SLAVERY A KEY ISSUE
Prez hopefuls at Rev. Al confab back reparations study
Support for studying the possibility of slavery reparations was a litmus test for Democratic 2020 candidates this week at the National Action Network’s annual convention, a gathering of black leaders and voters from across the nation.
The presidential candidate parade at the Sheraton in Times Square featured a dozen White House wannabes — and more quotes from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. than a civil rights documentary.
Contenders touched on topics important to African-Americans, including education, fair wages and racial and social injustice.
But it was a piece of legislation about slavery reparations — first introduced nearly three decades ago — that built the most common ground.
The bill, which never became law and is now being reintroduced by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), would establish a congressional commission to study the concept of having the federal government issue reparation payments to the descendants of enslaved people.
NAN’s president, the Rev. Al Sharpton, made a point of asking every 2020 candidate at the conference whether they would as president sign the bill into law. Each candidate came out in support of the idea.
“Of course I would sign it. It needs study,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who had previously expressed reservations about the bill, told the crowd Friday.
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, entrepreneur Andrew Yang, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, California Sen. Kamala Harris, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Maryland Rep. John Delaney, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, ex-Obama administration official Julian Castro and
former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper — all of whom spoke at the four-day NAN conference — followed suit.
“Slavery is the nagging, unrelenting shame of America,” Hickenlooper said Friday. “We must own our past, and we must apologize, and the apology should come from the Oval Office.”
The only candidate at the conference who provided some skepticism was New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who argued for more substance and less sentiment.
“I believe having goodfaith conversations about repairing for past harm in our country in the context of reparations is really important,” Booker said.
“But this conversation cannot just become a political box-checking exercise or litmus test without meaning. The boldest policies we’re talking about right now can’t just be about sentiment or about acknowledging the past. They need to be about actually balancing the economic scales and confronting the bias that persists right now in the present.”
Booker’s assessment most closely resembled the opinions of conference attendees who spoke with the Daily News.
“They want a study on whether it’s possible,” said James Litkett, referring to political support for a reparations commission. “I want a study on how it should be used and how it should be used to elevate us as a people.”
Litkett, 62, of Manhattan, continued, “If it just lines some pockets and is just another handout, it’s not going to make a difference. It needs to be done for us as a people, lifting us all up.”
James Gamble, a 70-yearold Vietnam War veteran who traveled from Wisconsin to attend the conference, said reparations should be a political no-brainer.
“They apologized for Vietnam, they apologized for Iraq, but they can’t apologize for this?” Gamble said.
However, Gamble argued the conversation held at NAN this week was approaching the issue from the wrong direction.
“There shouldn’t be a commission to start with,” Gamble said. “Just get it approved already, then we can have a commission to figure out how to fund it.”
While there was some split in opinion on reparations, conference speakers and attendees were united in their distaste for the current inhabitant of the White House.
“It gives me no pleasure to say that we have a president who is a racist, who is a sexist, who is a homophobe and who is a religious bigot,” Sanders said to roars and standing ovations from the audience. “I wish I didn’t have to say that, but it is the damn truth.”