Ta-Nehisi Coates To Testify At First Congressional Reparations Hearing Since 2007

Actor Danny Glover is also set to testify.

Ta-Nehisi Coates will be testifying before a House panel on the topic of reparations for slavery.

READ: Ta-Nehisi Coates Deletes Twitter Account After Richard Spencer Endorses Cornel West’s Critique

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties will be holding the hearing next Wednesday on June 19 (the date coincides with Juneteenth, the American holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved black people throughout the Confederate States of America), according to NBC News.

The purpose of the hearing is “to examine, through open and constructive discourse, the legacy of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, its continuing impact on the community and the path to restorative justice.”

Alongside Coates, actor Danny Glover will also be testifying at the hearing. The topic of reparations hasn’t been the subject of a house hearing since 2007.

In 2014, Coates wrote an essay titled “The Case for Reparations,” and has spoken on the topic on numerous occasions. Two years ago he discussed reparations during an appearance on Democracy Now.

“I think it would be a series of small local cases based on very, very specific claims. We think of reparations as this grand sort of action, you know, the Supreme Court passing judgment, for instance, that black folks are owed X number of billion or trillion dollars, or Congress perhaps passing a bill, signed by a president, and then, you know, there being this national reparations fund. It’s not so much that I’m against that, but I suspect what will actually happen, or what would actually happen, in terms of a practical thing, is you would see folks look into specific instances. Virginia, for instance, I believe, you know, had a reparations fund for African Americans who were denied access to public schools in the wake of the response to Brown v. The Board. The sterilization cases in North Carolina, where black women were sterilized, and there were reparations claims made on their behalf. The torture of African Americans in Chicago by Jon Burge, a gentleman who worked for the Chicago Police Department, a successful reparations claim was made there.”

Source: NBC News