CA corporations enriched by slavery must tell the truth

By Mona Tauatao, especially for CalMatters

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In 2024, the California Legislature passed unanimously Assembly Bill 3089 to admit and formally apologized about the role the state played in perpetuating and profiting from the enslavement of Black people.

As part of this historic law, the Legislature declared that “California industries have benefited from ill-gotten gains based on chattel slavery” and recognized the importance of investigating those gains to ensure that the evil of turning human beings into commodities for corporate profit never happens again.

Now the Legislature is considering Truth Disclosure Act (AB 2599). Introduced by Assemblyman Isaac Bryan and co-sponsored by the Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation and Truth, the bill would force large corporations doing business in California to investigate their own history of “ill-gotten gains” so the state can collect and publicly disclose the true story of how corporations profited from slavery.

The reality is that these ill-gotten gains are fundamental to building corporate wealth.

Many of today’s corporations—including those in the textile, railroad, shipping, agricultural, prison, insurance, and financial industries—are tied to the profits derived from slave labor. The legacy of slavery continues to shape the social and economic structures of California and the nation, and profoundly influences patterns of health, economic, educational, and social inequities that persist, impacting the lives of millions of black Californians.

California is no stranger to introducing transparency measures, and AB 2599 would build on an already existing legal framework. Decades of existing law has required similar types of disclosure. This includes Slavery Era Insurance Policies Act of 2000which generates public reports that reveal large companies operating today – or their predecessors – have treated people as cargo or commodities to be insured as property.

California also passed in 2010 California Transparency in Supply Chains Act in response to the public demand that major retailers and manufacturers doing business in California do what is right and moral and reveal the truth about modern slavery and human trafficking in their supply chains to serve the state’s goal of eradicating these crimes against humanity.

As these and existing state disclosure laws in other areas—such as climate protection and fair labor—show, California has long been a leader in corporate disclosure and accountability. California clearly has both the ability and the need to pass AB 2599.

The bill follows the findings and recommendations of California Reparations Task Force Report and the principles of the United Nations which assert this reparation is incomplete without confirmation and public disclosure. The truth and disclosure that the bill requires carries the weight of a UN resolution passed by a large majority in March that defined the trafficking and racial enslavement of Africans as “the worst crime against humanity.”

The Truth Act is not about punishing the past. Viewing responsibility for slavery as punishment contradicts the maxim that people are not property. This contradicted the state’s goal of eradicating slavery, never to return.

As the unanimously passed Apology Act shows, these are cross-partisan, fundamental moral principles. In effect, AB 2599 provides an opportunity for corporations to demonstrate humanity and adopt a basic moral standard.

By demanding that corporations tell the truth, we can begin to recognize the enslaved people that companies or their predecessors have turned into commodities for commercial profit—people who have never in their lifetimes seen the justice and repair they deserve.

When corporations reveal whose enslavement and forced labor they benefited from, the public can finally face the price. This kind of truth-telling isn’t just about the past—it’s about preventing continued harm and ensuring that future generations inherit a country rooted in true equality.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.