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The push to respond to the country’s history of slavery and discrimination against African Americans is growing quickly in the Democratic Party.

House Democratic leaders on Wednesday committed to a floor vote for legislation to study reparations for the descendants of slaves — a historic move for the black community after the party sidestepped the debate for decades.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters that Democrats plan to vote on the bill, which he said would “look at how we try to compensate for the extraordinary racism and denigration” that African Americans have long faced.

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“I think that’s a very serious issue and we need to look at it,” Hoyer said.

The bill, drafted by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), would create a commission to look at a “national apology” for slavery and discrimination against African Americans, potentially including compensation.

Jackson Lee’s bill received a hearing Wednesday in the House Judiciary Committee — the chamber’s first hearing on reparations in a decade. The bill is expected to soon have a full committee markup, though Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) has not yet set a date. A floor vote would come after.

“It will get a vote if it comes out of committee. I expect it to come out of committee,” Hoyer said.

The proposal is largely backed by the Congressional Black Caucus, though some senior members fear it could alienate moderate voters and the idea has divided the caucus along generational lines.

Support for considering reparations has also quickly gained support in the 2020 Democratic primary, with contenders like Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) expressing their interest in Jackson Lee’s plan. It’s a stark shift from previous presidential campaigns where Barack Obama opposed reparations.

House passage of the bill would be a momentous event, though it’s unlikely to be considered in the Republican-controlled Senate; Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) rejected the idea of reparations on Tuesday.

“I don’t think reparations for something that happened 150 years ago for whom none us currently living are responsible is a good idea,” McConnell said. “We’ve tried to deal with our original sin of slavery by fighting a civil war, by passing landmark civil rights legislation. We’ve elected an African-American president.”

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries blasted McConnell on Wednesday, saying he has “zero credibility” on the issue.

“I could spend all day commenting on the inappropriate things that come out of the Grim Reaper’s mouth,” Jeffries said, using Democrats’ favored nickname for the GOP leader. “A reasonable exploration and discussion of how to deal with the legacy of slavery is the least that could occur.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose 2014 essay “The Case for Reparations” reintroduced the issue to the national conversation, rebuked McConnell in his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday.

“Majority Leader McConnell cited civil rights legislation yesterday,” Coates said. “As well he should — he was alive to witness the harassment, jailing and betrayal of those responsible for that legislation by the government sworn to protect them.”

Coates also directly disputed McConnell’s argument that no one currently alive was responsible for the fallout of slavery, rattling off half a dozen instances of racist violence that took place in the 77-year-old senator’s lifetime and denouncing “a relentless campaign of terror” that stemmed from the laws and policies that followed slavery.

“It is tempting to divorce this modern campaign of terror, of plunder, from enslavement,” he said. “But the logic of enslavement, of white supremacy, respects no such borders.”

Heather Caygle contributed to this report.