The House held a hearing to discuss a bill that would create a commission to study the legacy of slavery. According to the Washington Post and other news sources, prominent African American writers, activists and scholars on Wednesday addressed the House panel as lawmakers took their first step in a decade toward debating the role of reparations in correcting what many called “the original sin.”
But it wasn’t all smooth sailing at the hearing, with some onlookers booing certain speakers for their view against the idea. The hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties was set to coincide with the observance of Juneteenth, a day commemorating the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans. It also came as the Democratic-led House is pressing forward with H.R. 40, a measure that would create a national commission to study the legacy of slavery and make proposals on reparations to African Americans. But much of the debate centered on remarks made by the leader of the other chamber, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), who said Tuesday that the country had addressed its historic racial injustices in part through the election of President Barack Obama.
“There’s a tremendous amount of ignorance in that statement,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), who is running for president, said in an interview with SiriusXM ahead of the hearing. McConnell said Tuesday that he opposes reparations in part because “none of us currently living are responsible” for slavery. Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates responded at Wednesday’s hearing by walking through the social and political environment that grew out of slavery, a system that he called a “relentless campaign of terror — a campaign that extended well into the lifetime of Majority Leader McConnell.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates on McConnell’s reparations remarks: “We grant that Mr. McConnell was not alive for Appomattox, but he was alive for the electrocution of George Stinney. He was alive for the blinding of Isaac Woodward. He was alive to witness kleptocracy in his native Alabama.” Coates continued, “Majority Leader McConnell cited civil rights legislation yesterday, as well he should, because he was alive to witness the harassment, jailing and betrayal of those responsible for that legislation by a government sworn to protect them. He was alive for the redlining of Chicago and the looting of Black homeowners of some $4 billion. Victims of that plunder are very much alive today. I am sure they’d love a word with the majority leader.”
The hearing also included testimony from actor Danny Glover, documentary film producer and director Katrina Browne, writer Coleman Hughes and former National Football League player Burgess Owens, among others. The House and Senate issued separate apologies for slavery about a decade ago, with the Senate acting in 2009 and the House in 2008. Booker on Wednesday called on the country to engage in an active discussion about slavery and its implication in current-day injustices, including disparities in education and the violence that plagues many Black communities.
“I look at communities like mine, and you can literally see how communities were designed to be segregated, designed based on enforcing institutional racism,” he said.
Hughes, a columnist for the online magazine Quillette, was among those testifying against the legislation. Born in what he called a “privileged suburb,” Hughes said that a federal payment would be the equivalent of the government calling him a victim — bestowing the label without his consent.
“You might call that justice. I call it justice for the dead at the price of justice for the living,” he said. Hughes was booed by much of the audience present at the hearing, causing House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) who reportedly told reporters to “chill.”
In one of the hearing’s emotional moments, Glover paused while speaking about his ancestors. “I sit here as a great-grandson of a former slave freed by the Emancipation Proclamation,” he said. The problem of racial inequality in America, Glover said, “is so tenacious because, despite its virtues and attributes, America is deeply racist, and its democracy is flawed both economically and socially.”
