Political commentator Julianne Malveaux called Republicans “The Devil” during a Congressional hearing regarding slavery reparations on Wednesday, where she was speaking as a witness.
Malveaux said that Democrats were “the devil once upon a time,” but that “Republicans took that over, and they became the devil.”
The hearing was held by the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties to discuss “the Path to Restorative Justice.” Specifically, they were discussing H.R. 40 — a bill that proposes a commission on reparations. Ta-Nehisi Coates, Danny Glover, Sen. Cory Booker and various other activists also spoke.
“People want to talk ugly about Democrats, people change their ideology. So the Democrats were the devil once upon a time, there were these groups called the red shirts, which were the Klan, they were Democrats,” Malveaux said, according to a report from Mediaite. “However, the Republicans took that over, they became the devil,. She added, “I’m just saying. Forgive me, brother Chairman, I know you said I’m not supposed to say that. Forgive me.”
“But in any case, people do change ideologies, so all this throwing at Democrats, Democrats and Republicans have been racist,” Malveaux continued.
Former Oakland Raider Burgess Owens also testified before the committee — boldly declaring that Democrats should be the one paying reparations.
“I used to be a Democrat until I did my history and found out the misery that that party brought to my race… Let’s pay restitution. How about the Democratic Party pay for all the misery brought to my race,” he said, bringing up slavery, Jim Crow, and abortion that is disproportionately killing black babies.
NFL legend @BurgessOwens tells Democrats THEY should be paying reparations to black Americans.
I do believe in restitution. Let's point to the party that was part of slavery, KKK, Jim crow, that has killed over 40% of our black babies, 20 million of them.pic.twitter.com/aVtmjBboDF
— Kambree (@KamVTV) June 19, 2019
Watch the full hearing here: