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The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties debated House Resolution 40 Wednesday that would direct experts to study how the U.S. government supported slavery from 1619 to 1865 and created laws that discriminated against formerly enslaved people and their descendants.
The commission could recommend an official apology and possible remedies, including reparations and education of the American public on slavery's impact on current race relations.
The bill, known as "H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act" was introduced this year. by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas.
Rep. John Conyers of Michigan in 1989, and he reintroduced the bill every session until he retired in 2017. It never received. enough votes for passage, sometimes in the House and sometimes in Senate.
H.R. 40 seeks to establish a commission to study "and consider a national apology and proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery, its subsequent de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes."
Among the eight expert witnesses were E. Tendayi Achiume, a law professor at UCLA, and Kathy Masaoka, co-chair of the Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress, said that reparations committees have international and domestic precedent including the commission that compensated Japanese Americans who were put in internment camps after World War II.
“The Japanese American movement for redress and reparations was inspired by the Civil Rights Movement and supported by Black organizations and legislators," testified Masaoka, co-chair of Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress and member of the coordinating committee for Nikkei Progressives,
"H.R. 40 would bring our movement full circle, providing a long overdue foundation for redress owed to the Black descendants of hundreds of years of state-sponsored racism and oppression. Reconciliation and reparations are not about taking from one to give to the other," she continued. "Rather, it is a means of using our nation’s resources — a nation whose wealth was built on slavery — to heal the impact of hundreds of years of exploitation and to work with Black communities to build a path toward justice and healing. This is a necessary step for the Congress and the federal government to take. And it is long overdue.”
The Japanese American Citizens League issued the following statement in support of H.R. 40:
Over 30 years ago, redress was achieved for the wrongful forced removal and incarceration during WWII of nearly 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry on the west coast. This egregious abrogation of civil rights was carried out by our government ignorant to the citizenship and because of the racial and ethnic background of the victims. It took over 40 years for our government to take full responsibility and offer a full apology and economic reparations to incarcerees.
We are now over 155 years past the end of the Civil War and the end of slavery and over 50 years past the passage of the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, and Fair Housing Act which ended many of the Jim Crow Laws which extended the power of White Supremacy beyond the end of the Civil War. The legacy of these laws continues today.
Just as the CWRIC enabled Japanese Americans to tell our stories of the impact of incarceration, the H.R. 40 commission would provide members of the Black community to share the impact of the institution and the legacy of slavery.
This week over 300 testimonies from the Japanese American community are being submitted to the Congressional Record in support of H.R. 40. JACL and several other Japanese American organizations have signed on to the “Why We Can’t Wait” letter in support of H.R. 40. Japanese Americans fully understand the power of redress and reparations in our community and cannot silently stand by as our government denies the same overdue apology and reparations to the Black community.
Just as our government took responsibility for the World War II incarceration of those of Japanese ancestry, it is time for our nation to take responsibility for the institution and ongoing legacy of slavery.
Biden has not come out directly in support of reparations although White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said the President supports a study as proposed by H.R. 40.
Last year during the campaign, Biden told the Washington Post that “we must acknowledge that there can be no realization of the American dream without grappling with the original sin of slavery, and the centuries-long campaign of violence, fear, and trauma wrought upon Black people in this country.”
Opponents of the bill called it divisive and argued that present-day Americans should not be held responsible for the consequences of slavery, which was ended by the passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865.
This year, though, the bill appears to have gained more support because of the demonstrations over the summer sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police. His death, which was videotaped as the nation heard his last words that he couldn't breathe, followed a series of deaths of several African Americans by law enforcement.
African Americans are almost twice as likely to live below the poverty line as white Americans and on average are paid less than their white peers, no matter their profession or education, according to the U.S. Census. Black people are also less likely to own a home than other racial and ethnic groups, a key asset for building wealth.
"Economic issues are the root cause for many critical issues impacting the African American community today,” Rep. Lee said when introducing the bill last month. “Truth and reconciliation about the ‘original sin of American slavery’ is necessary to light the way to the beloved community we all seek."
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