Activism
Rev. Amos Brown Brings Wisdom, Guidance to Cal’s Reparations Task Force
“We’re about balance, inclusion, and stating the case precisely so that it doesn’t face paralysis of analysis or become just another study,” Brown said. “We have had too many studies of Black folks in the past. Now is the time to show us that we are serious about being ‘one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,’” said Rev. Amos C. Brown who is vice-chair and the senior member serving on the nine-member California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans, referencing the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance.

By Antonio Ray Harvey | California Black Media
The Rev. Amos C. Brown is vice-chair and the senior member serving on the nine-member California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans.
Brown, 80, says he is “extremely pleased” with what the committee has accomplished after four meetings.
The task force held its fifth and final two-day meeting session of 2021 on Dec. 7 and Dec. 8. As written in Assembly Bill (AB) 3121, the group has until 2023 to present a set of recommendations to the state for consideration.
“The task force has been extremely focused and substantive. We have some of the best minds — people who know the history, psychology, and sociology of the pressure Black folks in this country have felt,” Brown told California Black Media.
The task force was created after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 3121 into law in September 2020. California Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber authored the bill while she served in the State Assembly representing the 79th District in San Diego.
The law calls for the state to set up a task force to study slavery, Jim Crow segregation and other injustices African Americans have faced historically in California and across the United States.
The group will then recommend appropriate ways to educate Californians about reparations and propose ways to compensate descendants of enslaved people based on the task force’s findings.
The members of the task force come from diverse professional backgrounds. So far, the panel has heard testimony from a range of experts and witnesses, including descendants and representatives of people or families the government denied justice in the past; as well as historians, economists and academics.
“We’re about balance, inclusion, and stating the case precisely so that it doesn’t face paralysis of analysis or become just another study,” Brown said. “We have had too many studies of Black folks in the past. Now is the time to show us that we are serious about being ‘one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.’” Brown said, referencing the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance.
According to Brown, African Americans in his hometown of San Francisco need to overcome decades of psychological damage imposed by racism, discrimination and unfair government policies, including some urban renewal programs that hurt Black families more than they helped.
On Nov. 22, Brown joined actor Danny Glover, other local Black leaders, and members of the San Francisco Reparations Committee, to ask the city to donate the historic Fillmore Heritage Center to the African American community.
Many have referred to the Fillmore neighborhood as the “Harlem of the West” in the 1940s, Brown said. By 1945, over 30,000 Black Americans lived in the historic area.
Today, around 6% of San Francisco’s population of nearly 875,000 people are Black or mixed-race African Americans.
“San Francisco City leaders have a moral obligation to right the racist wrongs that destroyed that culture and that community and allow the Fillmore Heritage Center to live up to the full meaning of its name,” Glover said in a statement.
In 2007, the center became a venue for Jazz and Blues, reminiscent of the culture and Fillmore night clubs that attracted musical greats like Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, and others.
Last May, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to appoint a 15-member African American Reparations Advisory Committee.
“That building, that land, represents the disenfranchisement, redlining of Black folks in this town, and the redevelopment agency not being fair,” Brown said. “The Fillmore, 12 blocks, itself was the hub of Black entertainment, Black culture, Black businesses and Black life. You just can’t wipe out our history or our heritage.”
Born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1941, Brown says he was delivering JET magazine when the popular weekly published graphic photos of 14-year-old Emmett Till murdered by a racist mob in August 1955 in Money, Mississippi, a rural area known for the cultivation of cotton. Till’s lynching ignited the Civil Rights Movement.
“Emmett and I were the same age,” Brown said. “When I picked up a copy (of Jet magazine), I saw that mutilated head. It horrified me. I remember it vividly.”
At 15, Brown started the first youth council for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1956, Medgar Evers, a Mississippi state official for the NAACP, brought Brown, then 15, to San Francisco to attend the NAACP’s national convention where he first met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Brown later studied under King at Morehouse College in Atlanta.
In 1961, he was arrested with King at a lunch counter sit-in and joined the Freedom Riders, a group of activists who protested segregation in the South.
“In 1960, before I joined the Freedom Riders, the NAACP Youth Council actually organized the first ‘sit-down protest’ in Oklahoma City in August 1958,” Brown said. “The first sit-down movement did not start in Greensboro, North Carolina. It began in Oklahoma City, Wichita (Kansas), and Louisville (Kentucky) under the auspices of the Youth Council of the NAACP.”
Brown earned a Doctor of Divinity from United Theological Seminary in Ohio and a Master of Divinity from Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania.
Brown has been the pastor of Third Baptist Church of San Francisco since 1976. From 1996 to 2001, he served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He is president of the San Francisco Branch of the NAACP and a member of the organization’s national board of directors.
Brown said he is monitoring reparation legislation and conversations across the country to see if proposals being put forward are in sync with California’s efforts.
“What I want to accomplish is: Black people being and knowing that something was done about their pain — that can be done in the state of California,” Brown said. “Things can never be perfect, but at least collectively people of conscious and good will can stand up and say, ‘this is what we must do to right this wrong.’”
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of May 14 – 20, 2025
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 14 – 20, 2025

