KEITH ENRIQUEZ/ Daily Bruin Former State Sen. Tom
Hayden, whose bill orders insurance companies to disclose
records on policies of slavery, speaks in Haines Hall.
By Christian Mignot
Daily Bruin Contributor
The Department of Insurance will publicize the names of
slaveholders and insured slaves found in the records of antebellum
insurance companies next month, representatives of the department
have declared.
The intent to publicize the list was announced by the department
at a two-day colloquium that examined the socioeconomic legacy of
slavery and the nation’s economic gains from it. The event,
held in Haines Hall over the weekend, was sponsored by the Center
for African American Studies.
The list of names will be the end product of Senate Bill 2199,
proposed in 2000 by former State Sen. Tom Hayden that ordered
insurance companies in California to disclose records on slavery
policies and those of their parent companies that were in business
in antebellum years.
Hayden, who also passed the complementary Senate Bill 1737
asking the University of California to research the economic legacy
of slavery, said it is important for Americans to have a
“modern-day liability for past wrongs.”
The discoveries made through the release of insurance records in
accordance with Senate Bill 2199 will allow descendants of slaves
to retrace their lineage, perhaps even as far back as their African
roots, said Leslie Tick, the senior staff counsel for the
Department of Insurance.
On a longterm scale, she said the research may act as an
important stepping stone toward granting economic reparations to
the descendants of slaves.
“The academic research is perhaps the first step toward
some sort of eventual reparations,” Tick said. “But
there would have to be much more moving and shaking before any kind
of reparation action occurs.”
Of the 17 insurance firms that operated during the antebellum
era, three companies have provided records with the names of 600
slaves, while 10 no longer maintain archives of the period, Tick
said. The department is awaiting responses from the remaining
companies, as well as from companies that merged with other
antebellum insurers.
“Many insurers may be slow or hesitant to respond because
they are afraid they may receive bad publicity from such an
exhibition,” Tick said.
Economic reparations would help eliminate the vestiges of
slavery that linger today, said Adjoa Aiyetoro, chair of the
National Coalition for Black Reparations in America.
“The obtaining of reparations is not only something we
should struggle for, but it’s also something that is
realizable,” she said. “We must recapture the unjust
enrichment of white Americans and the government.”
It is important for the public to know the amount of money the
government made from taxes relating to the the domestic slave trade
and the import of slaves from Africa, Aiyetoro said, adding that it
is necessary to investigate present-day companies and families
whose wealth may be founded on profits made from slave trading.
The colloquium also examined other products of slavery, such as
racial stereotypes and their effect on the employment of African
American men, as well as racism in law enforcement and the mass
media.