By Antonio Ray Harvey, California Black Media

Two years after the California Legislature formally apologized to Black Californians for the state’s role in slavery and systemic discrimination, lawmakers have approved a parallel acknowledgment of atrocities committed against Native Americans.

Assembly Bill 2115, authored by Assemblymember James C. Ramos (D-Highland), passed the Assembly on Aug. 26 by a unanimous 79-0 vote after clearing the Senate 40-0. Enrolled Aug. 30, the measure awaited action by Gov. Gavin Newsom as of Sept. 7.

The measure closely mirrors AB 3089, the 2024 reparations-package bill apologizing to Black Californians for California’s role in perpetuating chattel slavery and systemic discrimination. Both measures require plaques memorializing the apologies to be prominently displayed in the State Capitol.

California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC) member Sen. Laura Richardson (D-Inglewood) said, “The permanency (of the plaque) is so important that (Indigenous) people will continue to be remembered and recognized and do better,” Richardson said during a Senate committee hearing.

The connection extends beyond the plaques. During California’s formative years, the state enacted laws authorizing violence, forced labor and land theft against Native Americans while denying Black Californians fundamental rights and enabling slavery in a state admitted to the Union as “free.”

Trending

Senator Kamala Harris Ends Bid for Presidency

California’s first governor, Peter Hardeman Burnett, called for a “war of extermination” against Native Americans. During the same era, California enforced fugitive slave laws, permitted enslaved people to be held within its borders and prohibited Black residents from testifying against White people in court.

“In 1851, California’s first governor, Peter Burnett, addressed the Legislature where he openly declared a war against California’s first people,” said Ramos, a member of the Serrano/Cahuilla tribe and the Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation. “That war was paid for using taxpayers’ dollars to eliminate the Native American people of this land.”

Formally known as the “Rowena Mae Ramos Act,” AB 2115 states that California recognizes and accepts legal and moral responsibility for harms and atrocities committed against Native Americans by public officials since 1850.

If signed, the apology would bear the Great Seal of the State, be signed by state leaders and remain permanently in the State Archives, Ramos told California Black Media (CBM)/

“While we cannot undo the wrongs of the past, the state has a responsibility to confront it with honesty and pave the way for the true account of history to be told,” Ramos said.

AB 3089, authored by former Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-South Los Angeles), was signed Sept. 26, 2024. Although California entered the Union as a free state in 1850, more than 2,000 enslaved African people were brought into the state between 1850 and 1860, according to the law. California courts enforced fugitive slave laws until 1865, while lawmakers opposed federal civil rights laws and delayed ratifying the 14th and 15th amendments.

The bill is named for Ramos’s mother, Rowena Mae Ramos, a tribal elder who taught Native American history and culture.

“My mom grew up at a time when racism wasn’t hidden. She went through a lot,” Ramos said. “I thought that it was only fitting to honor her with this bill, a formal apology on behalf of the state of California, that would now carry her name.”

Post News Group

Posts by Post News Group

By Tanya Dennis

Victims’ rights are also a priority for Ursula Jones Dickson

“I don’t like it when people say ‘my office.’ It doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the people.”

That philosophy is at the heart of Ursula Jones Dickson’s approach to leading the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office. Asked whether one person can rebuild an office that has experienced years of change, disruption and a massive backlog of cases, she said the answer is ‘yes,’ but only with time, focus and a willingness to change priorities.

“One person can affect policy that changes the office,” Jones Dickson said.

For her, one of the most urgent priorities is gun violence, an issue she says has deeply affected Black communities for generations.

“Gun violence has always been a concern in the Black community,” she said. “We all have a visceral reaction to a helicopter because it often means there has been a chase or gun violence.”

Jones Dickson said gun violence is personal to her because it has hurt both her and her community. “I take it personally,” she said.

Trending

‘Free America Weekend’ Ignites 50-State Wave of Protests Against Trump on July 4

She worries that America, and particularly its young people, are becoming desensitized to violence. School shootings and repeated lockdowns are leaving children with experiences previous generations never imagined.

“We can’t act like this isn’t affecting our children,” she said. “When schools become places where shootings take place, they are affected in a different way.”

She believes the community has become dangerously accustomed to guns and violence.

“We have to stop normalizing guns,” she said. “We have so many guns and so many people with guns.”

Perhaps one of the most disturbing changes she sees is the way ordinary disagreements can now become deadly.

“Nobody fights anymore,” she said. “They kill.”

Jones Dickson said the question communities must ask themselves is: “When gun violence becomes a part of the community, how many vigils and how many marches can we stand?”

At the same time, she is determined that victims’ voices will not be lost in the criminal justice system.

“I sit with victims on a regular basis,” she said. “There isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t sit down with a victim’s family and hear them ask why a case has not been charged.”

Victims often need far more than updates about a court case. They need assistance navigating the criminal justice system, counseling, burial assistance and, sometimes, simply someone to sit with them during one of the most painful moments of their lives.

“Victims’ rights have been pushed aside,” Jones Dickson said. “What I want to leave to this office is that victims’ voices will be heard. I don’t care whose toes I step on. Victims will be heard.”

