III 

118TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION S. CON. RES. 19 

Urging the establishment of a United States Commission on Truth, Racial 

Healing, and Transformation. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

JULY 27, 2023 

Mr. BOOKER (for himself, Mr. COONS, Mr. MARKEY, Mr. DURBIN, Mr. 

PADILLA, Mr. CARDIN, Ms. WARREN, Mr. MERKLEY, Mr. MENENDEZ, 

Mr. WHITEHOUSE, and Ms. DUCKWORTH) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary 

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 

Urging the establishment of a United States Commission 

on Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation. 

Whereas the first ship carrying enslaved Africans to what is 

now known as the United States of America arrived in 

1619; 

Whereas that event more than 400 years ago was significant 

not only because it ushered in the institution of chattel 

slavery of African Americans, but also because it facilitated the systematic oppression of all people of color that 

has been a devastating and insufficiently understood and 

acknowledged aspect of our Nation’s history over those 

past 400-plus years, and that has left a legacy of that 

oppression that haunts our Nation to this day; 


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•SCON 19 IS 

Whereas the institution of chattel slavery in the United 

States subjugated African Americans for nearly 250 

years, fractured our Nation, and made a mockery of its 

founding principle that ‘‘all men are created equal’’; 

Whereas the signing of the Constitution of the United States 

failed to end slavery and oppression against African 

Americans and other people of color, thus embedding in 

society the belief in the myth of a hierarchy of human 

value based on superficial physical characteristics such as 

skin color and facial features, and resulting in purposeful 

and persistent racial inequities in education, health care, 

employment, Social Security and veteran benefits, land 

ownership, financial assistance, food security, wages, voting rights, and the justice system; 

Whereas that oppression denied opportunity and mobility to 

African Americans and other people of color within the 

United States, resulting in stolen labor worth billions of 

dollars while ultimately forestalling landmark contributions that African Americans and other people of color 

would make in science, arts, commerce, and public service; 

Whereas Reconstruction represented a significant but constrained moment of advances for Black rights as epitomized by the Freedman’s Bureau, which negotiated labor 

contracts for ex-enslaved people but failed to secure for 

them land of their own; 

Whereas the brutal overthrow of Reconstruction failed all individuals in the United States by failing to ensure the 

safety and security of African Americans and by 

emboldening States and municipalities in both the North 

and South to enact numerous laws and policies to stymie 


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•SCON 19 IS 

the socioeconomic mobility and political voice of freed 

Blacks, thus maintaining their subservience to Whites; 

Whereas Reconstruction, the civil rights movement, and other 

efforts to redress the grievances of marginalized people 

were sabotaged, both intentionally and unintentionally, by 

those in power, thus rendering the accomplishments of 

those efforts transitory and unsustainable, and further 

embedding the racial hierarchy in society; 

Whereas examples of government actions directed against 

populations of color (referred to in this resolution as 

‘‘discriminatory government actions’’) include— 

(1) the creation of the Federal Housing Administration, which adopted specific policies designed to 

incentivize residential segregation; 

(2) the enactment of legislation creating the Social 

Security program, for which most African Americans 

were purposely rendered ineligible during its first 2 decades; 

(3) the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 

(commonly known as the ‘‘GI Bill of Rights’’; 58 Stat. 

284, chapter 268), which left administration of its programs to the States, thus enabling blatant discrimination 

against African-American veterans; 

(4) the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which allowed labor unions to discriminate based on race; 

(5) subprime lending aimed purposefully at families 

of color; 

(6) disenfranchisement of Native Americans, who, 

until 1924, were denied citizenship on land Native Americans had occupied for millennia; 

(7) Federal Indian Boarding School Policy during 

the 19th and 20th centuries, the purpose of which was 


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•SCON 19 IS 

to ‘‘civilize’’ Native children through methods intended to 

eradicate Native cultures, traditions, and languages; 

(8) land policies toward Indian Tribes, such as the 

allotment policy, which caused the loss of over 

90,000,000 acres of Tribal lands, even though 2⁄3 of that 

acreage was guaranteed to Indian Tribes by treaties and 

other Federal laws, and similar unjustified land grabs 

from Indian Tribes that occurred regionally throughout 

the late 1800s and into the termination era in the 1950s 

and 1960s; 

(9) the involuntary removal of Mexicans and United 

States citizens of Mexican descent through large-scale 

discriminatory deportation programs in the 1930s and 

1950s; 

(10) the United States annexation of Puerto Rico, 

which made Puerto Ricans citizens of the United States 

without affording them voting rights; 

