Slavery Reparations

[David Lockmiller]

In 1851, California’s first governor, Peter Burnett, proposed extinction of the Indian race in California. Today, June 19, 2019, California Governor Newsom, in an emotional presentation, recited a published chronicle from the 19th century that listed a tally of Indian deaths, including an account of a white settler who chose to kill children with a revolver instead of a high-caliber shotgun because “it tore them up so bad.”

But where do you start and where do you stop with reparations being made for injustices committed over a century ago? And, in what form should the reparations be made and to whom? For instance, what is the compensation now due to Union soldiers who died in the American Civil War serving a just cause (i.e., the Union)?

More recently, for many years, I have advocated for Thomas Thompson, a man who was executed on July 14, 1998 at San Quentin State Prison, for a crime which he did not commit, and in violation of two of his U.S. Constitutional rights to a fair trial on a five-to-four vote of the U.S. Supreme Court. What would now be justice in his case?