The Fight for Reparations

Radio Atlantic

The Atlantic

Politics, News, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 21 June 2019

⏱️ 35 minutes

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Summary

On Wednesday—for the first time in a decade—Congress held a hearing on reparations for slavery. It was a crystallizing moment for an issue that has gained prominence since Ta-Nehisi Coates’s 2014 Atlantic essay. Coates and others testified before a House committee on June 19th—Juneteenth—a day the nation celebrates emancipation from slavery. Every year, Atlantic staff writer Vann R. Newkirk II writes a Juneteenth essay. He joins Isaac Dovere to discuss the history of the holiday, the importance of the hearing, and where the fight for reparations stands now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You! This is Radio Atlantic. I'm Isaac Dauver. In a few weeks here in Washington, fireworks will go off behind the Lincoln Memorial.
0:24.5	The president, for the first time, will give a speech.
0:28.0	And he'll probably use the words independence and freedom a lot.
0:31.9	But there's another national celebration of freedom
0:34.0	one just before the 4th of July
0:36.0	earlier this week
0:37.5	America observed June the 19th
0:39.6	Juneteenth a day celebrating the belated end of slavery in Texas, but which is taken on a bigger
0:45.7	national significance.
0:47.3	And on this year's Juneteenth, the House of Representatives did something it hadn't in over
0:51.5	a decade. Hold a hearing on reparations. My colleague
0:55.8	staff writer Van Newkirk was there for that hearing and he's here with me today.
0:59.5	Hi Van. So let's start with this.
1:03.2	What is Juneteenth?
1:04.2	Why is this a thing that we have on the calendar?
1:07.3	I think some people know what it is.
1:09.6	Maybe some people have heard of the Ralph Ellison book, but a lot of people don't know what it is.
1:14.8	Yeah, so Juneteenth, as it's celebrated today, is kind of a shorthand holiday that represents
1:22.2	all of the different Black Emancipation Day holidays celebrating
1:26.4	the end of slavery.
1:27.8	It was first celebrated in Texas.
1:30.7	Texas was the farthest frontier during the Civil War.
	...

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