Entertainment & Intellectual Property Attorney | Reparatory Justice Scholar | Chairperson, California Reparations Task Force
Championing justice through rigorous scholarship, legal expertise, and dedicated public service. This platform serves as a central resource for understanding the historic work of the California Reparations Task Force and the deep-rooted case for reparatory justice in the United States.
About Kamilah V. Moore
Kamilah V. Moore is a distinguished attorney and scholar operating at the critical intersection of law, human rights, and the pursuit of reparatory justice. Her career is defined by a steadfast commitment to addressing systemic inequities and advocating for communities impacted by historical injustices, both domestically and internationally.
As an attorney specializing in entertainment and intellectual property law, Ms. Moore navigates the complex legal frameworks that govern creative and cultural expression. This expertise provides her with a unique perspective on one of the key areas of harm identified in reparatory justice work: the control and exploitation of Black creative, cultural, and intellectual life.
Her dedication to human rights was solidified during her legal studies, where she made significant contributions to impactful reports addressing global and local crises. Her work shed light on pressing issues such as the pervasive racial inequality confronting Afro-Brazilians, the fundamental human right to sanitation in historically marginalized communities like Lowndes County, Alabama, and the urgent need for a right to remedy for indigenous Black women who have endured racialized gender violence in Papua New Guinea. These experiences honed her skills in international law and fortified her resolve to use legal scholarship as a tool for social change.
A leading voice in the field of reparatory justice, Ms. Moore’s scholarship is both profound and practical. While pursuing her Master of Laws at the University of Amsterdam, she authored a groundbreaking thesis that meticulously explored the legal frameworks for providing reparations for the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the institution of chattel slavery, and their enduring and destructive legacies. This academic foundation informs her pragmatic and evidence-based approach to the issue today.
Academic Credentials:
- Juris Doctor (J.D.): Columbia Law School
- Master of Laws (LL.M.), International Criminal Law: University of Amsterdam
- Bachelor of Arts (B.A.): University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
In a testament to her expertise and leadership, Kamilah Moore was appointed in 2021 to serve on the historic, first-in-the-nation California Reparations Task Force. She was subsequently elected by her peers to serve as Chairperson, a role in which she has guided the nine-member body through its monumental task of studying and developing reparations proposals for African Americans.
Leading a Historic Initiative: The California Reparations Task Force
In 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 3121 (AB-3121), establishing the California Reparations Task Force. This legislation charged the Task Force with two primary objectives: to study the institution of slavery and its lingering negative effects on living African Americans, and to recommend appropriate remedies in the form of reparations to the state legislature.
As Chairperson, Kamilah Moore has been at the forefront of this unprecedented effort. Her leadership has been instrumental in steering the Task Force through two years of intensive public hearings, expert testimonies, and meticulous research. She has overseen the process of documenting the manifold harms inflicted upon African Americans, from enslavement and racial terror to political disenfranchisement, housing segregation, and the creation of a persistent wealth gap.
Under her guidance, the Task Force produced a nearly 1,100-page final report that stands as one of the most comprehensive government-commissioned studies on the legacies of slavery and systemic discrimination in American history. This historic document not only substantiates the claim for reparations with exhaustive evidence but also provides a detailed roadmap for legislative action. Ms. Moore’s role has required a delicate balance of legal acumen, scholarly rigor, and a deep understanding of the human stories behind the statistics, ensuring that the Task Force’s work is both historically grounded and forward-looking.
Educational Resources: A Comprehensive Digital Archive on Reparations
To foster public understanding and informed dialogue, Chairperson Moore has personally curated a collection of digital presentations. These resources are designed to make the Task Force’s extensive findings accessible to students, educators, advocates, policymakers, and the general public.
The presentations provide a general overview of the Task Force’s work and offer focused explorations of each of the twelve major areas of harm detailed in the interim and final reports. They serve as invaluable educational tools for anyone seeking to understand the historical basis and legal justification for reparations in California and beyond.
The Final Report: Chapter by Chapter
This collection of presentations breaks down the core findings of the California Reparations Task Force report, detailing the specific harms inflicted upon African Americans as a consequence of slavery and its ongoing legacies.
01. On the Badges & Incidents of Slavery (Final Report Overview)
This foundational presentation offers a comprehensive summary of AB-3121, the legislative mandate that created the Task Force. It provides a high-level overview of the Task Force’s complete work product, summarizing the key findings from each chapter of the final report and contextualizing the pending reparations legislation that has emerged from these historic recommendations.
02. Enslavement
This presentation directly confronts the myth of California as a “free state.” It details California’s early history and its significant role in perpetuating, protecting, and profiting from the institution of chattel slavery. The resource documents how the state’s laws and officials actively supported slaveholders and denied freedom and basic human rights to enslaved African Americans within its borders.
