Firms that profited from slavery reviewed; City of Richmond, Oakland consider early step to seeking reparations
/- Originally published in The San Francisco Chronicle on MARCH 12, 2005
City councils in Richmond and Oakland could put California in the forefront of a growing national movement to force companies to disclose whether they profited from slavery.
Richmond's City Council adopted an ordinance on March 1 requiring that its pension and investment funds divest themselves from financial institutions linked to slavery. Oakland City Councilman Larry Reid is crafting a similar measure, which he plans to introduce April 12.
Both measures stem from a law signed in 2000 that made California the first state to gather information from companies believed to have written insurance policies in the slavery era. Lawmakers in New York and Philadelphia recently debated their own disclosure proposals.
When Chicago enacted its own law in 2002, JPMorgan Chase found that two banks it once owned accepted 13,000 slaves as collateral for loans made to Louisiana landowners in the 1800s. When some loans defaulted, the banks took possession of more than 1,200 slaves. In January, the bank apologized and established a $5 million scholarship fund for African Americans in Louisiana.
Some activists are hopeful these laws may one day help secure reparations for African Americans.
Richmond Councilwoman Maria Viramontes, who proposed the measure along with fellow Councilwoman Mindell Penn, said the city's new law was inspired by the events in Chicago and could affect the 36 percent of African Americans in Richmond who relocated there from slaveholding Southern states, particularly Louisiana, during the 1940s.
"We have a lot of Southern blacks who now live here who may be affected by the publication of records having to do with their families," said Viramontes, who believes those blacks could ultimately stake a financial claim to funds like those established by JPMorgan.
"If there is a significant number of families here from that pool, then it may be worth submitting a request to some of those institutions," said Viramontes.
The ordinance would also seek to identify any international institutions that benefit from present-day slavery, such as in parts of Africa, South America and Asia.
"It is very difficult to force companies to make disclosures where this is occurring," said Viramontes. "The idea of making sure that our investments aren't involved in any of these activities going forward is very important."
It's unclear if there are any companies currently in the city's investment portfolio that might fit the requirements of the ordinance, said Bruce Soublet, who works for the Richmond city attorney's office and drafted the law.
"I don't know that any other city in California has (adopted such a law)," said Soublet.
Richmond's investment pool is about $150 million. Viramontes said she also hopes to put the issue before Contra Costa County's investment board, which oversees about $3.5 billion.
Such measures have been debated at the California Public Employees' Retirement System, the largest public pension fund in the country, but not acted upon. Officials in San Francisco and Alameda County have also discussed the issue, said Viramontes.
"I'm certainly hoping that Oakland does it. And if San Francisco does it, it will certainly make an impact nationwide," said Viramontes.
Reid said the city attorney is putting the finishing touches on a proposal that will go before the council's Finance and Management Committee on April 12, which is similar to the ones adopted in Richmond and Chicago. The ordinance would go before the full council on April 19.
"Our ordinance will be similar ... just a little stronger than the one that is in Chicago," said Reid.
Reid said there is support among the council and in the broader community for the measure, which would cover the city's total investment portfolio.
Reid said companies that benefited from slavery should give back to those who were damaged for generations by the legacy of slavery.
Calls for reparations have been met with mixed results in recent years. U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has unsuccessfully introduced legislation every year since 1989 calling for reparations for slavery. In 1994, the Florida Legislature settled with survivors from the black settlement of Rosewood, burned by a mob in 1923, paying up to $2 million to victims and their descendants. A commission investigating Tulsa Oklahoma's 1921 riot, which destroyed a community known as the "Negro Wall Street," called for compensating victims.
But critics say it's wrong to ask people and companies today to pay for the suffering of people who lived centuries ago.
Peter Flaherty, president of the National Legal and Policy Center, said government officials have no business promoting such laws.
"I'm amazed that local officials in California and elsewhere don't have more pressing concerns, and instead have to go back 200 years to slavery," said Flaherty.
The center, a Virginia-based organization that promotes ethics in government and corporate America, has been following the debate over divestment proposals in cities like Detroit and Houston since the early 1990s.
"We've been critical of these ordinances; they are sweeping the country," said Flaherty, who calls the reparations movement a "racial shakedown."
"This whole thing reinforces the concept of group guilt," said Flaherty. "I'm not responsible for what some individual did 150 years ago just because I'm white."
Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson said he has been looking into the issue but has not decided whether he would put a similar measure before the board. He said reparations should be done in a way that reaches African Americans in general, not specific individuals.
"I think we have to look at what those companies have done to self-correct or make up for those acts," said Carson. "I don't mean direct descendants; I mean those communities that have had residual impacts from that."
