Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a first-in-the-nation bill forcing large California companies to disclose historical slavery ties, a step reparations activists celebrate as an important victory.
Fox News Digital reported that Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2599, the Truth in Disclosure Act, on Sept. 30. The law requires qualifying corporations doing business in California to investigate and report any historical links to chattel slavery.
Activists backing cash-style and noncash reparations framed the signature as progress. The bill does not pay anyone. It builds a disclosure pipeline that groups say will identify who benefited from slavery and racial harm.
Covered firms must eventually file sworn affidavits under penalty of perjury with the California Civil Rights Department. The state legislature still has to fund the process before those filings begin.
AB 2599 reaches businesses with more than $100 million in annual worldwide gross receipts. It also covers companies that existed, or had a predecessor entity in operation, on or before Dec. 31, 1964.
Once funded, those companies have until Jan. 15, 2029, to submit initial filings. Disclosures must detail historical involvement in the purchase or sale of enslaved people, the use of enslaved people as loan collateral, slave-related insurance policies, and other financial transactions tied to that system.
Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, a Democrat from Ladera Heights, authored the measure. California officials will house the records at the Civil Rights Department.
No injuries, arrests, or immediate closures came with the signing. The practical hit lands on corporate research, legal review, and compliance risk years down the road.
Kristin Nimmers, policy and campaign manager for the California Black Power Network and the Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation, and Truth, told Fox News Digital the moment mattered.
"AB 2599 really represents a historic step toward corporate transparency and accountability,"
Nimmers said the network and its partners see the law as more than paperwork.
"We know for generations, corporations and financial institutions have really benefited from slavery and from the exploitation of Black people. AB 2599 is starting to establish a process for qualifying corporations doing business in California to really examine and disclose any historical ties they've had to slavery. This matters because we can't fully and meaningfully repair harms if we're not really willing to acknowledge and confront the truth,"
She tied the bill to earlier state work.
"The California Reparations Task Force spent years documenting the state's role in perpetuating racial harm and outlining this path toward repair,"
Nimmers added that the new law "is really starting the work of identifying who really benefited from this racial harm and from slavery" and "helps us move the work of the task force from recommendations toward implementation."
"This is really an important, big victory for our alliance and for our work with reparations task force members, but it is also just one step in a much greater movement and effort that we're trying to be a part of."
She also argued present wealth still connects to the past: "There are connections right now from slavery to current wealth of individuals and current wealth of corporations whose foundation and who built the start of their companies off of slavery and off of benefits gained from slavery."
On repair itself, she said it is "important that we're tying it back to what the origin of it was so we can address those core issues."
Newsom has consistently resisted direct cash payments. He previously turned down a broader slate of cash-focused reparations measures backed by the California Legislative Black Caucus.
He also vetoed Assembly Bill 2186, which would have exempted future state reparations payments from California personal income tax. Assemblymember Tina McKinnor, a Democrat from Inglewood and the author of that bill, told Fox News Digital the veto was disappointing.
At the same time, Newsom approved state funding for California universities to research and build verification methods for descendants of enslaved Americans. That work targets potential eligibility for future noncash benefits.
AB 2599 fits the pattern: process and documentation first, open-ended pressure on institutions, and no immediate checks written from the state treasury.
California was the first state to create a formal task force to study the legacy of slavery and recommend restitution measures. Lawmakers set that body up under AB 3121.
In 2023 the task force issued a landmark 1,100-page final report. Its recommendations estimated that direct cash payments could cost millions of dollars per eligible recipient.
The California Black Power Network, a statewide coalition of 48 Black-led and Black-serving organizations across 14 counties, served as an official community anchor during the task force years. It ran listening sessions and civic engagement work that fed into the report. The group now plans to use AB 2599 and expand its base.
Localized programs elsewhere have already moved money. In Evanston, Illinois, Black residents received $25,000 housing grants under a city reparations effort. California’s new corporate disclosure law does not create a similar grant. It creates a forced historical inventory for large firms that still do business in the state.
Whether the legislature funds the affidavit system remains an open question in the reporting. Until that money appears, the 2029 filing clock does not fully start.
California keeps building the machinery of racial accounting while taxpayers and employers wait to see how far the next demands go.
