The House Judiciary Committee next week will hold a hearing focused on the prospect of making amends to black Americans for more than two centuries of slavery — the first time the proposal has seen legislation consideration.
The public session, hosted by the panel’s Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee, is scheduled to take place on June 19 and will look at a bill re-introduced in January by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, which proposes a commission to study possibilities for reparations. Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and actor Danny Glover are set to be among the hearing’s star witnesses.
H.R. 40 is a reiteration of a measure first drafted in 1989 by former Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., to examine the history of slavery in the United States before recommending appropriate remedies, including an apology and compensation. Those bill usually attracted a smattering of co-sponsors and weren’t given hearings.
Reparations received national attention earlier this year after a slew of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates weighed in on the issue on the campaign trail. The rhetoric turned specific when contenders who appeared at the National Action Network Convention in April were asked by MSNBC host Al Sharpton to take a position on H.R. 40.
“The Congresswoman welcomes support for any of her pieces of legislation, including H.R. 40, and welcomes enactment of any of her bills into law,” Jackson Lee’s communications director, Robin Chand, told the Washington Examiner at the time.
