IV 
119TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 173 
Restoring the promise of freedom: honoring, preserving, and investing in 
Freedmen’s Settlements. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
FEBRUARY 27, 2025 
Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE (for herself, Ms. TLAIB, Mr. JACKSON of Illinois, Ms. 
OCASIO-CORTEZ, Mrs. BEATTY, Ms. PRESSLEY, Ms. MOORE of Wis-
consin, Mrs. MCIVER, and Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN) submitted the fol-
lowing resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary 
RESOLUTION 
Restoring the promise of freedom: honoring, preserving, and 
investing in Freedmen’s Settlements. 
Whereas over 1,200 freedmen’s settlements and Black towns 
were established throughout the South and across the 
Nation before and after emancipation by free and for-
merly enslaved African Americans to create safer, self- 
sustaining, and thriving communities away from racial vi-
olence and economic discrimination; 
Whereas the freedmen’s settlements and towns are the em-
bodiment of ‘‘ground-up emancipation’’ and the untold 
story of community resilience, collective economics, and 
community building of churches, schools, and enterprises 
rooted in the African ethic of Ubuntu (I am because you/ 
we are); 
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Whereas many of these freedmen’s settlements and towns 
were destroyed by Southern domestic terrorists, or other-
wise became impoverished by centuries of public and pri-
vate divestment, which includes uncompensated enslaved 
labor, failed Reconstruction, and the unmet Freedmen’s 
Bureau’s postemancipation promises to transition people 
who were formerly enslaved into the United States econ-
omy, Jim Crow laws, economic and housing discrimina-
tion through redlining, public housing, and transportation 
policies, and environmental racism; 
Whereas, in acknowledgment of extreme economic and racial 
disparities, 
the 
Environmental 
Protection 
Agency 
launched the Environmental and Climate Justice Pro-
gram in 2022 to provide financial and technical assist-
ance to implement environmental and climate justice ac-
tivities to benefit ‘‘underserved and overburdened’’ com-
munities across the Nation, which have continued ‘‘dis-
proportionate environmental health burdens, population 
vulnerability, and limits to effective participation in deci-
sions with environmental consequences’’; 
Whereas the White House further recognized the need for 
greater 
investment 
in 
disadvantaged 
communities 
through the Justice40 Initiative in 2022, where the Fed-
eral Government set a goal to direct 40 percent of overall 
benefits of Federal investments to communities that lack 
clean water, sewer infrastructure, clean energy, clean 
transit, affordable and sustainable housing, training and 
workforce development, and remediation and mitigation 
of legacy pollution; 
Whereas, approximately 45 percent of the residents of the 
unincorporated community of Sand Branch, Texas, estab-
lished as a freedmen’s settlement in 1878, live below the 
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poverty line, and the community is surrounded by envi-
ronmentally polluting facilities such as cement plants and 
is also a dumping ground for tires and other trash, has 
no local school, no proximity to medical facilities, and has 
not had access to clean running water for over 30 years 
due to contamination of the local well system, and there 
is no access to municipal water or sewer system, and al-
though hydropanels have recently been installed to pro-
vide drinking water, residents continue to rely on limited 
donations of bottled water to meet the majority of their 
water needs; 
Whereas the unincorporated community of Africatown, Ala-
bama, established in the 1860s as a freedmen’s settle-
ment by West Africans brought to the United States ille-
gally aboard the ship Clotilda, consists of 1,215 people, 
of which 34 percent live below the poverty line, and are 
surrounded by industry-zoned land and potential expan-
sions of chemical plants, resulting in continued improper 
waste management, causing pollution, toxic exposure, 
contamination, and cancer in residents; 
Whereas the unincorporated community of Mossville, Lou-
isiana, established in 1790, has been encircled by over a 
dozen petrochemical plants, refineries, and other indus-
trial facilities that pollute the air and water, causing ele-
vated rates of cancer and other diseases among residents 
as multinational corporations continue to expand in the 
area, displacing many Mossville families and threatening 
the community’s long-term survival; 
Whereas the community of Edmondson, Arkansas, incor-
porated in 1911, emerged as a thriving hub of Black- 
owned businesses, churches, and cotton farming, with Af-
rican Americans constituting its civic leadership from the 
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outset, and despite the injustice faced in the 1930s by 
systematic White racism to steal hundreds of town lots 
from the original Black owners and the county sheriff 
making false declarations of the delinquent property tax 
status of Black families, the Edmondson community per-
sisted and persevered, rebuilding churches, homes, and a 
sense of cohesion after floods, fires, and storms; 
Whereas the community of Allensworth, California, estab-
lished in 1908 and the first town in California to be 
founded, funded, and governed by African Americans, 
was once a promising burgeoning town off a main rail-
road line, but faced racist disinvestment through the relo-
cation of their train stop, seizure of water resources and 
subsequent drought and pollution of the aquifer, leaving 
the town underresourced and sparsely populated, and 
since then, the residents have organized to revitalize the 
town through agriculture and historic preservation, and 
are laying the groundwork for a full community revital-
ization using $40,000,000 of State funding allocated to 
the town in 2022; 
Whereas Oberlin Village, North Carolina, established in 
1866, was once a prosperous free Black community with 
successful small businesses, schools, and university 
churches, and faced discrimination and displacement 
through the mid-20th century and is now undergoing vig-
orous efforts by the community-led Friends of Oberlin 
Village to restore historic buildings, preserve oral his-
tories, and ensure that the community can continue to 
thrive in the future; 
Whereas Independence Heights, Texas, was first established 
