatized the psyche of
African Americans . 571 These images
left an especially indelible impres -
sion on Black children, framing
their view of the world as a danger -
ous and unpredictable place, and
causing lifelong damage, including
sleep disturbances, flashbacks, and
emotional detachment . 572
These psychological traumas have extended across
generations . Violence has reinforced white suprem -
acist cultural and institutional systems, while the
arbitrary nature of lynching socialized Black people to understand that any act of perceived insubordination
could be a matter of life or death . 573 In this way, ra - cial terror was a powerful tool for social, educational, and political control, as it encouraged Black people
to change their own behavior and avoid opportuni -
ties for advancement, lest they risk being the victim
of violence . 574 African Americans continue to expe - rience the effects of trauma induced by racial terror
today, including heightened suspicion and sensitivity
to threat, chronic stress, decreased immune system
functioning, and greater risks of depression, anxiety,
and substance use . 575
The history of racial terror has influenced the use of
violence by both white people and Black people in the
present day . 576 For example, in Mississippi and North Carolina, studies show that Black people are killed at
a higher rate in counties that had more lynchings and
anti-civil-rights violence . 577 The legacy of racial terror encourages vigilante violence among white communi -
ties . 578 And, in Black communities, the government’s failure to protect African Americans from lynching has
fostered the use of violence for self-help . 579 As a result, criminologists have linked higher rates of Black involve - ment in crime with the violent racial subordination of
African Americans . 580
Images of mutilated bodies on public display or dragged through the streets traumatized the psyche of African Americans. These images left an especially indelible impression on Black children, framing their view of the world as a dangerous and unpredictable place, and causing lifelong damage.
119
Chapter 3 Racial T error
VI . Conclusion
As a badge of slavery, racial terror has enforced the
domination of a racial hierarchy set in place in service of slavery . After the formal end of slavery, racial terror became a method by which white Americans and the
nation as a whole sought to keep African Americans as
poor and powerless as they had been while enslaved .

From slavery through to the present day, racial ter -
ror has gravely harmed African Americans mentally
and physically .

Racial terror often takes direct forms, such as physical assault, threats of injury, and destruction of proper - ty . It also inflicts psychological trauma on those who witness the harm and injury . 581 Lynchings and other forms of racial terror occurred in communities where
African Americans today remain marginalized, dispro -
portionately poor, overrepresented in prisons and jails, and underrepresented in positions of influence . The
traumatic experience of surviving mass violence cre -
ates insecurity, mistrust, and alienation—psychological harms that were amplified by the dangers inherent in
navigating Southern racial boundaries . 582 Lynchings in the American South were not isolated hate crimes
committed by rogue vigilantes . Lynchings were targeted racial violence that formed part of a systematic cam -
paign of terror perpetrated in furtherance of an unjust social order . Selective public memory compounds the
harm of officials’ complicity in lynching and maintains the otherness of Black people . 583
The same is true of other forms of racial terror such as mob violence, torture, extrajudicial violence, steriliza - tion and sexual violence, and economic and politically
influenced terror . Racialized terror is woven into the fabric of America, and although many racial groups have been victims, perhaps no racial group has been targeted more than African Americans . From the violence of en - slavement to contemporary police killings, both actual
and threatened violence against African Americans has
functioned to establish and maintain white suprema -
cy . 584 Federal, state, and local governments have been complicit in the infliction of terror through silence, fail - ure to hold the perpetrators accountable, and even on
some occasions, endorsement of the actions . California is no exception; the state, its local governments, and its people have played a significant role in enabling racial terror and its legacy to persist here in California .

The tactics of white supremacy at any time in history
are simultaneously overtly violent and subversively
traumatic for African Americans . Racial terror remains the constant backdrop and tool for other forms of
discrimination intended to exert control of African
Americans—from redlining and segregated schools to
disparate healthcare and denial of bank loans—that has
prevented many African Americans throughout history
from living a dignified life of equal opportunity .
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Chapter 3 Racial T error
Endnotes
1 See Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), Lynching
in America: Confronting the Legacy
of Racial Terror (2015), p . 3 (as
of April 4, 2022) (EJI 2015) .
2 Ibid . at p . 3 .
3 Coates, The Case for Reparations, The
Atlantic (June 2014) (as of April 4,
2022) (Case for Reparations); Byman,
The Failure of Counterterrorism After
the Civil War, Lawfare (Aug . 22, 2021)
(as of April 4, 2022) (Lawfare); Niraj
Chokshi, Racism at American Pools Isn’t
New: A Look at a Long History, N .Y . Times
(Aug . 1, 2018) (as of April 4, 2022) .
