(CAPITOL CITY NOW) – A commission studying potential reparations in Illinois is holding open indefinitely a survey for people to relate their experiences.

Marvin Slaughter, Jr., chairman of the African Descent-Citizens Reparations Commission, says if you believe slavery does not affect anybody today because it happened more than 100 years ago, you are incorrect.

“100 years wasn’t that long ago. My great-grandmother lived to 99,” said Slaughter. “The harms that she experienced I also experienced. So those harms never cease.”

Slaughter reminds us slave labor built much of the USA. “These are the benefits – tangible benefits – that all accrue off of the backs of my ancestors. So having a conversation of whether it happened so long ago, or can we fully repair – I think that’s the wrong question.” The right one, says Slaughter, is how do we live up to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and Abraham Lincoln?