TRENTON, N.J. – A New Jersey bill seeking to move the state toward reparations for Black residents has picked up additional sponsors, with lawmakers proposing a task force that could recommend financial compensation, restitution, policy changes and a formal state apology.
Assembly Bill A1665, sponsored by Assemblywoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, would not itself authorize reparations payments.
Instead, it would create an 11-member New Jersey Reparations Task Force charged with deciding what remedies should be recommended, who should be eligible and, if compensation is proposed, how it should be calculated.
The bill was pre-filed for the 2026 legislative session and remains pending in the Legislature. Shore News Network reported in August on the reparations proposal as lawmakers renewed an effort that has surfaced repeatedly in New Jersey politics.
Task Force Could Recommend Financial Compensation
The legislation goes considerably further than ordering a historical study.
A1665 directs the proposed task force to examine “any form of compensation to the descendants of enslaved Africans,” determine how compensation could be calculated and recommend what form it should take.
The panel would also consider who should qualify.
Other potential recommendations could include rehabilitation, restitution, state programs, policy changes and a formal apology from New Jersey for its role in slavery and subsequent discrimination.
None of those remedies would automatically become law if A1665 passes.
The task force would research the issues and make recommendations to the governor and Legislature. Lawmakers would still have to decide whether to enact any proposal requiring new laws or spending.
The bill describes the eventual objective as developing “profound and reparative financial and other investments in Black communities” affected by what its sponsors describe as New Jersey’s history of systemic racial discrimination.
New Jersey’s History of Slavery Is Central to the Bill
The legislation devotes several pages to New Jersey’s history, challenging the notion that slavery was confined primarily to Southern states.
Its findings cite slavery in colonial New Jersey, the state’s 1704 Slave Code, gradual abolition beginning in 1804 and New Jersey’s resistance to some federal efforts to abolish slavery.
The sponsors also connect that history to later racial disparities involving housing, education, criminal justice, voting and wealth.
Those declarations represent legislative findings written into the proposal. The task force would be charged with conducting a broader examination and producing its own report.
Among the subjects it would study are slavery from 1619 through 1865, discriminatory state and federal laws after slavery, Jim Crow segregation, redlining, restrictive housing covenants, mass incarceration, voter suppression and disparities in educational funding.
The bill directs the panel to examine what it calls the “lingering negative effects” of those policies on Black Americans today.
Eleven Members Would Decide What to Recommend
The governor would appoint three members of the proposed task force. Legislative leaders would choose the remaining eight.
At least seven would be public members.
The legislation specifically calls for at least four public members to come from recommendations by organizations involved in civil rights, racial and economic justice or reparations. It names groups including the New Jersey State Conference of the NAACP, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, Rutgers University Inclusion Project and Salvation and Social Justice.
Members would not receive salaries for serving on the panel, although they could be reimbursed for expenses.
The task force would receive assistance from the New Jersey Department of State and could draw on employees from other state agencies.
At least six public meetings would have to be held around New Jersey. The legislation specifically names Camden, Paterson, Newark, New Brunswick, Atlantic City and Trenton.
Those hearings would allow residents, historians, academics, community organizations and other interested parties to testify.
Reparations Recommendations Would Take Up to Two Years
The task force would not be expected to produce its final recommendations immediately.
Under A1665, an interim report would be due within 12 months of the panel’s first meeting. Its final report would be due within 24 months.
That report would be made public.
Among the questions lawmakers are asking the panel to answer is one that would likely dominate any future debate over reparations: whether compensation should be awarded and, if so, who receives it and how much.
The bill does not put a dollar amount on reparations.
It also does not appropriate money for individual payments.
Instead, A1665 would establish the government process through which those recommendations could eventually reach the New Jersey Legislature and governor.
The proposal’s sponsorship list had grown to more than two dozen lawmakers as of Sept. 10, according to the version provided to Shore News Network. That does not mean the bill has passed either legislative chamber.
The measure remains a proposal, and its recommendations would exist only if lawmakers first approve the task force and the legislation completes the legislative process.
For now, the significance of A1665 is in what lawmakers are asking New Jersey to formally consider: not simply documenting the state’s history with slavery, but putting possible financial compensation, eligibility standards and other forms of reparations before a state-appointed panel.