4 EJI 2015, supra, at p . 3, 7; EJI, Lynching in
America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial
Terror: Third Edition (2017), pp . 48-50,
65, 73 (as of April 4, 2022) (EJI 3d ed .);
Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our
Discontents (2020), p . 151 (Caste); Lee,
How America’s Vast Racial Wealth Gap
Grew: By Plunder, N .Y . Times, (Aug . 14,
2019) (as of April 4, 2022) (Lee); Case
for Reparations, supra; Lawfare, supra .
5 EJI 3d ed ., supra, at pp . 65, 68-69 .
6 EJI 2015, supra, at pp . 19-20, 22-23; EJI
3d ed ., supra, at p . 65 .
7 Niedermeier, The Color of the Third Degree
(2019), pp . 17-19 (Third Degree); United
Nations General Assembly, Report of
the Working Group of Experts on People
of African Descent on its mission to the
United States of America (Aug . 18, 2016),
p . 16 (U .N . Working Group Report);
Love, The Trayvon Martin case reveals
a vigilante spirit in the US justice system,
The Guardian, (Apr . 7 , 2012) (as of
April 4, 2022) (Trayvon Martin) .
8 Lee, supra .
9 Bump, The long history of black voter sup-
pression in American politics, The
Washington Post, (Nov . 2, 2016)
(as of April 4, 2022) (Bump); Buhl,
Donald Trump’s Call to Militia to
‘Watch’ Polling Places Raises Fears of
Voter Intimidation, Newsweek, (Oct .
17 , 2020) (as of April 4, 2022) .
10 Caste, supra, at p . 17 .
11 Ibid .
12 Id . at pp . 19, 52 .
13 Id . at p . 151 .
14 Ibid .
15 U .S . Const ., 10th Amend .; United States
v. Morrison (2000) 529 U .S . 598, 618 .
16 Caste, supra, at pp . 151, 153; EJI 2015,
supra, at p . 18 .
17 Id. at pp . 152, 154 .
18 Id. at pp . 153-55 .
19 Ibid .
20 Id . at pp . 151-154 .
21 See, e .g ., Thomas Wentworth
Higginson, The Story of Denmark
Vesey The Atlantic (June 1861) (as
of April 4, 2022) (Higginson) .
22 Id .
23 Id .
24 Id .
25 Id .; see also Michael P . Johnson,
Denmark Vesey and His Co-Conspirators
(Oct . 2001) 58(4) William and Mary
Quarterly 915, 919, 945-48 (Johnson) .
26 Johnson, supra, at p . 949 .
27 Higginson, supra .
28 See generally Johnson, supra .
29 Philip D . Morgan, Conspiracy Scares
(Jan . 2002) 59(1) William and
Mary Quarterly 159, 163 .
30 EJI 3d ed ., supra, at p . 10 .
31 Foner, South Carolina’s Forgotten Black
Political Revolution Slate (Jan . 31,
2018) (as of April 4, 2022); EJI
3d ed ., supra, pp . 10-12 .
32 Lawfare, supra; Ifill, Creating a Truth and
Reconciliation Commission for
Lynching (Summer 2003) 21
Law & Ineq . 263, 273 (Ifill) .
33 Hinson, Land Gains, Land Losses: The
Odyssey of African Americans Since
Reconstruction (May-Sept . 2018)
77(3-4) Am . J . of Economics and
Sociology 893, 909-10 (Hinson) .
34 Id . at p . 911, citing Schweninger, Black
Property Owners in the South,
1790-1915 (1990), p . 176 .
35 National Center for Education
Statistics, 120 Years of American
Education: A Statistical Portrait (Jan .
1993), p . 21, tbl . 6 (as of April 4, 2022) .
36 Lawfare, supra .
37 Third Degree, supra, at p . 16 .
38 Ibid .
39 Case for Reparations, supra; Caste,
supra, at p . 155; Third
Degree, supra, at p . 17 .
40 U .N . Working Group Report, supra, at
p . 16; Trayvon Martin, supra .
41 Caste, supra, at p . 228 .
42 Ifill, supra, at p . 274 .
43 Lawfare, supra .
44 Ifill, supra, at pp . 273-74; Lawfare,
supra .
45 Ifill, supra, at pp . 273-74; Lawfare,
supra .
46 Martha T . McCluskey, Facing the Ghost of
Cruikshank in Constitutional Law (Nov .
