10:45 - 11:10 a.m. Keynote Speaker: The History of Reparations Kamilah V. Moore, Esq.
11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.
12:15 - 12:45 p.m.
Reparations Now: Moving Beyond a Naive Faith in Bare Law
Lunch
Keynote Speaker: Inequitable Music Industry Contracts and the Oppressive Hand of Copyright Law: the Case for Reparations for African American Artists and Performers
Don Tamaki
Brandon Greene Kamilah V. Moore, Esq.
Kevin Greene
12:50 - 1:50 p.m.
2:00 - 3:00 p.m.
Panel 2: The Future of Reparations
Reception
Symposium Hosts: Alexis Tatum & Dominick Williams
Wesley Cox Cameron Clark Ndjuoh MehChu
Symposium Panels
This symposium brings together leading academics and practitioners to explore the landscape of both California and the nation’s work to bring about reparations for Black Americans, highlight the work of California’s Reparations Task Force, and consider various issues and angles on the topic that may provide some remedy to Black Americans in the United States.
Keynote 1: The History of Reparations
This presentation will give an overview of the reparations movement in the U S and California, highlighting the ongoing movement for reparations for descendants of slavery despite seemingly sufficient, prophylactic legislation post-slavery (Civil Rights Act of 1866; 1964, Housing Rights Act of 1964; Voting Rights Act of 1865, etc.). It will discuss the concept of "naive faith in bare law" as espoused by WEB Du Bois in The Gift of Black Folk: The Negroes in the Making of America, and his appeal to make Freedmens Bureau a permanent institution.
Panel 1: Reparations Now: Moving Beyond a Naive Faith in Bare Law
This panel will bridge us from the history of reparations to where we stand contemporarily following the California Reparations Task Force and its final report, published in June 2023. Panelists will convey what the Task Force has revealed and how we can build on the Task Force's groundbreaking revelations.
Keynote 2: Inequitable Music Industry Contracts and the Oppressive Hand of Copyright Law: the Case for Reparations for African American Artists and Performers
This presentation uses R &B pioneer Ruth Brown, a performer so prolific that Atlantic Records earned the moniker the "House That Ruth Built" as a case study, and critical race theory as a template, to outline the case for restorative justice for legacy Black music artists and performers.
Blak artists lost the opportunity for generational wealth arising from inequitable music industry contracts and practices. This presentation will also detail the ways in which copyright law doctrines including the compulsory license, copyright formalities and harsh judicial standards facilitated the loss of generational wealth for Black artists and performers.
Panel 2: The Future of Reparations
This panel will discuss the future of reparations and think imaginatively about what our next steps should be Now that we know what history has wrought and what opportunities lay in our wake, how do we begin to tackle creatively the gaping chasm between what Black Americans have and what we are owed? Panelists will share how we can begin to think about such an important question
Symposium Speakers
Kevin Greene
Professor Kevin “K J ” Greene is the John J Schumacher Chair and Professor Law at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles He is a nationally recognized entertainment and intellectual property law scholar and an expert witness consu for copyright, trademark, publicity rights, and entertainment contract disputes particiular he has pioneered work on on African-American music and inequality copyright law Before becoming a law professor, Greene practiced law in New at Cravath, Swaine & Moore He later joined New York’s top entertainment boutique law firm Frankfurt, Kurnit, Klein & Selz Kevin is a graduate of State University of New York and Yale Law School
he/him
John J Schumacher Chair & Professor of Law, Southwestern Law School
Wesley
Agency
Wesley has worked at the African American Community Service Agency since January 2022 as a Reparations Research fellow He is a San Francisco State alum who organized with the Afrikan Black Coalition Conference, the Black Student Union, and Black Residents United in Housing He pursued his Master's in AfricanAmerican Studies at UCLA, where he was a teaching assistant and Graduate Student Association representative for the academic senate He is pursuing his Ph D in Higher Education and Student Affairs at Claremont Graduate University and San Diego State University His dissertation is focused on Black LGBTQ+ students' perceptions of campus and sense of belonging. Cox is also an African American Studies educator and Fulbright South Africa GPA Scholar
Cameron D Clark is a Supervising Attorney in Berkeley’s Policy Advocacy Clinic, pursuing legislative reforms to abolish administrative fines and fees imposed on youth who are involved in the criminal legal system Cameron received their law degree from Harvard Law School, where they studied as a NAACP-LDF Earl Warren Scholar, a Harvard University Presidential Scholar, and managing editor of the Harvard Blackletter Law Journal. Cameron received their B.A. in sociology with honors from the University of Texas at Austin A civil rights attorney by training, Cameron joined Berkeley Law following fellowships with the Southern Poverty Law Center in New Orleans and the Texas Civil Rights Project in Houston Cameron’s previous experiences also include litigation in California, working with Public Counsel and the ACLU of Southern California to support transgender prisoners and students asserting their civil rights.
