WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers on Wednesday held the first congressional hearing in more than a decade on reparations, spotlighting the debate over whether the government should consider compensation for the descendants of slaves in the United States.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, who became the sponsor of a measure to study reparations after the retirement of Rep. John Conyers, said black Americans “are the only group that can singularly claim to have been slaves under the auspices of the United States government.” She said Wednesday’s hearing “is not a symbolic action,” but about legitimate legislation that should be signed into law.

“I just simply ask: Why not and why not now?” she said to a packed hearing room.

The witnesses at the House Judiciary subcommittee include actor and activist Danny Glover, writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, a Democratic presidential candidate.

Booker, who testified first, said the U.S has “yet to truly acknowledge and grapple with the racism and white supremacy that tainted this country’s founding and continues to cause persistent and deep racial disparities and inequality.”

“The stain of slavery was not just inked in bloodshed . but in policies that have disadvantaged African Americans for generations,” he said.

The hearing comes amid a growing discussion in the Democratic Party about reparations. Several of the party’s presidential candidates have endorsed looking at the idea, though they have stopped short of endorsing direct payouts for African Americans.

Coats drew new attention to the issue with his essay “The Case for Reparations,” published in The Atlantic magazine in 2014. He told the panel “it’s impossible to imagine America without the inheritance of slavery.”

“The matter of reparations is one of making amends and direct redress but is also a question of citizenship,” Coats said.

While reparations has been moving toward the mainstream of the Democratic Party, the idea remains far from widely accepted, both among Democrats and the public at large.