2015) 65(2) Journal of Legal Education
278, 280-81 (McCluskey); see generally
Michael S . Smith, The Lost Freedmen’s
Town of Hamburg, South Carolina
(2021); see also Renetta DuBose, The
Untold Story of Hamburg, SC, WJBF
(Feb . 22, 2021) (as of April 4, 2022) .
47 McCluskey, supra, at pp . 280-81 .
48 Ibid .
49 EJI 2015, supra, at p . 7 .
50 Ibid . at p . 7; EJI 3d ed ., supra, at p . 27 .
51 Caste, supra, at pp . 90-91, 151, 155;
Third Degree, supra, at p . 20; Jordan,
A History Lesson: Reparations for What?
(2003) 58 N .Y .U . Ann . Surv . Am . L . 557 ,
593 (Jordan); Ward, Critical Race Theory
and Empirical Methods: Microclimates of
Racial Meaning: Historical Racial Violence
and Environmental Impacts (2016) 2016
Wis . L . Rev . 575, 607-08 (Ward); Ifill,
supra, at pp . 267 , 279-80, 284 .
52 EJI 2015, supra, at p . 7; EJI 3d ed ., supra,
at p . 73; Case for Reparations, supra;
Klanwatch Project of the Southern
Poverty Law Center, Ku Klux Klan: A
121
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History of Racism and Violence (2011),
pp . 14, 18 (as of April 4, 2022) (SPLC
History); Eckstrand, The Ugliness of
Trolls: Comparing the Strategies/Methods
of the Alt-Right and the Ku Klux Klan
(2018) 10(3) Cosmopolitan Civil
Societies: an Interdisciplinary J . 41,
46, (as of April 4, 2022) (Eckstrand) .
53 EJI 2015, supra, at pp . 3, 7; EJI 3d ed .,
supra, at pp . 48-50, 73; Case for
Reparations, supra; SPLC History,
supra, at pp . 14-15, 18; Eckstrand, supra,
at pp . 46-47; Lawfare, supra; Human
Rights Watch, The Case for Reparations
in Tulsa, Oklahoma: A Human Rights
Argument, at p . 6 (May 2020) (as of April
4, 2022) (Human Rights Watch) .
54 See, e .g ., Tara McAndrew, The History of
the KKK in American Politics, JSTOR Daily
(Jan . 25, 2017) (as of April 4, 2022) .
55 SPLC History, supra, at p . 4 .
56 Id . at pp . 4-5, 7 , 25-26, 51 .
57 See generally SPLC History .
58 Id . at pp . 9, 15 .
59 Id . at pp . 8, 10 .
60 Ifill, supra, at pp . 272-274; Balleck . Hate
Groups and Extremist Organizations in
America: An Encyclopedia (2019), at pp .
179-180 (Hate Groups); Lawfare, supra .
61 Hate Groups at p . 179 .
62 SPLC History, supra, at pp . 8, 10, 12, 14 .
63 Id . at pp . 10-11 .
64 Clarke, Without Fear or Shame: Lynching,
Capital Punishment and the Subculture
Violence in the American South (Apr .
1998) 28(2) British J . or Political Sci ., at
p . 277 , (as of Apr . 5, 2022) (Clarke) .
65 Hate Groups, supra, at pp . 179-80; SPLC
History, supra, at p . 12 .
66 SPLC History, supra, at p . 15; Egerton,
Terrorized African-Americans Found
Their Champion in Civil War Hero
Robert Smalls Smithsonian Magazine
(Sept . 2018) (as of April 4, 2022) .
67 Lawfare, supra .
68 SPLC History, supra, at pp . 14-15 .
69 Ibid . at p . 15; United States Senate, The
Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871, United
States Senate (as of April 4, 2022) .
70 SPLC History, supra, at p . 15; Hate
Groups, supra, at pp . 179-180 .
71 Clarke, supra, at p . 277; SPLC History,
supra, at p . 15; Lawfare, supra .
72 SPLC History, supra, at p . 15 .
73 Clarke, supra, at p . 277 .
74 Lawfare, supra .
75 Ibid .
76 SPLC History, supra, at p . 13 .
77 Ibid . at p . 15 .
78 McCluskey, supra, at pp . 280-81 .
79 SPLC History, supra, at pp . 17 , 22-23;
Hate Groups, supra, at p . 180 .
80 Corliss, D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation
100 years Later: Still Great, Still
Shameful Time (Mar . 3, 2015) (as
of April 4, 2022) (Corliss) .