he/they
Clinical Supervising Attorney, Policy Advocacy Clinic, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law
Cox
Cameron Clark
Symposium Speakers
Ndjuoh MehChu
Associate Professor of Law, Seton Hall Law School
Ndjuoh MehChu is an associate professor at Seton Hall Law School where he teaches and writes on Civil Rights, Critical Race Theory, and Torts. Prior to joining the Seton Hall Law faculty, Ndjuoh was an inaugural Thurgood Marshall Law Teaching Fellow at Howard University School of Law. He was also a legal fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Jackson, Mississippi and clerked for the Honorable Jack B. Weinstein on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York Before law school, Ndjuoh was a special education and math teacher in the South Bronx. He holds a B.A. in Economics and Africana Studies from Rutgers University-New Brunswick with highest honors and a J D from the University of Chicago Law School. Ndjuoh serves on the Executive Board of the American Association of Law Schools Sections on Civil Rights Law and Children and the Law He also serves on the board of NJ LEEP.
Alexis Tatum is a 2L at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law She is JBLP's 2L Editor-in-Chief and a former Historian & Communications Co-Editor. Before law school, Alexis earned her Bachelor's degrees in Journalism and Plan II Honors, an interdisciplinary liberal arts honors program, at the University of Texas at Austin She is a first-generation college graduate and law student interested in the intersections of race and the right to privacy in the digital era
Dominick Williams is a 2L at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law He serves as JBLP's Co-Senior Symposium Editor and former 2L Editor-in-Chief. Before law school, he worked with California Secretary of State Shirley Weber as a liaison to the California Reparations Task Force He also worked as thenAssemblymember Shirley Weber's legislative staffer focused on higher education, police accountability, and election issues He is the Editor-in-Chief of the California Law Review
Alexis Tatum
Dominick Williams
he/him
2L Editor-in-Chief Senior Symosium Editor
Ber urnal of Black Law & Policy
Th of Black Law & Policy (BJBLP) is committed to publishing works dedicated to addressing social, political, and economic issues affecting the Black diaspora while promoting the works of scholars of marginalized identities, activists, and attorneys. Topics include institutional racism, social, political, and economic inequality, and anti-Black racism
Our Purpose
The Journal seeks to publish social policy and legal scholarship addressing economic, political, philosophic, and sociological issues affecting Black people. As we see it, the challenge facing the Journal is threefold:
First, the Journal aims to disrupt the centering of whiteness in legal academia. We hope our journal will ultimately serve Black communities by infusing intellectual discourse with provocative and innovative scholarship, thus deepening thinking about policy options and choices.
Second, the Journal will give rise to the voices of emerging scholars, organizers, and advocates. The Journal will bring these folks into conversation with community members, professors, judges, policy-makers, and practitioners.
Finally, we see the Journal as a training ground where students can sharpen their editing and writing skills, and gain experience in critical thinking by wrestling with ideas revolving around Black liberation, equality, and justice.
Berkeley Journal of Black Law & Policy
2023-24 Board of Editors
Editors-in-Chief
Alexis Tatum
Langston Glaude
Managing Editor
Kennedy Edwards Publishing Editors
Tiffaney Boyd
Leia Walker
History & Communications Editor
Alyssa Young
Articles Editors*
Kennedy Hayes
Bailey Malveaux
Johnsenia Brooks*
Daija Chambers
Davanna Howell-Mcfarlane
Senior Articles Editor
Allonna Nordhavn
Senior Symposium Editor
Dominick Williams
Kaela Allen
Kyra Morris
Associate Editors
Cameryn Bryant
Danielle Dyson
Grace Oyenubi*
Abby Smith
*symposium committee
Lauren Campbell
Aaniyah Hicks
Metyia Phillips*
Filmore Thomas IV
Berkeley Journal of Black Law & Policy
Thank you! BJBLP is grateful to our wonderful panelists, guests, and sponsors for helping us host this event. Additionally, thank you to our student members for helping make this event and forthcoming publication come to life. Finally, thank you to our guests! We hope this symposium has inspired you to learn more about the work of our panelists. We look forward to sharing our Spring Volume 23 publication with you soon.
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