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"Harris still has the opportunity to commit to supporting reparations for slavery in the US"

Dr. Helen Gibson, Department of History, John F. Kennedy Institute

Oct 25, 2024

Dr. Helen Gibson, Department of History, John F. Kennedy Institute

Dr. Helen Gibson, Department of History, John F. Kennedy Institute
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Vice President Kamala Harris has made headlines over the past month for responding to the subject of reparations for slavery in the United States in both a radio show interview and a previous conversation with members of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ). The United States has never undertaken significant reparations for slavery for the descendants of formerly enslaved people, and the subject of assessing historical and current demands for reparations remains mired in Congress, where a bill establishing a “Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans,” H.R.40, has not yet left committee. Rather than committing to push the bill forward via executive order, and despite her explicit support for H.R.40 as a US Senator, Vice President Harris stated to NABJ members on September 17, 2024, “I think Congress ultimately will have the ability to do this work.”

Pointing to the current attempts of US conservatives to obfuscate and deny historical truths about slavery and its afterlives as well as to the current risk of mortality that Black birthing people face in the United States as a legacy of reproductive injustice, Harris passed on the opportunity to make a formal commitment to reparations and redress. Vice President Harris still has the opportunity to commit emphatically and unambiguously to supporting reparations for slavery in the United States. In doing so, she would honor the memory of Black Americans who have been sustained for generations by the Black radical tradition, a tradition that philosopher Cedric Robinson deemed “only the promise of liberation” from colonial, racist, capitalist regimes.