81 Ibid .; SPLC History, supra, at p . 21 .
82 Roy Rosenzweig Center for History
and New Media, The Birth of a Nation
and Black Protest (April 17 , 1915) (as
of April 5, 2022) (Rosenzweig);
SPLC History, supra, at p . 21 .
83 Rosenzweig, supra .
84 Brody, The Worst Thing About “Birth of a
Nation” Is How Good It Is The New Yorker
(Feb . 1, 2013) (as of April 4, 2022); NPR,
100 Years Later, What's The Legacy Of 'Birth
Of A Nation'? (Feb . 8, 2015) (as of April
4, 2022) (NPR Birth of a Nation); SPLC
History, supra, at p . 21; Corliss, supra .
85 Ifill, supra, at p . 277 .
86 Corliss, supra .
87 Ibid .; Rosenzweig, supra; Hate Groups,
supra, at p . 180; SPLC
History, supra, at p . 21 .
88 James F . Smith, Lessons on Dangers of
Using Media to Spread Racial Hatred
and Violence (Feb . 9, 2021) (as of
April 4, 2022) (Using Media) .
89 Ibid .
90 Hate Groups, supra, at p . 180 .
91 NPR Birth of a Nation, supra; Hudson,
West of Jim Crow: The Fight
Against California’s Color Line
(2020), p . 171 (Hudson) .
92 Bringhurst, The Ku Klux Klan in a
Central California Community:

Tulare County During the 1920s and
1930s (Winter 2000) 82(4), Southern
California Quarterly 368 (Bringhurst) .
93 Ibid .
94 Hate Groups, supra, at p . 180 .
95 Ibid .
96 SPLC History, supra, at p . 18 .
97 Ibid .
98 Id. at p . 20 .
99 Gillett, A Woman’s Work (July 2019)
History Today, p . 46 (Gillett);
Hate Groups, supra, at p . 180 .
100 SPLC History, supra, at pp . 25, 45; Hate
Groups, supra, at pp . 181, 183 .
101 SPLC History, supra, at pp . 25, 45; Hate
Groups, supra, at pp . 181, 183 .
102 Hate Groups, supra, at p . 180; Gillett,
supra, at p . 46 .
103 Hate Groups, supra, at p . 180 .
104 Id. at pp . 180-81 .
105 Id . at p . 181 .
106 SPLC History, supra, at pp . 41-43 .
107 Ibid .
108 Id. at pp . 14, 18 .
109 Ibid .
110 Ibid .
111 Ibid .; Eckstrand, The Ugliness of Trolls:

Comparing the Strategies/Methods of the
Alt-Right and the Ku Klux Klan (2018)
10(3) Cosmopolitan Civil Societies:
an Interdisciplinary J . 41, 46, (as
of Apr . 5, 2022) (Eckstrand) .
112 Eckstrand, supra, at p . 46 .
113 Id . at p . 47 .
114 Hate Groups, supra, at pp . 181-183 .
115 Lois Beckett, The year in Nazi propagan-
da: images of white supremacy in
Trump’s America The Guardian (Dec .
27 , 2017) (as of Apr . 5, 2022) .
116 Southern Poverty Law Center, Proud
Boys (as of Apr . 5, 2022) .
117 Cardine, Turner, Szabo, A KKK propa-
ganda drop and a planned White Lives Matter
122
Chapter 3 Racial T error
rally rattle 2 O.C. communities L .A . Times
(Mar . 31, 2021) (as of Apr . 5, 2022) .
118 Waite, The Forgotten History of the
Western Klan The Atlantic (Apr . 6,
2021) (as of Apr . 5, 2022) (Waite);
Bringhurst, supra, at 365, 368 .
119 Waite, supra .
120 Ibid .
121 Ibid .
122 Ibid .
123 Kent, The Hidden History of Culver City
Racism Streets Blog LA (Apr . 5,
2019) (as of Apr . 5, 2022) .
124 Bringhurst, supra, at p . 370 .
125 Hudson, supra, at pp . 171-72 .
126 Id. at p . 172 .
127 Ibid .
128 Ibid .
129 Ibid .
130 Id . at p . 173 .
131 Ibid .
132 Id . at p . 182 .
133 Ibid .
134 Id. at p . 188 .
135 Bringhurst, supra, at pp . 369-70 .
136 Brenda Elaine Stevenson, The
Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins: Justice,
Gender, and the Origins of the LA Riots
(2013), p . 186; Hudson, supra, at p . 179 .
