“The next 250 years cannot look like the last. The next 250 years must be about repair.”
“So today, we call on Congress to act. Meet this moment with the urgency it demands. And help build a future grounded not in denial, but in repair.”
Video (YouTube) | Photos (Dropbox)
WASHINGTON – Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), Why We Can’t Wait Reparations Network, and advocates held a press conference to call on Congress to advance critical legislation that supports repair for communities—particularly communities of color—who bear the disproportionate burden of this nation’s systemic social, racial, and economic inequities.
In Congress, Rep. Pressley is the House lead of H.R.40—a racial justice, economic justice, and moral imperative bill she’s championing to address the harmful legacy of slavery and establish a federal commission to develop reparations proposals for African American descendants of enslaved people.
“As we approach America’s 250th anniversary, the next 250 years cannot look like the last. The next 250 years must be about repair,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley. “The inequities we face today are not accidental. They are the direct result of this nation’s original systems designed to exclude, exploit, and harm communities of color. That’s why I’m proud to join colleagues and advocates in calling on Congress to act and advance our reparative justice agenda. To meet this moment with the urgency it demands. And help build a future grounded not in denial, but in repair.”
“As this country prepares to mark 250 years, we must recognize the government-sanctioned harm our communities have endured for centuries and the ongoing fight for justice,” said Rep. Summer Lee. “At a time when the Trump Administration is rolling back civil rights protections, attacking equity, whitewashing our history, and making it harder for our communities to access the care, housing, education, and economic security we deserve, reparative justice could not be more urgent. This moment demands so much more than remembrance. It demands repair, accountability, and the courage to build a country that works for us all.”
“I commend Congresswoman Pressley for her leadership on H.R. 40 and her commitment to advancing reparative justice,” said Rep. Al Green. “The vestiges of slavery and generations of invidious discrimination continue to deny too many Americans equal access to opportunity and justice. The proposals that would result from H.R.40 are a necessary step toward addressing historic injustices, and my resolution to establish a Department of Reconciliation would ensure these proposals are implemented so that we can begin to eliminate the systemic discrimination that persists today. As Slavery Remembrance Day reminds us, if we are to honor those who endured slavery and fulfill this Nation’s promise of liberty and justice for all, we must do more than remember; there can be no reconciliation without restoration; there can be no restoration without reparations.”
“The Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act has been introduced and stalled every Congress dating back to 1989,” said Rep. Watson Coleman. “As we approach Juneteenth and the 250th anniversary of our nation, I think about how long Black Americans have had to endure the legacy of slavery and the pain inflicted on our community since then— including from the Trump administration. We have been told to wait for far too long. No more. It is well-past time for Black people to realize the full promise of the American dream.”
“We find ourselves once again at an inflection point. This administration is actively dismantling the infrastructure of repair while the debt to Black America continues to accumulate,” said Dreisen Heath, Founder and Executive Director of the Why We Can’t Wait Reparations Network. “Every other administration before this one refused to act on reparations. Congress cannot call itself a body of justice and continue to defer H.R. 40 and our full reparative justice agenda. The next 250 years will be defined by what we do right now — and right now means passing reparations legislation without delay, without equivocation, and without excuse.”
Joining Rep. Pressley, members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Why We Can’t Wait Reparations Network was Richard Brookshire, co-founder and co-CEO of the Black Veterans Project, LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, Brittany Packnett Cunningham, Chief Strategy Office and Vice President of the Children’s Defense Fund, Rev. Mark Thompson, National Legislative Commission Male co-chair of N’COBRA, and Ebonie Riley, Senior Vice President of Policy and Strategic Partnerships at the National Action Network.
