Sign the petition: Black Americans deserve reparations. Demand Congress commission a reparations study now!
Congress
People across the planet are marching and demanding action to redress the systemic racism Black people have faced in this country since the first slave ships arrived in Virginia in 1619.
Our country’s economic prosperity was built off the forced labor of millions of Black people, who were subject to regular beatings, sexual assault, and family separation.
As the esteemed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates reflects in his article “The Case for Reparations”, “Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.”
More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, our country is still plagued by the legacy of anti-Black racism, and the nation has yet to reconcile this grave crime against humanity. Despite the short-lived Reconstruction-era promise that “Forty Acres and Mule” would be provided to formerly enslaved people to assist with their economic emancipation, this country has never formally apologized or adequately addressed the effects of centuries of racism and racial discrimination, effects that endure to this day.
In the weeks after the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and other Black people, the country’s consciousness has been raised and a collective cry has gone out demanding sweeping and systemic changes in policing, hiring, and economic empowerment.
But Congress has yet to act to address the role of slavery and anti-Black discrimination in creating and perpetuating the country’s gargantuan racial wealth gap and widespread inequality.
It is time for Congress to prove that Black Lives Matter by passing legislation to begin to address the economic consequences of slavery and racial discrimination and to develop proposals for redress, including reparations.
135 House of Representatives members have signed on to HR 40, a bill introduced by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX-18) to examine slavery and discrimination from 1619 to the present and to study and develop reparations proposals for African Americans.
A companion bill was introduced in the Senate by Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), but just 19 of the 47 Democrats and Independents in the Senate have signed on as co-sponsors. This legislation has been introduced into Congress every year since 1979, but it has never been moved to a vote. Now is the time for action.
Sign the petition: Demand your U.S. lawmakers pass the bill to formally begin the process of studying and developing reparations proposals for Black Americans!
Participating Organizations:
Coalition on Human Needs
Daily Kos
Democracy in Color
EPI Policy Center
Friends of the Earth Action
LeftNet
Progress America
Our country’s economic prosperity was built off the forced labor of millions of Black people, who were subject to regular beatings, sexual assault, and family separation.
As the esteemed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates reflects in his article “The Case for Reparations”, “Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.”
More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, our country is still plagued by the legacy of anti-Black racism, and the nation has yet to reconcile this grave crime against humanity. Despite the short-lived Reconstruction-era promise that “Forty Acres and Mule” would be provided to formerly enslaved people to assist with their economic emancipation, this country has never formally apologized or adequately addressed the effects of centuries of racism and racial discrimination, effects that endure to this day.
In the weeks after the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and other Black people, the country’s consciousness has been raised and a collective cry has gone out demanding sweeping and systemic changes in policing, hiring, and economic empowerment.
But Congress has yet to act to address the role of slavery and anti-Black discrimination in creating and perpetuating the country’s gargantuan racial wealth gap and widespread inequality.
It is time for Congress to prove that Black Lives Matter by passing legislation to begin to address the economic consequences of slavery and racial discrimination and to develop proposals for redress, including reparations.
135 House of Representatives members have signed on to HR 40, a bill introduced by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX-18) to examine slavery and discrimination from 1619 to the present and to study and develop reparations proposals for African Americans.
A companion bill was introduced in the Senate by Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), but just 19 of the 47 Democrats and Independents in the Senate have signed on as co-sponsors. This legislation has been introduced into Congress every year since 1979, but it has never been moved to a vote. Now is the time for action.
Sign the petition: Demand your U.S. lawmakers pass the bill to formally begin the process of studying and developing reparations proposals for Black Americans!
Participating Organizations:
Coalition on Human Needs
Daily Kos
Democracy in Color
EPI Policy Center
Friends of the Earth Action
LeftNet
Progress America
Sponsored by
Additional Sponsors
San Francisco, CA
Washington, DC
.png){kind=logo}
.png){kind=logo}
Washington, DC
Boston, MA
Washington, DC
To:
Congress
From:
[Your Name]
Our country’s economic prosperity was built off the forced labor of millions of Black enslaved people, and much of the contemporary inequality in America is a direct result of centuries of slavery and racial discrimination. As millions of people across the country and world rise up against police violence and systemic anti-Black racism, I, your constituent, urge you to pass HR 40 which would formally begin the process of studying and developing reparations proposals for Black Americans! The time for action is now.