Sen. Cory Booker Cory Anthony Booker3 reasons why Biden is misreading the politics of court packing Bipartisan praise pours in after Ginsburg's death DHS opens probe into allegations at Georgia ICE facility MORE (D-N.J.) said at a congressional hearing on reparations Wednesday that he was heartbroken about the value American society places on young men of color.

The 2020 presidential candidate spoke at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing about the shooting of seven people in his hometown of Newark, N.J., that resulted in one death, according to local news reports.

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"I'm sitting before you ... brokenhearted and very angry," Booker said. "Yesterday, hundreds of yards from where I live, there were seven black men shot."

"This is an everyday occurrence in America," he said. "On a day like this, when I come back to Washington, D.C., seven people shot in my community, I wonder if other senators had seven people shot in their community if it would not be a lead national story."

The shooting reportedly occurred around 4 p.m. in Newark on Tuesday. Two women were among the six wounded by gunfire. One man was killed.

"When people are shot and killed, the world seems to keep going on," Booker said.

He made the remarks at the first-ever hearing on reparations in the House, where activists including Ta-Nehisi Coates, Danny Glover and others spoke in favor of establishing a commission to consider providing reparations to descendants of slaves in the U.S.

Booker, who launched his White House bid earlier this year, is polling at 2.3 percent in a RealClearPolitics average of surveys.