NBC News reported on Monday that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky, was a descendant of two men who owned slaves in the mid-1800s. The issue of whether or not the United States government should pay reparations to the descendants of slaves has been a hotly contested issue with McConnell being firmly against the notion.
McConnell has said of the possibility of financially compensating the descendants of slaves, “I don’t think reparations for something that happened 150 years ago, when none of us currently living are responsible, is a good idea … We’ve tried to deal with our original sin of slavery by fighting a civil war, by passing landmark civil rights legislation. We’ve elected an African American president.”
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties held a hearing in mid-June on the possibility of paying reparations. Several speakers gave impassioned testimonies both for and against the measure. Journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, who is a strong advocate for reparations said, “While emancipation dead-bolted the door against the bandits of America, Jim Crow wedged the windows wide open.” He added of the senator’s remarks, “That’s the thing about Senator McConnell’s ‘something.’ It was 150 years ago, and it was right now.”
Journalist Coleman Hughes felt differently stating in his hearing testimony, “I worry that our desire to fix the past compromises our ability to fix the present … there’s a difference between acknowledging history and allowing history to distract us from the problems we face today.”
The NBC News report on McConnell’s ancestry highlighted that his consistent rejection of reparations contradicted his family’s history. The report sourced census records from the 1850s and 1860s that detailed the “Slave Schedules” of two men that appeared to be the great-great-grandfathers of McConnell. The senator has not previously commented on his distant ancestors and their reported slaves. He did not respond to the NBC News report.
