Despite rising hopes from progressive advocates after the California Legislature killed a reparations bill last week, Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign did not clarify its position on reparations for Black Americans when asked by Fox News Digital on Wednesday.
Harris, who was a senator from California when she ran for president in 2019, said she supported “some form of reparations” and would sponsor legislation to further explore the issue.
Politicians in Democratic states, including California, have proposed reparations in recent years as a way to make up for the legacy of racist policies that created disparities for black people in housing, education and health care.
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Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Harris addressed union members at a campaign event at Northwestern High School in Detroit on Monday, surrounded by union leaders. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
“I think there needs to be some form of reparations, and we can debate what that is, but slavery has been going on for over 200 years,” Harris said in a 2019 interview with The Root, a website focused on Black culture and politics. “We're seeing almost 100 years of Jim Crow laws, we're seeing legalized racism and, indeed, so many levels of racism that exist today based on race, and yet no intervention has been done to understand and remedy the damage and harm that has occurred.” [the] Absolutely, and we still see the effects of those years being felt today.”
Harris has backed away from some of her previous policy positions, such as banning fracking and illegal immigration, but has offered little criticism or comment on whether she would pursue a national reparations movement if elected president.
During an interview with MSNBC's Al Sharpton when Harris first ran for president, he asked her, “In the area of reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans, if you were elected president, would you sign that bill if it came to your desk?”
“If I'm elected president, I intend to sign that bill.” Harris responded.
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The California State Capitol. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Democrats in Congress and in California have been pushing for reparations legislation. Last week, two bills related to reparations for the descendants of enslaved Black Americans failed to pass the California Assembly after supporters said they would not move forward and risked being vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Black activists in the California Assembly then threatened “direct consequences.” Harris presidential campaign After state Democratic lawmakers shelved the bill.
“We need to send a message to the governor,” Black women who are members of the Coalition for a Fair and Equal California said in a video shared on X. “The governor needs to understand that the world is watching California and that this directly impacts your friend Kamala Harris who is running for president. This has a direct impact, so take up the bill now, vote for it, sign it. We've been waiting over 400 years.”
“We have the votes,” they added.
The state could determine whether Harris or Trump wins the presidential election.
State Assemblyman Isaac Bryan (right) discussed two reparations bills with members of the Coalition for a Fair and Equal California in Sacramento on Aug. 31, the last day of the legislative year. (AP Photo/Tran Nguyen)
Meanwhile, New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman, in an interview with The Washington Post before Ms Harris became a candidate at the Democratic National Convention, said that if reparations were more central to the political debate, “more people would get involved in politics.”
“But that's not the case, so they're not voting and some of them are switching to the Republican Party because they feel like the Democratic Party is disrespecting black voters,” he said.
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The resolution states that last year, Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri) tried to introduce a $1.4 trillion reparations bill in Congress to “eliminate the racial wage gap that currently exists between Black and white Americans.”
Fox News Digital's Bradford Betts and Daniel Wallace contributed to this report.
