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By Cheyenne Galloway
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Despite California’s unprecedented report announcing reparations for descendants of enslaved African Americans, many Californians are unaware of the state’s involvement with slavery, according to ACLU NorCal.
In a recent ACLU report, “a state panel held public hearings on the matter for two years, interviewing more than 100 expert witnesses,” many were uninformed about the enslaved African Americans in the Golden State.
The ACLU NorCal said it wants to inform people about the hidden history of slavery and racism in California and refute white-washed notions surrounding California’s dark history through several means, including the report “As California Releases Historic Reparations Report, New ACLU Video Highlights ‘Free’ State’s Hidden Slavery History,” and their recent release of the video, Gold Chains: The Hidden History of Slavery in California.
The video delves into a forgotten past, explaining the history of California’s stance on slavery, its institution of the Fugitive Slave Law, and the systemic racism that evolved.
During the height of the gold rush, many settlers with their accompanying property, which often included enslaved Black men, made the pilgrimage to California to get rich. Those enslaved were often subjected to precarious conditions as their white enslaver reaped financial benefits, the ACLU video explains.
Although there was a clause in California’s 1850 constitution banning slavery in the newfound state, all of the institutions – from the government to the media – were controlled by white southern men who had come for the gold; and many of them were adamant on maintaining their “human property,” the video charges.
As a result, the state’s first governor, Peter Burnett, was a staunch supporter of white supremacy who even advocated for removing black people from California altogether, the ACLU asserts.
By 1852, the Golden State passed its version of a Fugitive Slave law, “which stated that if your ‘master’ brought you to California before statehood, you were their legal property, and if you escaped, you would be hunted down and brought back to the person who enslaved you,” stated by Pendarvis Harshaw in the video by ACLU NorCal.
The superficial nature of the clause banning slavery in California’s 1850 constitution is further outlined by the tragic story of Carter Perkins, Robert Perkins and Sandy Jones.
These three free men were sleeping in their cabin when one night, the Placer County Sheriff’s Department officers burst through their front door, demanding that they were runaway slaves and forcefully arrested them, according to the ACLU.
However, two years prior, they were declared free by their white enslaver, a man from Mississippi, who took the three to California to mine gold for him amid the gold rush. The three worked for him until he decided to return to Mississippi.
He left Carter, Robert, and Sandy in California, promising they would receive their freedom if they worked an extra six months for one of the enslaver’s friends. After their term, they obtained freedom and used this novel liberty to enter the gold business, the video explained.
They gained a generous amount of wealth, allotting them a cabin and economic mobility, until the night the Placer County Sheriffs took them in custody. Their former enslaver wished to own his previous “human property,” the video notes, and since he never bestowed freedom papers to the three Black miners, they were required to return to his possession.
Enraged with this verdict, a community of free Black people in Northern California mobilized in solidarity and “raised thousands of dollars in the men’s defense,” resulting in the case appearing in front of the State Supreme Court.
In court, the justices revealed the Constitution’s ban on slavery was merely designed for principle, not enactment. The clause was superficial and was “never meant to apply to enslaved Black people,” explains Harshaw of ACLU NorCal.
The three men were then ordered to return to Mississippi with their former enslaver; they were forcefully escorted onto a boat, never to be seen again after the ship left the dock. The unjust case of Carter Perkins, Robert Perkins, and Sandy Jones highlights the legacy of systemic racism in California, the ACLU claims.
This hidden history set the foundation for “more than 170 years of discriminatory, government-sanctioned policies that deliberately inflicted harm on African Americans,” stated the ACLU NorCal’s report, adding the racism in California that stemmed from its dark past has generationally barred African Americans from creating wealth as white Californians did.
Moreover, it has perpetuated the undeniable racial inequality that exists in every facet of society, and it has led to the pervasive ignorance of slavery and, in turn, institutionalized racism that proceeds in the blue state today, the ACLU said.
“This racist assault excluded many Black people from opportunities to build wealth that were afforded to white families. Slavery and its legacy of anti-Black racism is a major driver of the vast racial inequality that exists today in mass incarceration, employment, education, health, and housing, to name just a few,” said the ACLU.
To learn more about reparations for those descendants of Californian African Americans and more on California’s hidden history of slavery and racism, see Gold ChainsCA.org.