The challenge, however, is enormous. Her legacy is to help victims feel seen and protected.

The office is working through a significant backlog of serious cases while trying to rebuild an experienced, well-trained staff. Jones Dickson said years of disruption, including the impact of COVID and frequent leadership changes, left attorneys needing additional training and contributed to delays.

“There have been three district attorneys in four years,” she said. “Every district attorney wants to build their own culture.”

Her goal is to create a stable office with skilled prosecutors who understand their responsibilities and can move cases through the courts. She emphasized that the work is not simply about winning cases.

“It is our job to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt,” she said. “Just because law enforcement brings us a case doesn’t mean we can prove it.”

Jones Dickson also believes rebuilding public safety requires rebuilding relationships between law enforcement and the community.

Residents have told her they sometimes see police cars drive through their neighborhoods without officers getting out and speaking to residents.

“When police are in neighborhoods and stop and talk to kids, there is a connection,” she said. “We need more community-based relationships.”

Post News Group

Posts by Post News Group

By Kathy Chouteau Richmond Standard

It takes a village to raise a village—especially when that village is made of tiny houses, big-hearted volunteers and a plan to shelter Richmond youth.

Now, after three years of planning, building and community muscle, the village is ready for its public debut. 

The Richmond Tiny House Village Farm & Garden will mark its “Grand Opening” Saturday, Sept. 26 onsite at 2200 Bissell Ave. in Richmond, also accessible via 175 23rd St. The celebration will spotlight the new emergency housing community for unhoused Richmond youth ages 18 to 24, with a youth-powered program and ribbon cutting, clergy from multiple faith traditions offering prayers, an Indigenous prayer, an appearance by Richmond Mayor Eduardo Martinez, Councilmember Doria Robinson, leaders from partner organizations, food and live music by Benja Soul. 

For Sally Hindman, executive director of the nonprofit Tiny Village Spirit, which is the project’s developer, the grand opening event is a public exhale after three years of planning, building, fundraising, listening and showing up. 

“It’s going to be a real celebration of hope and what we can do together when we come together to do something to care for the least of us,” Hindman said. “The grand opening program is youth-led, so that will be, and the ribbon cutting will be youth-led, so it’s going to have the strong presence of young people leading, as it should.” 

The vibrantly mural-decorated village will include 13 emergency housing units when complete, one of them for an on-site resident assistant. In keeping with neighborhood agreements, the project will open with about half of the homes occupied, then pause, evaluate and return to local Richmond Neighborhood Councils for input before adding six more youth the following year. 

Hope Solutions will operate the village from day one, with staff including a resident assistant, a village manager/social worker and a housing navigator to help residents move toward affordable housing. Youth will be selected through Contra Costa County’s Coordinated Entry System, with a focus on Richmond young adults. 

Hindman was clear about who the village is for: “This is a village that is for unhoused Richmond youth, ages 18 to 24, and it’s specifically for Richmond young people.” She added that the project is particularly concerned with young people pushed out by gentrification and displacement, including black and brown youth who grew up in Richmond, as well as LGBTQ young people who “really need our support.” 

Each tiny house is designed as a small bedroom with the essentials: A Murphy bed that becomes a desk during the day, a chair, table, wardrobe and, in some designs, a closet. Shared community spaces include a kitchen/dining yurt, a living room/maker space yurt and a shared bathroom building with three private units, each containing a shower, sink and toilet. 

The “Farm & Garden” part of the name is no add-on. Hindman said the garden will connect with Richmond Police Activities League’s (RPAL’s) Culinary Club, a program with a farm-to-table approach that uses produce grown on-site. The space will also offer education, picnics, volunteer opportunities and stipend/paid work for village residents, doubling as a job-training ground rooted in food, land and community. 

“The farm and garden is going to play a really cool role in the project as a whole,” Hindman underscored. 

If the village sounds stitched together by many hands, that is because it was. Hindman described the project as involving more than 3,000 volunteers (“probably 4,000,” she estimated, noting she had “kind of lost count”) from 83-plus organizations, schools, congregations, businesses and nonprofits. 

Those partners and helpers include Tiny Village Spirit, RPAL, Hope Solutions, SOS Richmond, GRIP, USF Architecture, City of Richmond YouthWORKS, Rebuilding Together, Richmond Neighborhood Councils—including Richmore Village/Metro Square, North & East, Belding Woods, Coronado and Pullman—Richmond youth, Richmond High School students, Kennedy High School, Salesian High School, Richmond Indivisible, Reimagine Richmond, East Bay Heritage Quilters, First Congregational Church of Berkeley members, Strawberry Creek Friends Meeting, Temple Beth El, Ashby Village, NIAD, artist Jimmy Evans, Williams Sonoma and many individual volunteers, donors, congregations and private foundations. 

Tiny Village Spirit raised most of the funding through individuals and private foundations, according to Hindman, who shared that similar villages funded primarily with government dollars can cost around $14 million. She said this village is expected to come in under $1 million because nearly all the labor was volunteer. 

For more information about the Richmond Tiny House Village Farm & Garden, text 510-282-0396 or visit Tiny Village Spirit’s Richmond project page. 

Post News Group

Posts by Post News Group