137 Bringhurst, supra, at pp . 369-70 .
138 Id . at pp . 370 .
139 Hudson, supra, at p . 180 .
140 Ibid .
141 Id . at p . 178 .
142 Id . at pp . 177-78 .
143 Harrison, From the Archives: Ku Klux
Klan images from 1920s Southern
California LA Times (Oct . 4, 2017)
(as of Apr . 4, 2022) (Harrison) .
144 Ibid .
145 Id . at pp . 181-82 .
146 Id . at pp . 169, 179 .
147 Id . at p . 179 .
148 Ibid .
149 Id . at p . 180 .
150 Id . at p . 183 .
151 Ibid .
152 Ibid .; L .A . Burrito, The Los Angeles
Mayor Who Was Also a KKK Leader
L .A . TACO (July 8, 2020) (as of Apr .
4, 2022) (Los Angeles Mayor) .
153 Ku Klux Klan Makes Its Reappearance in
Full Regalia in Los Angeles, Jewish Daily
Bulletin (July 28, 1932), p . 2, (as of Apr .
5, 2022); Los Angeles Mayor, supra .
154 Hudson, supra, at p . 189 .
155 Bringhurst, supra, at p . 370 .
156 Hudson, supra, at p . 173 .
157 See Anaheim Public Library, 1950s –
1980s (1980s subsection), City of
Anaheim (as of Mar . 23, 2022) .
158 Hudson, supra, at p . 173 .
159 La Tour, A Brief History of the Ku Klux
Klan in Orange County: Note on the
Banality of Evil Fullerton Observer
(Jan . 7 , 2019) (as of Apr . 5, 2022)
(Orange County KKK History) .
160 Ibid .
161 Hudson, supra, at p . 173 .
162 Orange County KKK History, supra .
163 Ibid .
164 Hudson, supra, at p . 187 .
165 Id . at p . 183 .
166 Id . at p . 186-187 .
167 Id . at p . 186 .
168 Ibid .
169 Id . at p . 187 .
170 Id . at p . 186 .
171 Id . at p . 187 .
172 Larralde and Castillo, San Diego’s Ku
Klux Klan (Spring/Summer 2000) 46(2-3)
San Diego Historical Society Quarter
(as of Apr . 5, 2022) (San Diego KKK) .
173 Ibid .
174 Bringhurst, supra, at p . 370 .
175 Ramirez, “Violators of Almost Every
Right“: Analyzing the Ku Klux Klan of
1920’s (2017) 26 Ex Post Facto: J . of the
History Students at San Francisco
State Univ . 145, 147 , > (as of Apr . 5,
2022) (Ramirez), citing District Attorney
Announces Names On Kleagle’s Lists, Fresno
Morning Republican (May 5, 1922) .
176 Bringhurst, supra, at p . 370 .
177 Id . at p . 393 .
178 Ibid .; Eissinger, Kern County: California’s
Deep South (March 2011) (as of Apr . 5,
2022) at pp . 7-8 (Eissinger); Ramirez,
supra, at p . 155, citing Night Riders
Halt Raids But Marked Victims Still Flee,
Fresno Morning Republican (Mar .
6, 1922); Hudson, supra, at p . 180 .
179 Ramirez, supra, at p . 155, citing Chief of
Police, Supervisor Head, Among
Members, Fresno Morning
Republican (May 7 , 1922) .
180 Hate Groups, supra, at p . 180; SPLC
History, supra, at pp . 22-23 .
181 Eissinger, supra, at pp . 10-19 .
182 Id . at p . 19 .
183 Ibid .
184 Ibid .
185 Id at p . 20 .
186 Id . at p . 20-21 .
187 Eli Moore et al ., Roots, Race & Place: A
History of Racially Exclusionary
Housing in the San Francisco Bay
Area (Oct . 2019), Haas Institute, p .
26, (as of Apr . 5, 2022) (Haas) .
188 Hudson, supra, at p . 172 .
189 Haas, supra, at p . 26; Rhomberg, White
Nativism and Urban Politics: The 1920s
Ku Klux Klan in Oakland, California
(Winter 1998) 17(2) J . of Am . Ethnic
History 39, 44-46 (Rhomberg) .
190 Hudson, supra, at p . 174 .
191 Rhomberg, supra, at pp . 39, 44 .
192 Id . at pp . 44-46 .
193 Hussein Abdilahi Bulhan, Frantz Fanon
and the Psychology of Oppression
(1985), p . 122 .
