CA ACR135

Acknowledges California state government's role in promoting, facilitating, and permitting chattel slavery and its ongoing systemic discrimination against African Americans from before the Civil War to present day

Details California's historical violations including: enforcing federal fugitive slave laws despite 1850 antislavery constitution, preventing African Americans from testifying in court until 1863, disenfranchising voters through poll taxes and literacy tests, and prohibiting interracial marriage until 1959

Documents state-sanctioned violence and discrimination including lynching, coercive sterilization, medical experiments without consent, segregation in housing and public services, and discriminatory use of eminent domain against African American property owners

Recognizes persistent inequities in healthcare services, professional career access, and child welfare system involvement, with African American children experiencing the highest rates of foster care involvement

Resolves that California accepts responsibility for harms committed and affirms its role in protecting descendants of enslaved people and their civil, political, and socio-cultural rights