Renowned actor and activist Danny Glover has lent his name and influence to the call for the US Congress to pass HR-40 -Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act, introduced to the House in 1989 by the late Congressman John Conyers, Jr.
In Conyers absence, Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee has continued the push for passage.
If passed, HR-40 will provide funds and the legislative impetus to study the impacts of the institution of slavery and determine the appropriate restitution.
Glover applauded Congresswoman Lee and all those working with her to keep the initiative alive and get it through the House. He said HR-40 is “the harbinger of a new future for people of African descent, and the marginalized and oppressed in this nation and the world.”
Glover called on all Americans to contact their elected representatives about supporting the proposed bill.
“The passage of HR-40 will be one of the milestone achievements of the International Decade for People of African Descent,” he said. “I pledge to work side by side with all people of goodwill who are committed to achieving this righteous objective. Reparations Now!”
Glover is a United Nations Ambassador for the International Decade for People of African Descent.
“We are witnessing,” he said, “the unfolding of the largest social movement in the history of the country; a movement which marks an inflection point, where there is not only a demand for fundamental restructuring of policing and the criminal justice system, but a reckoning with an original sin that gave birth to a racialized capitalist political-economy in this nation.”