194 Coffin v. United States, 156 U .S . 432, 453
(1895); see also EJI 2015, supra, at p . 20 .
195 Jordan, supra, at p . 588-589 .
196 Id . at p . 588 .
197 EJI 3d ed ., supra, at p . 61 .
123
Chapter 3 Racial T error
198 EJI 2015, supra, at p . 21 .
199 Id . at pp . 3, 7 . The Task Force recogniz-
es that “lynching” has been defined
differently at various points in history by
the entities who recorded incidents of
lynching . This has presented challenges
in terms of tracking lynching data and
assessing the complete impact of racial
terror . Hudson, supra, at p . 135 . For
the purposes of this section, the Task
Force uses “lynching” to refer to acts
of terrorism, specifically the murder
of one or more individuals by hang-
ing, where the public or community
supported the action . Hudson, supra, at
p . 135 . Lynchings are distinct from other
forms of racial violence and hate crimes
that were prosecuted as criminal acts .
200 Ibid .; EJI 3d ed ., supra, at 65 .
201 EJI 2015, supra, at p . 5 .
202 Donald G . Mathews, At the Altar of
Lynching: Burning Sam Hose in the
American South (2018), p . 6 .
203 EJI 3d ed ., supra, at p . 27 .
204 Ifill, supra, at p . 280 .
205 Markovitz, Legacies of Lynching: Racial
Violence and Memory (2004)
(Markovitz); Caste, supra, at pp .
93-94; EJI 2015, supra, at p . 12 .
206 EJI 2015, supra, at p . 12; Ifill, supra, at
p . 285 . Children were involved and
given front row position of the victim,
psychologically tainting their view
of Black people from a young age .
207 Jordan, supra, at pp . 565-66; Ifill,
supra, at pp . 285, 297-99 .
208 EJI 2015, supra, at pp . 12, 14; Caste,
supra, at pp . 93-94 .
209 EJI 2015, supra, at pp . 12, 14; Jordan,
supra, at p . 592; Ifill, supra, at pp . 285-86 .
210 Jordan, supra, at p . 592; Ifill, supra, at
pp . 285-86 .
211 Ifill, supra, at p . 294 .
212 Ibid .
213 EJI 2015, supra, at p . 21 .
214 Id . at p . 5; EJI 3d ed ., supra, at pp . 27 ,
38; see also Hudson, supra, pp . 131-133 .
215 EJI 2015, supra, at p . 11 .
216 Ibid .; Clarke, supra, at p . 280 .
217 Third Degree, supra, at p . 20; EJI 2015,
supra, at p . 10; Clarke, supra, at p . 280 .
218 Ifill, supra, at p . 278 .
219 Clarke, supra, at pp . Without Fear or
Shame: Lynching, Capital Punishment and
the Subculture Violence in the American
South (Apr . 1998) 28(2) British J . or
Political Sci . 269, 269, 280 & fn . 34,
(as of Oct . 20, 2021) (Clarke) .
220 EJI 2015, supra, at p . 11; EJI 3d ed .,
supra, at p . 31; Jordan, supra, at
p . 588; Ifill, supra, at p . 276-77 .
221 EJI 2015, supra, at p . 14 .
222 Ibid .
223 Clarke, supra, at pp . 270, 280; Ifill,
supra, at pp . 278-79 .
224 EJI 2015, supra, at p . 14 .
225 Ibid .
226 Ibid .
227 Ibid .
228 Third Degree, supra, at p . 20 .
229 Ibid .
230 See Fox, supra, at p . 158 .
231 Ibid .
232 Ifill, supra, at pp . 267-268 .
233 Jordan, supra, at pp . 585-87; Ifill,
supra, at p . 300 .
234 Ifill, supra, at pp . 300-301 .
235 EJI 2015, supra, at p . 18 .
236 Ifill, supra, at p . 301 .
237 Id . at pp . 300-01 .
238 Id . at pp . 301-02 .
239 Ibid .
240 EJI 2015, supra, at p . 18 .
241 Ifill, supra, at pp . 294, 302-03 .
242 Clarke, supra, at p . 281;
Ifill, supra, at p . 296 .
243 Jordan, supra, at pp . 579-80 .
244 Ibid .
245 Ward, supra, at pp . 582-83 .
246 Id . at pp . 585, 596-97 .
247 Hudson, supra, at p . 133 . But these
statistics often left out lynch-
ing of non-Black people, Native
Americans, Mexicans, and Chinese .