By Robert J. Hansen | OBSERVER Staff Writer
The Sacramento City Council on Dec. 3 unanimously approved a racial equity resolution, outlining a framework to develop policies that benefit all residents.
The resolution commits the city to implementing current efforts and identifying new strategies to enhance racial equity, social justice, and the application of antiracist principles across council leadership, staffing, and public resource allocation.
It also emphasizes that Sacramento’s commitment to racial equity must be comprehensive, enduring, and institutionalized. This includes prioritizing the transformation of institutions, systems, policies, practices, and contracts obstructed by structural racism.
The resolution defines racial equity as closing outcome gaps so that race no longer predicts one’s success. Achieving this involves focusing on improvements for those who are most disadvantaged, enabling everyone to thrive. Racial equity is both the goal and the process, requiring deliberate and continuous efforts to revise policies, systems, and structures, with measurable benefits for people of color and marginalized populations.
Additionally, the city will continue developing its Racial Equity Action Plan, with a draft expected by the end of 2026. Quarterly updates will be provided to the city’s Racial Equity Committee, including performance metrics and reporting tools to ensure accountability.
Jesse Villalobos, of the national organization Race Forward, commended the resolution, noting its potential to foster a just multiracial democracy and governance.
“This will require us to operate differently,” Villalobos told the council. “It will mean sharing power in ways that haven’t been shared before and building new practices and a government culture rooted in racial equity.”
Race Forward’s mission is to support communities and public institutions in achieving racial justice through governance.
Aimée Zenzele Barnes, manager of the city’s Office of Equity and Diversity, highlighted the extensive work over the past eight years that led to the resolution’s approval.
“This is legacy work, and it takes time,” Barnes said.
The city and partners such as Race Forward have worked for years to bring this resolution to fruition. The COVID-19 pandemic and the racial reckoning following George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020 accelerated efforts to create a framework addressing racial inequity.
Sacramento’s history includes policies and practices that have harmed Black and brown communities, such as overcriminalization, discriminatory housing policies, and systemic underinvestment in neighborhoods with predominantly minority populations.
Black Sacramentans today are three times more likely to experience homelessness than the general population, and Indigenous people are four times more likely. Black residents represent 11% of Sacramento County’s population, but more than 37% of the county jail population. They also represent approximately 30% of Sacramento County residents who are in state prisons.
Additionally, Black residents of Sacramento are arrested at rates more than twice that of white residents, despite comparable rates of reported crime. Black students in Sacramento-area schools also face disproportionately high suspension rates, compounding racial inequities in employment, housing, transportation, and other key areas.
Councilmember Mai Vang emphasized the importance of the resolution, especially given the current political climate in which racial equity and diversity are under attack.
“We have an opportunity tonight to show the world that racial equity is essential to creating a more just city and a more just world,” Vang said.
Mayor Darrell Steinberg also voiced strong support, acknowledging Sacramento’s historical governance failures.
“We cannot be a great city unless we back up racial equity with real action,” Steinberg said.