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Sen. Kamala Harris of California, who is seeking to become the first black woman to be elected president, electrified the crowd by declaring that when — not if — she is elected president she would sign a bill to study reparations for black Americans.
“This is an inflection moment in the history of our country,” Harris said. “This is a moment of time where we must restore the significance of truth and justice in this country.”
John Hickenlooper, a former governor of Colorado, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said they would also support such a bill. Hickenlooper’s backing showed how even the most moderate members of the Democratic Party have adopted the explicit language of racial justice activists and how the issue of reparations continues to roil the 2020 Democratic primary in ways that few could predict.
“Slavery is the nagging shame of America,” Hickenlooper said. “We must own our past and acknowledge the ongoing consequences of enslaving an entire race of people.”
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The candidates appeared at the annual conference of the National Action Network, the advocacy group founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton, which has become an essential event for Democrats seeking higher office. For the candidates, it was a prime opportunity to speak directly to an influential segment of the black voting bloc that will be a force in next year’s presidential primaries, particularly in early voting states such as South Carolina.
But it was freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who has become a leader of the party’s progressive faction and a favorite target of conservatives, who received a hero’s welcome. She framed the fight against racism as more than a byproduct of modern political polarization, but a struggle baked into the American story that must be prioritized. She invoked the anniversary Thursday of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and the crowd roared in approval.
“I find so much of this present moment to be a picking up, a revival, of where King left off,” Ocasio-Cortez said, before being played off to James Brown. “Bigotry, sexism, and xenophobia are the easiest ways to distract from substantive discussions of classism.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.