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In a California gold rush town, some Black families are fighting for land taken from their ancestors
https://apnews.com/article/california-reparations-eminent-domain-land-property-racism-278e1e21c7338e784e64772b09e3c784In a California gold rush town, some Black families are fighting for land taken from their ancestors
BY SOPHIE AUSTIN
Updated 12:06 AM EDT, July 20, 2024
COLOMA, Calif. (AP) — In a tiny town where the California gold rush began, Black families are seeking restitution for land that was taken from their ancestors to make way for a state park now frequented by fourth graders learning about the state’s history.
Their efforts in Coloma, a town of around 300 people that’s located about 36 miles (58 kilometers) northeast of Sacramento, are one of the latest examples of Black Americans urging the government to atone for practices that have kept them from thriving long after chattel slavery was abolished.
Debates over reparations for African Americans often come back to land. That was at the center of a promise originally made — and later broken — by the U.S. government to formerly enslaved Black people in the mid-1800s: Give them up to 40 acres (16 hectares) of land as restitution for their time enslaved. For some, the promise of reparations has been nothing more than Fool’s gold, epitomized by a bill in Congress that’s stalled since it was first introduced in the 1980s, even though it’s aimed at studying reparations and named after the original promise.
[...]
“We rightfully believe that we have been denied the generational wealth that our family may have been entitled to if given our rightful inheritance — the land once owned by Nelson Bell,” he said at the final meeting of a first-in-the-nation state reparations task force.
[...]
___
Associated Press photographer Godofredo A. Vásquez contributed to this report.
BY SOPHIE AUSTIN
Updated 12:06 AM EDT, July 20, 2024
COLOMA, Calif. (AP) — In a tiny town where the California gold rush began, Black families are seeking restitution for land that was taken from their ancestors to make way for a state park now frequented by fourth graders learning about the state’s history.
Their efforts in Coloma, a town of around 300 people that’s located about 36 miles (58 kilometers) northeast of Sacramento, are one of the latest examples of Black Americans urging the government to atone for practices that have kept them from thriving long after chattel slavery was abolished.
Debates over reparations for African Americans often come back to land. That was at the center of a promise originally made — and later broken — by the U.S. government to formerly enslaved Black people in the mid-1800s: Give them up to 40 acres (16 hectares) of land as restitution for their time enslaved. For some, the promise of reparations has been nothing more than Fool’s gold, epitomized by a bill in Congress that’s stalled since it was first introduced in the 1980s, even though it’s aimed at studying reparations and named after the original promise.
[...]
“We rightfully believe that we have been denied the generational wealth that our family may have been entitled to if given our rightful inheritance — the land once owned by Nelson Bell,” he said at the final meeting of a first-in-the-nation state reparations task force.
[...]
___
Associated Press photographer Godofredo A. Vásquez contributed to this report.