For immediate release: February 18, 2021<\/p>\n
Media contact: National Consumers League \u2013 Carol McKay,\u00a0carolm@nclnet.org<\/a>,\u00a0(412) 945-3242<\/a>\u00a0or Taun Sterling,\u00a0tauns@nclnet.org<\/a>,\u00a0(202)\u00a0207-2832<\/a><\/p>\n Washington, DC\u2014The National Consumers League (NCL) is proud to join hundreds of like-minded groups in supporting HR 40, which would create a commission to study and develop reparations proposals for African Americans. The House Judiciary Committee hearing on HR 40 on February 17, 2021 gave witnesses the opportunity to talk about the reason for and impact of reparations. The hearing also included several witnesses who oppose the concept of reparations.<\/p>\n Introduced by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), HR 40 would create a commission<\/a> to identify: (1) the role of the federal and state governments in supporting the institution of slavery, (2) forms of discrimination in the public and private sectors against freed slaves and their descendants, and (3) lingering negative effects of slavery on living African-Americans and society.<\/p>\n This statement is attributable to NCL Board Chair Dominique Warren:<\/p>\n America has never reckoned with its 400 years of enslavement of 12 million Africans, brought to our shores shackled in fetid ships where huge numbers died of disease. As Michelle Singletary, Washington Post<\/em> columnist has observed<\/a>, reparations are not handouts, they are redress.<\/p>\n Beginning in 1619, enslaved people were brought to America and sold by those who profited from the slave trade, bought by plantation owners, farmers, businesses, and households, separated from siblings, parents, spouses and children and forced to work for free. After the Civil War, many freed slaves purchased land, only to see it stolen. Prosperous Black towns were looted and burned. Blacks have been beaten and\u00a0murdered, many lynched on false allegations of criminal conduct \u00a0because of their race. Throughout America\u2019s history, Blacks have been denied the right to vote and\u00a0redlined from living in certain neighborhoods. Black Americans were and still are discriminated against in the workplace and prevented from earning fair and equal pay.<\/p>\n