California Legislature Passes Law to Make California the First State to Require Corporations to Disclose Slavery Profits

Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation, and Truth (ARRT) Strongly Urges Gov. Newsom to Sign The Truth in Disclosure Act (AB 2599- Bryan)

SACRAMENTO, Calif., Aug. 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- California is on the brink of becoming the first state in the nation to require corporations to declare under oath whether they or their predecessors profited from slavery.

With its passage in the full Senate today, the California State Legislature adopted AB 2599, The Truth in Disclosure Act, authored by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan and a top priority for the California Legislative Black Caucus. The bill will now be sent to Governor Gavin Newsom for his signature.

The bill requires corporations doing business in California with annual revenue of $100 million in gross receipts or more to submit sworn affidavits — subject to perjury penalties — disclosing whether they or predecessor entities engaged in or profited from slavery-era transactions, with all filings posted to a publicly searchable state database.

The measure builds on California's existing disclosure framework. California has led the country on climate, supply chain, and pay transparency, and expands existing corporate disclosure laws requiring corporations doing business in California to engage in ethical business practices. No other state has yet required corporations to account for their historical role in the slave economy. The bill's public database would give journalists, researchers, and reparations advocates a tool to trace historical profits to present-day corporate wealth.

The Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation, and Truth (ARRT) strongly urges Gov. Newsom to sign the bill.

California State Assemblymember Isaac Bryan:
"For too long, corporations have been allowed to benefit from the economic engine of slavery while avoiding any public accounting of that history," said. "AB 2599 is a moral imperative and changes that. Californians deserve to know which companies built their wealth on the backs of enslaved people — and they deserve that truth under oath."

Kaci Y. Patterson, Founder and Chief Architect of Social Good Solutions/Black Equity Collective: "Reparative justice is a key tenet of the Black Equity Collective's Policy & Advocacy work, and AB 2599 is essential to that commitment. Truth must precede repair. By confronting the historical record and strengthening transparency and accountability, California can understand the past, take responsibility in the present, and build a more equitable future. We thank Assemblymember Isaac Bryan for his leadership in authoring this important legislation. BEC proudly supports AB 2599 and urges Governor Gavin Newsom to sign the Truth in Disclosure Act into law. Truth is where repair begins, and accountability is how we move forward."

James Woodson, Chief Executive Officer of the California Black Power Network:
"Corporations have long profited from slavery while Black Californians have borne the public cost. AB 2599 ensures this history is officially recorded under oath and made accessible to all. The harm has been documented since 202 in a report that's over 1,000 pages long. What corporations have profited from that harm has never been documented, and AB 2599 would change that. We urge Governor Newsom to sign this bill and reveal the truth openly."

Lisa Holder, President of the Equal Justice Society:
"The United Nation's formal acknowledgement this past March of the transatlantic slave trade as the gravest crime against humanity set a moral and reparative baseline for the world. AB 2599 grounds that international imperative into concrete state policy by compelling companies operating in California, the world's fourth-largest economy, to account for historical ties under oath. Moreover it supplies the necessary paper trail, documenting predecessor entities, collateralized human property, and institutional wealth accumulation, that scholars and policymakers need to translate broad reparative goals into actionable policy."

Pastor Michael McBride, Executive Director of Live Free USA:
"Since ARRT's inception, faith and congregational leaders across California have organized, prayed, and pushed for this day, because reparations work is moral work, and there is no neutral ground when it comes to truth. The prophet Amos declared, 'let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.' AB 2599 is part of that flow: it forces a reckoning with history that can no longer be dammed up by silence. Live Free USA has stood with ARRT from the beginning, and we will keep standing until repair is real and materialized to its fullest extent."

Teresa L. Gonzalez, State Director of Live Free California:
"As a detribalized Indigenous woman, I stand in solidarity with Black communities fighting for healing, justice, and liberation, because our histories, presents and futures are bound together. Live Free California centers systems-impacted Black leadership in this work, and we know that true repair cannot stop at disclosure. It must mean ending incarceration and every system of oppression built on the same profits AB 2599 exposes. This bill shines a light not only on who profited from slavery historically, but on who continues to profit from harm today, and that light is long overdue."

Dr. Cheryl Grills, former member of the California Reparations Task Force, and Professor Emerita (Psychology) at Loyola Marymount University and Founder of their Psychology Applied Research Center: "The harms from enslavement and their cross-generational legacies were multifaceted. No doubt, the repair must be equally multifaceted, layered, and capable of promoting systemic and institutional remedies. This is necessary if we are to strike a blow to structural racism, the offspring of African enslavement. The Truth in Disclosure Act, AB 2599, represents a significant step in that direction by compelling the transparency needed to address those foundational harms."

Donald K. Tamaki, former member of the California Reparations Task Force: "Two chapters of the California Reparations Task Force report document in painstaking detail how corporations built enormous fortunes extracted from the free labor of enslaved people and how that wealth compounded for generations while Black families were locked out. The Truth in Disclosure Act follows the recommendations of the task force report by compelling corporations to publicly declare under oath how their fortunes were extracted from the stolen labor of enslaved people. This public transparency is a critical first step toward full accountability and implementing the Task Force's broader recommendations."

Should Governor Newsom sign AB 2599, it would represent the 15th reparations bill passed since the 2023 issuance of the California Reparations Task Force report and yet another step forward in the continued momentum of implementing those recommendations.

In 2025, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law SB 437 (Weber-Pierson), requiring the California State University to explore options to determine how to confirm an individual's status as a descendant, and SB 518 (Weber-Pierson), creating the Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery, housed within the Civil Rights Department.

In 2024, Gov. Newsom signed several reparations bills, including AB 3089, a formal apology by the State of California for its role in perpetuating slavery and its ongoing legacy of systemic racism.

This historic journey started with Gov. Newsom's signing of AB 3121 into law on Sept. 30, 2020, to create the first-in-the-nation California Reparations Task Force. After two years of research and 30 public hearings, the task force in 2023 delivered a 1,100-page book of truth that documents past and continuing harm of anti-Black discrimination in every facet of American life and across every sector of California civil society, outlining 115 comprehensive policies for repairing the harm.

About the Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation, and Truth (ARRT): The Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation, and Truth (ARRT) is a multiracial, multisector coalition advancing truth-telling, accountability, and public education related to the enduring impacts of slavery and systemic harm in California. Learn more at alliancefor.org.

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SOURCE Alliance for Reparations, Reconcilliation, and Truth (ARRT)

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