Dem Rep. Green: America Has Not ‘Reconciled’ for Slavery, Civil War

On Saturday, Rep. Al Green (D-TX) reiterated his call for a separate Cabinet department to handle matters on race stemming from the history of the country, up through the Civil War and beyond.

Under Green’s proposal, a so-called Department of Reconciliation would be created for those matters. Green said his case centers around his claim that the country has not “reconciled” for past indiscretions.

“[T]hat movement needs to move to a department, a department such that we can enforce laws from the movement is still making its way, but may not be as strong as it is today,” Green said. “I have in the House, a Department of Reconciliation with the Secretary of Reconciliation, who reports directly to the President. This would be a presidential appointee. This would be someone who would have as their responsibility each and every day to develop strategies and implement them to eliminate racism and invidious discrimination, all of its forms.”

“It’s a great plan, and there are a good many members who are signing on to it,” he continued. “We need to help the movement move into a department that can carry this on for the years to come. I might add this, in Germany, you don’t see any statues of Adolf Hitler, and there are no monuments to Nazism, and this is because they went through reconciliation. We have not reconciled.”

“We haven’t reconciled for it,” Green added. “We haven’t reconciled for current policing where black people will literally put in the hands of business people to work from can to cane, dawn to dusk, many of them died working, buried in common graves as was the case here in Sugarland, TX, 95 bodies found in a common grave. So we have all of these things to reconcile for, and until we reconcile, we will continue to have these problems that we silo. It’s my belief that it’s time for reconciliation, and we need a Department of Reconciliation, a Secretary of Reconciliation, just as we have a Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Labor, and Secretary of Defense.”

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