San Francisco officials are set to formally apologize to Black residents for centuries of systemic racism.
On Thursday (February 14), members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors put forward a seven-page apology resolution, taking responsibility for the city’s history of discrimination against its Black residents, per the Los Angeles Times.
The apology resolution is among the more than 100 recommendations put forward by San Francisco’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee in a report submitted to the board and mayor last year.
“As we continue this fight for reparations and this fight to right the wrongs of the past, this apology resolution is just another step to achieve that goal,” Supervisor Shamann Walton, the author of the apology resolution, said in a statement.
The reparations committee, which was formed in 2020, has also recommended lump-sum payments of $5 million to each of the city’s Black residents. However, Mayor London Breed previously expressed opposition to cash payments, saying that financial reparations should be handled by the state or federal government.
Eric McDonnell, chair of the committee, said the apology was “notable and significant” and a “first step.”
“However, it will ring hollow if it isn’t followed by active and even aggressive efforts to address the pains of the past through monetary repair and to disrupt the current inequities through policy and programmatic reform and implementation,” he said.
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