Over 400 lawmakers, activists, actors calling on Biden to support bils on racial equity

activists and actors



400 lawmakers, activists, actors and more sign letter calling on Biden to support bills on racial equity


More than 400 lawmakers, activists, civil rights leaders, musicians and actors have written a joint letter to President Joe Biden calling on him to support a list of Congressional bills on racial equity and reparative justice through executive actions and orders.

The letter, shared exclusively with ABC News, is the third such letter activists and lawmakers have sent to the White House this year. Signatories include NAACP President Derrick Johnson, attorney Ben Crump, National Action Network President Al Sharpton, stylist Law Roach, music executive Willie "Prophet" Stiggers, actress Erika Alexander and talk show host Tavis Smiley as well as Reps. Barbara Lee, D-Calif.; Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas; Cori Bush, D-Mo., and Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y.

This latest effort Thursday comes after several months of unsuccessful attempts to secure a meeting with the White House. In the open letter, leaders desperately urged Biden that "the state of our Union depends upon" these bills.



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Bush and Lee's bills aim to be companions to Jackson Lee’s H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act. That bill was named for a promise made shortly after the end of the Civil War wherein Union leaders promised formerly enslaved families "40 acres and a mule" -- a promise that was never fulfilled. H.R. 40 had been introduced in every legislative session since 1989. The bill languished in Congress for more than three decades until H.R. 40 passed out of the House Judiciary Committee in 2021. It has since failed to come to a vote in either the House or Senate.


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