(11) racial discrimination against Latino Americans, 

which has forced Latino Americans to fight continuously 

for equal access to employment, housing, health care, financial services, and education; 

(12) the Act entitled ‘‘An Act to execute certain 

treaty stipulations relating to Chinese’’, approved May 6, 

1882 (commonly known as the ‘‘Chinese Exclusion Act’’; 

22 Stat. 58, chapter 126), which effectively halted immigration from China and barred Chinese immigrants from 

becoming citizens of the United States, and which was 

the first instance of xenophobic legislation signed into law 

specifically targeting a specific group of people based on 

ethnicity; 

(13) the treatment of Japanese Americans, despite 

no evidence of disloyalty, as suspect and traitorous in the 

very country they helped to build, leading most notably 


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•SCON 19 IS 

to the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans beginning in 1942; 

(14) the conspiracy to overthrow the Kingdom of 

Hawaii and annex the land of the Kingdom of Hawaii, 

without the consent of or compensation to the Native Hawaiian people of Hawaii; and 

(15) the United States history of colonialism in the 

Pacific, which has resulted in economic, health, and educational disparities among other inequities, for people in 

United States territories, as well as independent nations 

with which the United States has treaty obligations; 

Whereas those discriminatory government actions, among 

other government policies that have had racially disparate 

impacts, have disproportionately barred African Americans and other people of color from building wealth, thus 

limiting capital and exacerbating the racial wealth gap; 

Whereas research has shown that the persistent racial wealth 

gap has had a significant negative impact on other racial 

disparities, such as the achievement gap, disparities in 

school dropout rates, income gaps, disparities in home 

ownership rates, health outcome disparities, and disparities in incarceration rates; 

Whereas United States civic leaders and foundations have 

spearheaded critical efforts to advance racial healing, understanding, and transformation within the United 

States, recognizing that it is in our collective national interest to urgently address the unhealed, entrenched divisions that will severely undermine our democracy if they 

are allowed to continue to exist; 

Whereas many of the most far-reaching victories for racial 

healing in the United States have been greatly enhanced 


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•SCON 19 IS 

by the involvement, support, and dedication of individuals 

from any and all racial groups; 

Whereas, at the same time, much of the progress toward racial healing and racial equity in the United States has 

been limited or reversed by our failure to address the 

root cause of racism, which is the belief in the myth of 

a hierarchy of human value based on superficial physical 

characteristics such as skin color and facial features; 

Whereas the United States institution of slavery, as well as 

other examples enumerated in this resolution, represents 

intentional and blatant violations of the most basic right 

of every individual in the United States to a free and decent life; 

Whereas the consequences of oppression against people of 

color have cascaded for centuries, across generations, beyond the era of active enslavement, imperiling for descendants of slaves and other targets of oppression what 

should have otherwise been the right of every individual 

in the United States to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 

happiness; 

Whereas more than 40 countries have reckoned with historical injustice and its aftermath through forming truth 

and reconciliation commissions to move toward restorative justice and to return dignity to their citizens; 

Whereas for 3 decades there has been a growing movement 

inside and outside Congress to have the Federal Government develop material remedies for the institution of 

slavery, including through a Commission to Study and 

Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans described in H.R. 40, 118th Congress, as introduced on 


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•SCON 19 IS 

January 9, 2023, and S. 40, 118th Congress, as introduced on January 24, 2023; 

Whereas the formation of a United States Commission on 

Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation does not supplant the formation of a Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans, but 

rather complements that effort; and 

Whereas contemporary social science, medical science, and 

the rapidly expanding use of artificial intelligence and social media reveal the costs and potential threats to our 

democracy if we continue to allow unhealed, entrenched 

divisions to be ignored and exploited: Now, therefore, be 

it 

1 Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives 

2 concurring), That Congress— 

3 (1) affirms, more than 400 years after the ar4 rival of the first slave ship to the United States, that 

5 the Nation owes a long-overdue debt of remem6 brance to not only those who lived through the egre7 gious injustices enumerated in this resolution, but 

8 also to their descendants; and 

9 (2) urges the establishment of a United States 

10 Commission on Truth, Racial Healing, and Trans11 formation to properly acknowledge, memorialize, and 

12 be a catalyst for progress toward— 

13 (A) jettisoning the belief in a hierarchy of 

14 human value; 

15 (B) embracing our common humanity; and 


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•SCON 19 IS 

1 (C) permanently eliminating persistent ra2 cial inequities. 

Æ 


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