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The House might pass a long-ignored bill to study reparations for slavery. Why now? Katherine Tate, March 23, 2022, The Washington Post The U.S. House of Representatives appears poised to pass a bill to establish a reparations commission, which John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) first introduced in 1989. Conyers regularly sponsored the bill — known as H.R. 40, for the “40 acres and a mule” promise made to formerly enslaved Black people by a Union general in 1865 — and usually got about 30 co-sponsors, mostly Black lawmakers. The bill never made it out of committee. After Conyers retired in 2017, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) took over the bill. In the last congressional session, she won more than 173 co-sponsors, including a sizable number of White Democrats. This round, the bill has 196 backers; the bill was voted out of committee in April 2021. What changed? Why is H.R. 40 suddenly passable? Several developments worked in the bill’s favor. Black lawmakers are now k