in 1908 and became the first Black city in Texas in 
1915, and the community built a municipal infrastruc-
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ture and an ecosystem of 40 Black-owned small busi-
nesses, and now faces threats from natural disasters and 
gentrification that are displacing residents, including 
those who own property passed down through genera-
tions, leading the community to organize vehicles such as 
the Independence Heights Redevelopment Council to en-
sure community leadership in development projects and 
preserve its cultural and historic identity; 
Whereas communities such as Edmonson, Allensworth, 
Oberlin Village, and Independence Heights should not be 
exceptional cases of communities overcoming their cir-
cumstances, but rather models for the possibility of rep-
aration, restoration, protection, and thriving of freed-
men’s settlement communities; 
Whereas it is difficult to fully quantify and understand the 
history and current status of all the freedmen’s settle-
ments in the United States due to lack of research and 
investment in analyzing, preserving, and supporting these 
historic settlements, towns, and communities, with a 
large part of this history held by the descendants of the 
founders and residents; 
Whereas these freedmen’s settlements can serve as pillars of 
inspiration and modeling of land regeneration, ecobased 
economies organized around communal and collective 
land, and economic policies for divested communities; 
Whereas a handful of former freedmen’s settlements have re-
ceived State or local designation for their historic status, 
offering them an opportunity for preservation and public 
acknowledgment, such as the Freedmen’s Town Historic 
District in Houston, Texas; 
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Whereas there is an ongoing call, gaining much traction 
today, to preserve and document the history of freed-
men’s settlements, leading to projects such as the Texas 
Freedom Colonies Project, the Mapping Blackness 
Project, as well as the Freedmen’s Bureau Search Portal 
created by the National Museum of African American 
History and Culture, among others; 
Whereas, with a greater focus and leveraging of the power of 
various Federal agencies’ support, protection, and invest-
ment, transformation becomes possible for all these his-
toric communities across the United States; and 
Whereas the current moment presents an opportunity for the 
Federal Government to expand on the promises made 
when Juneteenth was designated a Federal holiday by 
not only fulfilling the unmet promises and possibilities of 
the Freedmen’s Bureau and the larger Reconstruction 
movement, but also to helping right the historic and 
present wrongs that have placed the freedmen’s settle-
ments and Black frontline communities in such chron-
ically vulnerable positions: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) affirms, that on Juneteenth 2024, 158 
years after the 250,000 enslaved in Galveston Bay, 
Texas, received the news from Union troops that 
they were freed, that the efforts for racial justice 
after 250 years of United States slavery did not end 
on June 19, 1865; 
(2) acknowledges that following Juneteenth, 
many African Americans faced terror and repression 
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which suppressed their ability to create stable and 
resilient communities or freedmen’s settlements after 
the Civil War; 
(3) honors the rich history of emancipated Afri-
can Americans who built communities by acquiring 
land and housing security for freedmen’s settle-
ments; 
(4) supports preserving freedmen’s settlements 
through comprehensive documentation that utilizes 
oral histories and existing records as well as physical 
commemoration of settlement remnants; 
(5) encourages investing in the lasting legacies 
of freedmen’s settlements with designated funding 
for historic preservation and funding economic jus-
tice initiatives to support the descendants and re-
maining residents of these communities; 
(6) recognizes the need for coordination 
amongst the Federal Government, State govern-
ments, agencies, and nonprofit organizations is war-
ranted to better understand the power dynamics of 
the historical injustices that have taken place in the 
freedmen’s settlements; 
(7) expresses a commitment to identify United 
States freedmen’s settlements to enshrine their his-
toric community preservation, including protecting 
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communities from development, gentrification, and 
environmental hazards through strategic investment, 
external development regulation, community-led and 
driven economic development, small business cre-
ation, workforce development, and education; 
(8) urges the Federal Government, States, lo-
calities, nonprofit organizations, schools, and com-
munity organizations to provide ongoing support to 
the residents and descendants of the founders of 
freedmen’s settlements who hold long-standing 
knowledge of the history of their communities to 
preserve the historical foundation of this Nation; 
(9) recognizes that coordination among the 
Federal Government, State governments, agencies, 
and nonprofit organizations is warranted to support 
freedmen’s settlement communities and municipali-
ties, including, but not limited to, the Environmental 
Protection Agency, the Department of Housing and 
Urban Development, food assistance programs, his-
toric land preservation, and clean water foundations; 
(10) affirms that freedmen’s settlements in the 
United States have fair standards of living, includ-
ing sewage, roads, emergency services, climate-resil-
ient infrastructure, and an overall focus on the 
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health, well-being, sustainability, and resilience of 
these communities; 
(11) recognizes that recognizing and providing 
resources for freedmen’s settlements will lead to 
greater equity and investment in historically dis-
advantaged communities that have faced centuries of 
racism, discrimination, environmental and climate 
injustices, and violence, as conceived since the col-
onization of the Americas and is continually built 
upon today; and 
(12) honors the legacies of freedom, ingenuity, 
resilience, and community care created by the com-
munities in the freedmen’s settlements and brings 
recognition and honor to the efforts of these for-
merly enslaved people on Juneteenth 2024. 
Æ 
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