*Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has spoken out against reparations for the descendants of slaves, arguing in June that “I don’t think reparations for something that happened 150 years ago, when none of us currently living are responsible, is a good idea.”
On Tuesday, McConnell, R-Ky, confirmed an NBC News report published Monday that he is a descendant of slaves, as his great-great-grandfathers owned more than a dozen slaves in the 1800s.Â
Despite this not so shocking reveal, McConnell reiterated this week that he still opposes government reparations for descendants of American slaves.
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At a press conference following a luncheon with Senate Republicans, McConnell was asked whether the revelation about his ancestors would motivate him to reconsider his position on reparations.
“I find myself once again in the same position as President [Barack] Obama. We both oppose reparations and we both are the descendants of slave owners,” he said, before moving on to another question.
McConnell’s great-great-grandfathers, James McConnell and Richard Daley, owned a total of at least 14 slaves in Limestone County, Alabama — all but two of them female, according to the county “Slave Schedules” in the 1850 and the 1860 censuses, the report states.Â
Last month, the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties held the first hearing in more than a decade focused reparations.Â
“I don’t think reparations for something that happened 150 years ago, when none of us currently living are responsible, is a good idea,” McConnell said ahead of the House hearing. “We’ve tried to deal with our original sin of slavery by fighting a civil war, by passing landmark civil rights legislation. We’ve elected an African American president.”
During the 2008 election, genealogist William Reitwiesner found that on his white mother’s side, Obama’s great-great-great-grandfather George Washington Overall owned two male slaves in Kentucky, and his great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, Mary Duvall, also owned slaves.
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