*Derrick Johnson, CEO and President of the NAACP, told CNBC that the civil rights organization supports legislation reintroduced by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) to create a formal commission to explore reparation options for Black Americans.
“This is the initiating process that members of Congress, particularly members of the Congressional Black Caucus, have been pushing for since the bill was initiated by John Conyers in the 70s,” said Johnson during a Monday, Jan. 25, interview on “The News with Shepard Smith.” “At the NAACP we supported that effort then, we continue to support the effort, it’s something that’s needed and necessary in order for many many individuals who have been harmed as a result of strict structural barriers to be made whole.”
H.R.40 has 147 Democratic co-sponsors in the House, and was originally introduced in January 2019. Republicans, predictably, have fiercely opposed to the bill. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in 2019 said it was not a good idea to impose reparations “for something that happened 150 years ago, for whom none of us currently living are responsible.”
Johnson told host Shepard Smith that Black Americans “have been injured” by the U.S. government, and that you didn’t need to go back to slavery to witness clear injustice against Black Americans by the U.S. government.
“You can go back to public policy dealing with housing, go back to public policy dealing with education,” Johnson said. “Still today, the delivery of quality education is not afforded to all children, and has been a special emphasis on African Americans.”
Watch Johnson’s interview with Shepard Smith below:
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