“The government should pay reparations for slavery.”

On Oct. 2, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a first-in-the-nation law requiring large companies to disclose whether they profited from slavery. Advocates called it a start and say cash payments to descendants of enslaved people are still needed. In Congress, a bill to create a commission to study reparations, H.R. 40, has been introduced for decades but has never passed. Older national polls show more Americans opposed to cash reparations than in favor, with large gaps by race and age. The question is whether the federal government should pay, and who would receive it.

Kristin Nimmers, California Black Power Network (agrees): “Compensation for slavery, unpaid labor, for the 40 acres and a mule that were promised after the end of slavery — that should go to folks who have lineage and are descendants of people who were enslaved because that is the harm that is being repaired.” Coleman Hughes, writer (disagrees): “If we were to pay reparations today, we would only divide the country further.” He says reparations would turn “a union between citizens into a lawsuit between plaintiffs and defendants,” and that Black Americans who lived under Jim Crow should be paid instead. Isaac Bryan, California Assemblymember who wrote the new disclosure law (middle): “Once the public has this disclosure and we have a full accounting of the impact, then it’s up to us to decide what that means and what we’re going to do about it.”