Tennessee reparations fight pits lawmakers against community leaders

A Tennessee bill in the state Senate forbidding the allocation of funds to study the effects of reparation payments to descendants of slaves has created friction between state lawmakers and community leaders.  The bill, which will be voted on in the Senate on Wednesday, is pitting lawmakers concerned about the role of state and local government against their constituents who want to see elected leaders take action. The Rev. Earle Fisher, the senior pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church, has launched a petition against the legislation and has gathered 500 signatures in the past two days. Fisher blasted the idea the bill has anything to do with fiscal responsibility or government overreach. “This is not about money,” Fisher told NewsNation. “This is about ideology. This is about political power. This is about people who are hellbent on maintaining racial and economic inequities across the state, and they are scared to death that the truth would come out. So, they don’t want anybody to study it.” State Sen. Brent Taylor, a Republican who sponsored the bills, argues the talk of reparations should be left to federal lawmakers. Questions about how to address something as complex as the history of slavery and what...