The city government of San Francisco has issued an apology to all black residents for past wrongs committed.
The 11 members of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to issue the apology on Feb. 27.
The resolution offer an an apology “to all African Americans and their descendants who came to San Francisco and were victims of systemic and structural discrimination, institutional racism, targeted acts of violence, and atrocities.”
Supervisor Shamann Walton, the only black member of the board, said the apology “most certainly is an important step” but that “we have much more work to do.”
"This historic resolution apologizes on behalf of San Francisco to the African American community and their descendants for decades of systemic and structural discrimination, targeted acts of violence, atrocities, as well as committing to the rectification and redress of past policies and misdeeds," Walton said, per Fox News.
Walton is an advocate for reparations for black residents who have been impacted by discrimination or racial bias. An advisory board recommended in 2023 that the city both publicly apologize and pay “$5 million to every eligible Black adult and annual supplements of nearly $100,000 for low-income households to rectify the city’s racial wealth gap,” per USA Today.
The apology was not universally embraced by activists in the city.
“An apology is just cotton candy rhetoric,” said the Rev. Amos C. Brown, a member of the reparations advisory committee, according to PBS. “What we need is concrete actions.”
“People want an apology,” said Supervisor Dean Preston at a board meeting on Feb. 27. “But they also want a commitment not to repeat harms.”
Two years ago, San Francisco formally apologized to Chinese Americans for racism they may have experienced in the past following a unanimous vote from the city supervisors. Three other cities in California – Antioch, San Jose, and Los Angeles – had already issued similar apologies.
“Discriminatory policies the San Francisco Board of Supervisors have passed, all of which were eventually overturned by state and federal courts, continue to have lingering impacts on our city, particularly its [Asian and Pacific Islander] community,” said then-Supervisor Matt Haney, who sponsored the resolution, per the LA Times. “This formal apology is long overdue.”
San Francisco is the second major city in the country to issue an apology to black residents. Boston publicly apologized in June 2022. The city council unanimously approved a symbolic order to “acknowledge, condemn and apologize” for Bostons’s role in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.
“Apologizing for a fundamental crime of enslavement of African people puts us in a position to begin to create a more fair and equitable city,” said Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson to reporters before the vote, per GBH.
