If she is elected, advocates will pressure Vice President Kamala Harris to take concrete actions to advance her cause. She has expressed an openness to forming a federal panel to investigate reparations for Black Americans.

In recent years, the Democratic presidential candidate has expressed explicit support for reparations to Black Americans for slavery and discrimination. In 2019, she signed a Senate Bill that would have established a federal study commission. When she ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, she called for “some sort of reparations”.

In 2019, Ms. Harris made a public commitment to support reparations legislation, if she were elected President. She told the Rev. Al Sharpton told the National Action Network: “When I become president, I’ll sign this bill.”

In a CNN interview from 2019, Ms. Harris was asked if she supports “financial compensations.” She responded: “I think we should look into it.” We should look into it. “This is a very real situation that needs to be investigated.”

Since she is now the leader of the Democratic ticket for 2024, Ms. Harris’s silence on reparations has been largely nonexistent.

Ms. Harris said to the National Association of Black Journalists, in Philadelphia on September 24, that she “does not discount the importance of executive action” for creating a commission studying reparations for Black Americans. She said, however, that Congress will be “the catalyst of this conversation.”

Kamilah Moore who chairs California’s Reparations Task Force said that unless Congress passes legislation creating a federal commission to oversee reparations, which is unlikely to happen, Ms. Harris will face increasing pressure to set one up through executive order. She would be the nation’s first Black female president.

Moore stated that some reparations groups are trying to apply pressure to the Biden administration via executive action because they think he is a lame-duck and has nothing else to lose. But then they are also prepping and priming for Kamala to be under the same pressure.

As advocates watched in frustration, legislation creating a commission for reparations stalled in Congress and several reparations bills in California were blocked.

Human Rights Watch, National African American Reparations Commission, and other organizations demand executive action.

Human Rights Watch organizers stated that “if Biden is serious in his desire to make progress on racial injustice during his administration, then there is no more time to waste.”

The House was controlled by Democrats in 2021. A top committee proposed legislation to establish a commission that would “examine slavery, discrimination, and other issues from 1619 until the present, and make recommendations for appropriate remedies.” However, the bill failed after Democratic leaders did not bring it up to vote on the House floor.

In 2023, the Republicans gained majority and any chances of passing legislation were diminished. Reparations advocates were unable to convince Biden to take unilateral action.

Support for reparations is sharply divided along racial boundaries.

In a Washington Post-Ipsos survey conducted in 2023, only 15% of White Americans supported paying reparations to descendants of enslaved Black Americans. 75% of Black Americans said they were in favor. Hispanic Americans backed reparations at 36%.

In the battle to win moderate voters in swing state, Donald Trump, former president, used Ms. Harris’ reparations remarks to scare voters away by portraying her as a left-wing liberal who would implement a radical program.

The campaign of Mr. Trump circulated recently a mock agenda that they claimed Ms. Harris will implement if she is elected, which included “taxpayer funded reparations.”

Professor Roy L. Brooks of the University of San Diego Law School, an expert in reparations, says that because the issue is divisive, advocates must wait until Ms. Harris becomes president before taking action. Ms. Harris is unlikely to address reparations in her campaign, or even early on in her presidency, if she’s elected.

“I don’t think she’ll touch it with 10-foot pole for at least the first 100 or even two years of her presidency, because it is really unpopular,” Brooks said. “She will handle other issues and not tackle reparations until her administration is secure. She may then attack it. The next question is “How do you do it?”

Mr. Brooks cited California as an example, where several reparations measures have recently been stalled, and a measure passed by the California legislature that would have returned property seized under racially motivated forced eminent – domain was vetoed. Gavin Newsom is a Democrat.

Mr. Newsom signed instead a bill that would issue an official apology from California regarding racial discrimination and slavery.

Reparations activists angry at the lack of legislation to provide reparations for slavery in Sacramento said that refusing to address this issue will hurt Ms. Harris’ chances in November.

One activist stated: “The Governor needs to know that the world is watching California and that this will have a direct effect on your friend Kamala, who is running as president.” This is going to be a direct effect, so bring up the bills, vote them on and sign them. “We’ve waited for more than 400 years.”

Mr. Brooks stated that at the federal government level, cash reparations are “off the table” and the only viable option is reparations which “go to the community rather than just specific individuals.”

Heath Brown is an associate professor of Public Policy at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He expects that Ms. Harris will pivot away from individual reparations and focus on racial heal by creating a taskforce or commission for “truthful discussions about the past racial and hopefully, the future racial.”

In a 2019 NPR Interview, Ms. Harris said reparations could be in the form mental health programs to treat “untreated and nondiagnosed traumas” related centuries of slavery. She said that “you need to direct resources, extra resources and resources into the communities who have suffered that trauma.”

According to Ms. Harris, reparations have more than one meaning.

She said, “But what I meant by that is we need to study and determine the effects of generations and institutional racism, and what can be done in terms of intervention to correct the course.”