03. Racial Terror
This section explores the systematic campaigns of violence and intimidation used to enforce racial hierarchy and suppress Black progress. It documents the history of lynchings, racial pogroms, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in California, and the establishment of “sundown towns,” illustrating how racial terror was a deliberate tool of social, political, and economic control.
04. Political Disenfranchisement
Here, the focus is on the deliberate and sustained efforts to deny African Americans their right to participate in the democratic process. The presentation outlines a history of discriminatory voting laws, gerrymandering, and other tactics used in California and across the nation to dilute the Black vote and exclude African Americans from political power and representation.
05. Housing Segregation
This presentation details the creation of the American ghetto through public and private means. It examines the history of racially restrictive covenants, redlining by federal and local governments, discriminatory lending practices, and violent opposition to housing integration. These policies systematically denied Black families access to property ownership, a primary driver of generational wealth.
06. Separate and Unequal Education
Exploring the long history of educational injustice, this resource documents how California enforced school segregation and provided grossly inadequate and unequal resources to Black students. It traces the legacy of these policies, which resulted in significant and persistent achievement gaps and limited opportunities for generations of African Americans.
07. Racism in Environment & Infrastructure
This section investigates how infrastructure and environmental policy have been weaponized against Black communities. It covers the targeted construction of highways through thriving Black neighborhoods, the disproportionate placement of toxic waste facilities and polluting industries near Black residences, and the resulting public health crises and diminished quality of life.
08. Pathologizing Black Families
This presentation examines the systematic and intentional mischaracterization of the African American family structure by state and federal institutions. It details how policies in the welfare system, criminal justice system, and social sciences have historically framed Black families as inherently dysfunctional, ignoring the external pressures of systemic racism and justifying discriminatory interventions.
09. Control Over Creative, Cultural, and Intellectual Life
Drawing upon Ms. Moore’s expertise in IP law, this section documents the widespread appropriation and exploitation of Black creativity. It details how African American artists, musicians, writers, and inventors have been systematically denied credit and compensation for their cultural and intellectual contributions, which have profoundly shaped American culture.
10. Stolen Labor and Hindered Opportunity
Beyond enslavement, this presentation documents the myriad ways in which Black labor has been stolen and economic opportunity has been denied. It covers convict leasing, sharecropping, wage theft, and exclusion from unions and skilled trades, all of which prevented African Americans from receiving fair compensation for their work and building economic security.
11. An Unjust Legal System
This resource provides a stark examination of the dual system of justice in America. It details the history of unequal enforcement of the law, the criminalization of Blackness, police brutality, wrongful convictions, disproportionate sentencing (e.g., for drug offenses), and the creation of a system of mass incarceration that has devastated African American communities.
12. Mental and Physical Harm and Neglect
Here, the presentation focuses on the devastating health consequences of systemic racism. It documents how historical and ongoing discrimination in healthcare has led to higher rates of chronic illness, maternal and infant mortality, and mental health trauma. It also explores the weathering effect of persistent stress from racism on physical health.
13. The Wealth Gap
This concluding presentation synthesizes the economic impact of all previously mentioned harms. It meticulously documents the origins and persistence of the staggering wealth gap between Black and white Americans, demonstrating how centuries of stolen labor, denied opportunities, and asset stripping have made it nearly impossible for African Americans to build and sustain generational wealth.
Key Proposals and Foundational Deliberations
These presentations provide insight into the critical decision-making processes and specific proposals formulated by the Task Force and its advisory committees.
Why Lineage? A Discussion on the Community of Eligibility
Presented by Chairperson Moore in March 2022, this is one of the most pivotal documents from the Task Force’s tenure. It lays out the comprehensive legal and historical argument for a lineage-based standard for reparations eligibility, as opposed to a race-based one. The presentation synthesizes the specific language of the AB-3121 statute, its legislative intent, the history of the U.S. reparations movement, and principles of domestic and international law to support the Task Force’s historic 5-4 vote to define the community of eligibility as descendants of enslaved and free Black people living in the U.S. before the 20th century.
Reviving The Freedmen’s Bureau? A Modern Proposal
This March 2023 presentation outlines a visionary proposal from the Task Force’s Enslavement Advisory Committee. It explores the concept of establishing a new statewide agency modeled after the historic Freedmen’s Bureau of the Reconstruction era. This proposed “California American Freedmen Affairs Agency” would be tasked with administering and overseeing the long-term implementation of reparations programs, ensuring that the state’s commitments are fulfilled with accountability and dedicated infrastructure.
Advisory Committees’ Report: Recommended Answers to Experts’ Five Key Questions
This December 2022 proposal from the Task Force’s distinguished Economics Advisory Committee delves into the complex methodologies for calculating monetary reparations. The presentation addresses five key questions posed to the expert economists, exploring different models and frameworks for quantifying the financial losses African Americans have suffered due to the harms of enslavement, stolen labor, housing discrimination, and other state-sanctioned injustices. It represents the crucial shift from documenting harm to calculating restitution.