Democrats reintroduce federal resolution for reparations
A coalition of Democratic lawmakers and advocates on Thursday reintroduced a resolution to offer reparations to descendants of enslaved Africans and people of African descent.
Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) led the reintroduction of the Reparations Now resolution, which was first introduced in 2023 by former Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.).
'We're here to say that there's no more waiting, no more watering down, no more putting justice on layaway,' said Lee, the descendant of enslaved Africans. 'Black folks are owed more than thoughts and prayers. We're owed repair, we're owed restitution and we're owed justice.'
The resolution calls for the federal government to allocate trillions of dollars in reparations to Black Americans to atone for chattel slavery, Jim Crow and the ongoing effects of other federally sanctioned discriminatory policies.
'For over 400 years, this country has profited off the stolen labor, the stolen land and stolen lives of Black people,' said Bush, who attended Thursday's press conference.
She continued: 'From the first shackled bodies brought to these shores — and those that didn't make it to the shores — to the grueling, back-breaking, murderous work done on plantations that built America's wealth, to the federal officials who enslaved human beings while they wrote our laws even here in this building, America has been cashing checks written in Black blood.'
Lee and Bush on Thursday specifically pointed to the Trump administration's attempts to limit diversity, equity and inclusion policies, including President Trump's recent efforts to nullify a key component of the Civil Rights Act.
'The harms done to enslaved Africans and subsequently their descendants for generations to follow are innumerable, but they are well documented, traceable and persistent,' said Lee.
Since Trump took office in January, members of the Congressional Black Caucus have introduced multiple pieces of legislation to recognize the nation's history of slavery and discrimination.
In March, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) introduced bipartisan legislation to establish a monument recognizing the historically Black Greenwood District, which was burned to the ground in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
Earlier this month, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Booker led the reintroduction of H.R. 40, which would create a federal commission to examine the lasting impact of slavery, systemic racism and racial discrimination. It would also explore measures — such as reparations — to address these harms.
Pressley on Thursday condemned Trump's efforts to limit DEI in federal institutions, including threats to defund the Smithsonian.
'We are in a moment of anti-Blackness on steroids, and we refuse to be silent,' said Pressley, adding that Congress has an obligation to right the wrongs of slavery and discrimination.
'We will not back down in our pursuit of racial justice,' she said. 'The antidote to anti-Blackness is to be pro-Black, and we will do it unapologetically. The United States government owes us a debt, and we need reparations now.'
Efforts to establish reparations for slavery have been ongoing since the end of slavery.
Many advocates have pointed to Gen. William T. Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15, commonly referred to as '40 acres and a mule.' But the directive, which ordered Confederate land seized in Georgia and South Carolina to be split among formerly enslaved Black people in those states, was never carried out. However, white slave owners were compensated for the loss of their land following the end of the Civil War.
In 1989, former Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) introduced H.R. 40 for the first time. He would continue to reintroduce the bill each session for three decades. Conyers died in 2019.
That same year, the NAACP released a resolution detailing the lasting harms of slavery and discrimination and called for federal reparations, including a national apology.
In 2021, Evanston, Ill., became the first U.S. city to create a reparations plan for Black residents. Other states have since followed, including California and Maryland.
'Reparations are a proposal to level the playing field, but the only way we could ever have a level playing field is by remedying the harms that have been done by the system,' Lee said on Thursday. 'We need real, concrete action. We need policies that close the racial wealth gap, eliminate Black maternal health disparities, fund education, address environmental racism in our communities, and we need reparations. It is a moral obligation, the debt that this country owes.'
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