California state agencies will begin to collect lineage data from Black employees in accordance with a first in the nation law recently signed in Sacramento.
The agencies will collect data on demographic categories including Black employees who are descendants of enslaved people in the United States and Black employees whose ancestors were not enslaved.
The request for information results from the decision by the California Reparations Task Force that reparation eligibility for Black Californians should be geared toward descendants of enslaved people.
"From a moral and a human rights perspective, we are a specific group of people and we deserve and need to be recognized as such by our own government," Chris Lodgson, lead organizer of the Coalition for a Just and Equitable California, said. "Up until this law was passed there was no city, no county, no state agency you could go to in the state of California ... and say, 'How many African Americans are descendants of persons who were enslaved in this country living here? What is the specific condition, specific reality of African Americans who are descendants of persons enslaved in this country living here?'"
Lodgson joined Midday Edition on Tuesday to talk about the significance of the new law, which will take effect in 2024.
