 Earlier this month, California lawmakers set aside $12 million in the state budget for reparations, not for cash payments, though, for other things. Although cash payments have been the reparations movement's central goal, both in California and nationally, politically, it's been tough. For more, we called on NPR race and identity correspondent Sandhya Dirks. And when we spoke, she began by explaining how California got to this point. So reparations for slavery is something black people have been fighting for since even before slavery was abolished.