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Activism
The Best Advice for Raising Children: Discipline That Makes Sense
In his book Developing Positive Self Images and Discipline in Black Children, Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu suggests that primary aims for socializing Black children should be: establishing goals related to God and the church; familiarizing children with religious texts like the Bible or Quran; educating them of Black culture like Khemetic (Egyptian) Civilization; enlightening them about Black leaders like Malcolm X and Sojourner Truth; and teaching them to strive to be employers, not employees.

By William A. Thomas, Ph.D.
In many African societies, the primary aim of socialization is to raise children to be socially responsible and eventually provide economic support to their parents and extended families. Ghanaian philosopher Kwame Gyekye taught that children are raised to be respectful of the wishes of their parents and extended adult family members.
In his book Developing Positive Self Images and Discipline in Black Children, Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu suggests that primary aims for socializing Black children should be: establishing goals related to God and the church; familiarizing children with religious texts like the Bible or Quran; educating them of Black culture like Khemetic (Egyptian) Civilization; enlightening them about Black leaders like Malcolm X and Sojourner Truth; and teaching them to strive to be employers, not employees.
Effective disciplinary strategies appropriate to a child’s age and development teach them to regulate their behavior; keep them from harm; enhance their cognitive, social, and emotional executive functioning skills; and reinforce the behavioral patterns taught by their parents and caregivers.
Below are some specific guidelines for disciplining children.
Listen to what children are talking about with interest and show them you understand their feelings. Remember, children mirror and learn about their emotional selves by hearing their feelings reflected back to them. Staying on target also means avoiding labels. When children fail to do what is expected, discussing it is helpful rather than saying how stubborn, lazy, dumb, or bad they are. By the same token, more positive labels can be helpful.
Dependability is another essential component of the discipline process. When parents are dependable, their children learn what to expect and are helped to feel secure. When parents are consistent, children learn to trust, that is, predict their parents’ behaviors with certainty. A child thinks, “When I spill something, I will always be asked to wipe it up.” A child thinks, “If I use foul language, I will always be corrected.” A child thinks, “If I take something that doesn’t belong to me, I will always have to give it back.” The ability to predict with certainty leads children to rely on their parents and the village/community in which they live. Children feel safe when they know what to expect.
Conclusions
It takes a village/community to raise the divine gift that is the Black child. Parents look to therapists for guidance concerning a variety of parenting issues, including discipline. Keep in mind that evidence suggests that corporal punishment is both ineffective in the long term and associated with cognitive and mental health disorders. When parents want guidance about the use of spanking, a child therapist can explore parental feelings, help them better define the goals of discipline, and offer specific behavior management strategies. In addition to providing appropriate education to families, the Bay Area Association of Black Psychologists (Bay ABPsi) can refer them to community resources, like parenting groups and classes.
About the Author
Dr. Thomas is a licensed clinical psychologist with a private practice in the SF/Oakland Bay Area and Beaumont. He is a member of Bay ABPsi, a healing resource committed to providing the Post Newspaper readership with monthly discussions about critical issues in Black Mental Health. Readers are welcome to join us at our monthly chapter meetings every 3rd Saturday via Zoom and contact us at bayareaabpsi@gmail.com.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of May 7 – 13, 2025
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