Watch Sen. Cory Booker Of NJ Speak About Slavery Reparations

NEWARK, NJ — According to U.S. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, the United States still has some serious work to do when it comes to erasing the “stain of slavery.”

On Wednesday, Booker – who is vying for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020 –testified on H.R. 40, legislation to study and develop reparations proposals, during a hearing in the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

“We as a nation have not yet truly acknowledged and grappled with racism and white supremacy that has tainted this country’s founding and continues to persist in those deep racial disparities and inequalities today,” Booker told his peers.

“This a very important hearing,” he charged. “It is historic, it is urgent.”

Booker, one of the few black members on the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, is the driving force behind S-1083, the Senate companion to H.R. 40, which was introduced in April. According to the senator, it’s the first bill introduced in the Senate to study proposals for reparations for African-Americans. The bill has gained 12 cosponsors in the Senate.

“I look at communities like mine and you could literally see how communities were designed to be segregated, designed based upon enforcing institutional racism and inequities,” Booker said. “The stain of slavery was not just inked in bloodshed but in the overt state-sponsored policies that fueled white supremacy and racism and have disadvantaged African Americans economically for generations.”

• See related article: Newark Residents March For Slavery Reparations (WATCH)

Booker said that many of the bedrock policies that ushered generations of Americans into the middle class were originally designed to exclude African Americans. Those efforts include the G.I. Bill and Social Security.

The cruel legacy of slavery also led to institutional discrimination such as school segregation and “redlining,” including in neighborhoods where Booker – a Newark resident – calls home.

“These injustices do not just cause injustice for African Americans,” Booker said. “It enforces a deep injustice in our nation as a whole. It is a cancer on the soul of our country and hurts the whole body — making us all less wealthy, making us all less just, making us all fall far short from being who we say we are when we swear an oath that this will be a nation of liberty and justice for all.”

The senator's statements came on Juneteenth, a celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States.

Watch Booker’s remarks in the below video.

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