By: April Ryan
The growing movement for reparations for the descendants of Africans enslaved in America is receiving another jolt of energy. Democratic Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Presley is revitalizing the work of the late Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee with the reintroduction of H. R. 40. The newly reintroduced bill would create a 15-member commission to study concrete solutions to the Black Wall Street Tulsa Massacre. Also, the new H.R. 40 bill would develop recommendations for reparations for slavery. Democratic New Jersey Senator Cory Booker is introducing a similar bill in the United States Senate. However, Pressley says the House bill already has 70 co-sponsors, and she will ask Republicans and Democrats to co-sponsor H.R. 40. However, there are no official Republican sponsors yet. The bill would also probe racist disparities that inhibited Black wealth. Marc Morial, the head of the National Urban League, says,” We must stay the course!” The head of the economic civil rights organization says the current wealth gap disparity between Blacks and whites is “10-1 at least. Maybe higher.”
Pressley wants what she calls the “reparative work,” similar to what was offered to Native Americans and Japanese Americans. In 1988, Republican President Ronald Reagan apologized to the surviving Japanese Americans for their incarceration during World War ll. 80,000 Japanese Americans received $20,000 each from the federal government as part of the apology. Reparations for Native Americans also occurred after World War ll. 1.3 Billion dollars was paid by the Indian Claims Commission as it provided $1000 per person. Democratic Chicago congressman Joshua Jackson pointed to Evanston, Illinois. That town currently offers reparations as the first municipal program in the United States to address racial discrimination and segregation. Black residents and their descendants who lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969 are eligible for up to 25 thousand dollars to help with real estate-related issues. From the press conference on Capitol Hill, Pressley encouraged President Donald Trump and the man she calls his “co-president,” Elon Musk to support H.R. 40.
Congressional leaders attending and supporting the reintroduction of H.R. 40 were Congressman Johnathan Jackson, Congresswoman Summer Lee, Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, and the Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, New York Democratic Congresswoman Yvette Clarke. Presley is the third Black congressional leader who carried on the legacy of a movement toward reparations. It began in 1969 with the late Michigan Congressman John Conyers and was reintroduced by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee in recent years. Congresswoman Lee received 140 co-signers on the bill that Congresswoman Pressley and Senator Booker now champion. Texas Congresswoman Erica Lee Carter, the daughter of the late Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, said, “This is not the past” but about the present and future.
White House Correspondent April Ryan has a unique vantage point as the only Black reporter covering urban issues from the White House – a position she has held for over 28 years, since the Clinton era. She is the longest-serving Black White House correspondent in history. Her position as a White House Correspondent has afforded her unusual insight into the racial sensitivities, issues, and attendant political struggles of our nation’s past presidents.
April is the Washington D.C. Bureau Chief for BlackPressUSA.com.
