Democratic presidential hopeful Marianne Williamson is calling for a “spiritual awakening “to occur in the United States. After launching her presidential 2020 campaign in Los Angeles on Monday (Jan. 28), Williamson sat down with CNN’s “New Day,” where she called for the U.S. to pay $100 billion in reparations for slavery.
“We need a moral and spiritual awakening in the country,” Williamson said. “Nothing short of that is adequate to fundamentally change the patterns of our political dysfunction… I have had a 35-year career in naming and transforming those dynamics. That’s my qualification for the presidency.”
Williamson recommended that reparations for slavery be paid out in $10 billion per year and be distributed over the span of one decade. She also suggested that billions of dollars be donated to educational and economic projects that would help the country. “I believe $100 billion given to a council to apply this money to economic projects and educational projects of renewal for that population is a debt to be paid,” she added.
Williamson’s platform includes campaigns for free college, universal background checks for gun owners, and more.
Williamson previously ran for Congress in California in 2014, but placed fourth in the primary. She is a best-selling author and spiritual counselor to Oprah Winfrey.