“Today, we have an opportunity to restore the pillars of Reconstruction. As April Albright of Black Voters Matter has said, all of the Civil Rights Acts and the VRA, “are floors and not ceilings. Let’s continue the unfinished work for which Abraham Lincoln was martyred, said. “I commend these Members of Congress, especially Congresswoman Pressley, for their courage and their commitment and their progressive principles. I look forward to us all being joined in this battle to once and for all realize repair and democracy in America.” – Rev. Mark Thompson, National Legislative Commission Male Co-Chair of N’COBRA
“Nearly a century ago, Black veterans sought victory over the dual evils of fascism and racism. Their war has still not been won. We stand on the front lines of a nadir on our nation’s Semiquincentennial— a deconstruction of our very democracy that aims to drag us backward and render our wounds invisible. We must draw on ancestral wisdom, strength and courage to defend against the forces that would rob us of the liberty, justice and inheritance that is owed. Reparations can bring forward a great re-imagining and renew our nation’s sacred promise. A double victory is our North Star.” – Richard Brookshire, Cofounder & Co-CEO, Black Veterans Project
“The economic violence that started in slavery, did not end with slavery. It compounds. It shows up in the neighborhood that is unsafe, in the health outcome that comes too early, in the school that doesn’t have enough. Generation after generation, it robs black children of their health, their safety, their education, their future, and their joy. Children’s Defense Fund supports Congresswoman Pressley’s bill, House Resolution 40, because it says it’s time to study this wound so we can finally heal it. Reparations is how a nation finally pays a debt. It is how we can ensure every child in America grows up with dignity, hope and joy.” – Brittany Packnett Cunningham, Children’s Defense Fund Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer
“This administration has again made harming Black communities federal policy, from gutting civil rights enforcement to erasing our history. That is exactly why this agenda matters. As we mark Equity Week, Congresswoman Pressley’s Reparative Justice Legislative Agenda stands out as serious legislation, deliberately constructed, with remedy matched to wound across wealth, voting rights, healthcare, education, and the safety of Black women. For more than three decades, Rev. Al Sharpton and National Action Network chapters nationwide have stood with serious efforts to make justice law. We stand with this one, alongside the advocates and scholars who have carried the case for repair across generations. We endorse this agenda without reservation, and we will work alongside Congresswoman Pressley and our communities until repair is enacted.” – Ebonie Riley, Senior Vice President of National Action Network
A transcript of the Congresswoman’s remarks during the press conference is available below. The video is available here and photos are available here.
Transcript: Ahead of America’s 250th, Pressley, Advocates Call On Congress to Advance Transformative Reparative Justice Agenda
U.S Capitol
June 11, 2026
Good morning and thank you all for being here.
Before I begin, I want to acknowledge that we are gathered on the ancestral and unceded lands of the Anacostan and Piscataway peoples who have stewarded this land for generations long before the founding of the United States.
It’s important that we take a moment to honor their sovereignty, their resilience, and their ongoing struggles for justice. Any conversation about repair in this country must recognize that the harms of slavery and anti-Black racism are intertwined with the theft of Indigenous land and the suppression of Native nations.
As we approach America’s 250th anniversary, we find ourselves at a defining generational moment. We are living through an unprecedented assault on Black people.
This Administration is pushing out Black workers, disenfranchising and silencing Black voters, further threatening the lives of Black mamas with a growing Black maternal morbidity crisis, undermining and rolling back Black progress and Black power, and might I add, weaponizing a Department of Justice against Black leadership.
They are not just trying to take us back to Jim Crow—they are trying to take us even further back to pre-reconstruction, at a time when our basic humanity was denied.
So, we must be clear: the next 250 years cannot look like the last. The next 250 years must be about repair.
The inequities we face today are not accidental. They are the direct result of this nation’s original systems designed to exclude, to exploit, and to harm communities of color from the very beginning.
And every single day, those systems continue to do damage.
We see it in unequal housing. We see it in underfunded schools. We see it in denied healthcare and widening health disparities. We see it in the barriers that prevent families from building generational wealth and achieving financial stability.
This harm is not incidental. It is man-made. It is manufactured. It is legislated. It is codified in budgets. It is intentional. And in that the harm has been intentional, we demand a response that is just as intentional.
Now, of course, true justice would mean that these inequities never existed in the first place—that our communities were never marginalized, never targeted, never stolen, never left behind.
But we are here. And so, we must work towards repair.
This means reparative justice—like advancing H.R. 40 to develop reparations proposals. And as the lead House sponsor, I commit to advancing this bill alongside my movement siblings and the broader work for repair, truth, and healing.
But let me be clear: this is not a movement or an appeal for benevolence or charity. This is a movement to demand redress, to right wrongs, to compensate.
To compensate for the harm and loss that we have experienced, and there is actually evidence of this government already having done this.
Whether you’re talking about the GI Bill, where Black veterans, however, where 1 million of Black veterans were denied access to that. Whether you’re talking about Americans that were victimized in the building of the nuclear bomb. Whether you’re talking about coal miners and black lung, we have done work as a government in redress and repair where harm and injury has occurred.
We have done this as a government, we just simply have not done it for Black Americans,
And that is why we are fighting for comprehensive reparative justice legislation—legislation that provides real, wraparound support for our communities and begins to deliberately close the gaps that were deliberately created.
So we call on Congress to act. To meet this moment with the urgency it demands. To help build a future grounded not in denial, but in repair, in redress.
The next 250 years cannot look like the last. That proof begins with the courage to finally reckon with the first.
Thank you.
###
