(14 May 2019) A national dialogue on reparations is underway as issues related to race attract increasing attention.
Several Democrats seeking to challenge President Donald Trump for the White House have injected themselves into the conversation.
Former Congressman Beto O'Rourke says: "Foundational to reparations is the word 'repair.' Foundational to repair is the truth." Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand says: "Hundreds of years of slavery and institutional racism have caused mass inequity." And Sen. Cory Booker says he believes "having good-faith conversations about repairing for past harm in our country in the context of reparations is really important."
Reparations Labor Union founder Anita Belle says she wants those three and the other presidential candidates to attend the organization's summit in Detroit.
The grassroots activist believes that with the diverse and growing field of challengers to President Donald Trump in 2020 speaking out on reparations, now is the perfect time to push for land or other payments to descendants of African slaves.
The Reparations Labor Union summit is June 17-19. It's one of two reparations events coming to Detroit. The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'Cobra) is holding its 30th annual convention June 20-23.
Belle, who is black, says she fears the increasing talk about reparations on the campaign trail "is being used as a political carrot to get out the black vote."  
The question of reparations for slave descendants has moved little since longtime U.S. Rep. John Conyers first introduced the Reparations Study Act, H.R. 40, in 1989. The Detroit Democrat then reintroduced it in every congressional session until his 2017 resignation. U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson, a Texas Democrat, reintroduced the bill last year.
Booker in April filed legislation to put together a reparations study commission in the U.S. Senate.

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