During a Monday interview on Boston Public Radio, the Rev. Irene Monroe and the Rev. Emmett G. Price III cast a skeptical eye on the notion that Black Americans might see reparations for slavery any time soon, even with some signs of movement in Congress.
Their conversation was prompted by April’s advancement of H.R. 40, a bill that would establish a commission to study the long-term impacts of slavery in the U.S, and make reccomendations about the size and nature of any compensation to descendants of enslaved Americans.
Price began the discussion by noting that versions of this bill have been brought forward in every Congress dating back to 1989. The April 14 vote marks the first time H.R. 40 has made its way out of committee.
“This is crazy,” he said. “This is not a bill to move forward reparations — it’s just a bill to put together a commission to study [the idea].”
Monroe expressed a shared Price's cynicism and added that she doesn’t expect this current bill to do much more than kick the reparations can down the road.
“I’m really tired by it,” she said. “This talk about reparations … let’s just tell the truth and shame the devil: You don’t want to give us the money. And the reason you don’t want to give us the money is because you don’t want to address the history and the horror of slavery.”
H.R. 40 is not currently scheduled for a vote in the House. Given the razor-thin Democratic majority in the Senate, the bill is unlikely to make it to President Joe Biden’s desk even if it does pass the House.
“It really is about dignity,” Price said. “The American nation — and more importantly, the American conscience — has really not wrestled with the fact that Black people still remain undignified, because many white people do not want to give us the dignity of human citizenship. They don’t want to see us as full human beings.”
Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist, the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail and a visiting researcher in the Religion and Conflict Transformation Program at Boston University School of Theology. Price is a professor of worship, church and culture and founding executive director of the Institute for the Study of the Black Christian Experience at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Together they host the All Rev’d Up podcast, produced by GBH.
