‘Texas is watching.’ Reparations meeting attracts those placing their hopes in California

Baraka Davis traveled from Texas to deliver her message to California’s Reparations Task Force Wednesday.

“Texas is watching each and every one of you,” she said.

Davis, 43, was one of several people who came to Oakland City Hall for the first of the committee’s two-day December meeting. Their presence reflected the historic stakes of the group’s state-sponsored effort to study and develop reparations for the generational harms of anti-Black racism.

In California, they see an opportunity for overdue redress, after centuries of disappointment.

Davis said in an interview later she is involved in grassroots reparations work in Texas, where there is no state-supported project. She was reluctant to share many personal details, but was clearly invested in seeing reparations take hold in California.

“Whatever California’s doing, the rest of the country follows suit,” she said.