Until he retired in 2017, the late Rep. John Conyers was the longest-serving African-American member of Congress. The former U.S. Representative for Michigan (1965 to 2017), was the first to introduce a bill calling for the study of slavery reparations for African Americans. In 1989 he introduced H.R. 40. When Conyers resigned from Congress, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, took up lead sponsorship of the bill. Conyers worked nearly 30 years pushing for reparations. He died in 2019.
