Vice President Kamala Harris, who appears likely to be former President Donald Trump’s Democratic opponent in November, has previously indicated she supports race reparations.
Harris addressed the issue of slavery reparations several times while she was running for president in the 2020 election cycle. She offered little in the way of specifics, beyond saying that the government should provide people benefits because the legacies of slavery and racial discrimination have made it effectively impossible for black Americans to thrive socioeconomically, according to multiple corporate media reports published at the time.
“We have to be honest that people in this country do not start from the same place or have access to the same opportunities,” Harris said in a statement shared with The New York Times in February 2019. “I’m serious about taking an approach that would change policies and structures and make real investments in black communities.”
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That statement followed a 2019 appearance on “The Breakfast Club,” a popular radio show, in which Harris answered affirmatively when asked by the program’s host if she is in favor of “some type” of reparations. However, Harris has not specified what form reparations should take or what policy levers could be used to administer a reparations initiative.
“If we’re talking about writing a check, I don’t think it is that simple,” she said. “And frankly, I don’t support an idea or a notion that after all this, we’re going to say, ‘Okay, I’m going to write you a check, and then be quiet,’” Harris told the Des Moines Register in 2019. “Because that won’t solve the problem, which is the systemic issues that are present and will continue to exist, whether or not you write a check. So I’m just saying it’s just not that simple. And I don’t buy into an argument that it is.”
As a senator, Harris co-sponsored a bill introduced by Democratic New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker in April 2019 that sought to “establish a commission to study the impact of slavery and continuing discrimination against African-Americans and make recommendations on reparation proposals for the descendants of slaves,” according to Booker’s website. The bill text specifically states that such a study would seek to “address the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865” and potentially produce a “national apology and proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery, its subsequent de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans.”
In April 2019, when asked by Al Sharpton at an event hosted by his National Action Network, Harris said that she would sign reparations legislation if elected president.
Many of Harris’ positions from the 2020 election cycle are resurfacing after President Joe Biden pulled out of the 2024 race and endorsed Harris, alongside many other powerful Democrats and organizations, as the candidate to take on Trump in his stead. For example, Harris co-sponsored the Green New Deal, said there is “no question” that fracking should be banned, endorsed a Medicare-for-All healthcare system, supported mandatory gun buybacks and more, though she has since walked back some of these positions.
The Harris campaign did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
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