From the ACLU, this is at Liberty.

I'm Emerson Sykes, a staff attorney here at the ACLU and your host.

With increased mainstream understanding of the long and deep history of racism in the United States,

some issues that have long been overlooked in academic and policy debates are now gaining traction.

One example is reparations, broadly defined as some form of repayment

for the harms inflicted on enslaved peoples and their descendants.

In more recent years, advocacy by the National African American Reparations Commission and other groups

has raised the prominence of the idea.

It has become a 2020 presidential campaign issue,

and the House of Representatives will hold a historic hearing next week on H.R. 40,

a bill to set up a commission to study reparations.

So why are reparations still important in 2019? How will reparations work in practice?

And what are the prospects for genuine change? We'll discuss these questions and more with my

colleague Jeffrey Robinson, a deputy legal director at the ACLU, where he runs the Trone Center for Justice and Equality.

Jeff is a distinguished criminal defense attorney and a sought after speaker on race in America.

Jeff Robinson, thanks very much for joining us today.

Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

Well, Jeff, so we're speaking a few days before June 10th, And I'm wondering what does Juneteenth mean to you?

And feel free to explain to our listeners who are less familiar with Juneteenth what it is.

Well, many people may recognize that Juneteenth, June 10th is a day when the word that the war was over, that the enslaved people were actually going to be free, was celebrated

for the first time. So that day has both historical and philosophical meaning, as we look back

...