I 
119TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. R. 40 
To address the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of 
slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 
1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to study and consider 
a national apology and proposal for reparations for the institution of 
slavery, its subsequent de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimi-
nation against African Americans, and the impact of these forces on 
living African Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress 
on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JANUARY 3, 2025 
Ms. PRESSLEY introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on the Judiciary 
A BILL 
To address the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and 
inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 
American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to estab-
lish a commission to study and consider a national apol-
ogy and proposal for reparations for the institution of 
slavery, its subsequent de jure and de facto racial and 
economic discrimination against African Americans, and 
the impact of these forces on living African Americans, 
to make recommendations to the Congress on appro-
priate remedies, and for other purposes. 
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Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Commission to Study 
and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans 
Act’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE. 
(a) FINDINGS.—The Congress finds that— 
(1) approximately 4,000,000 Africans and their 
descendants were enslaved in the United States and 
colonies that became the United States from 1619 to 
1865; 
(2) the institution of slavery was constitu-
tionally and statutorily sanctioned by the Govern-
ment of the United States from 1789 through 1865; 
(3) the slavery that flourished in the United 
States constituted an immoral and inhumane depri-
vation of Africans’ life, liberty, African citizenship 
rights, and cultural heritage, and denied them the 
fruits of their own labor; 
(4) a preponderance of scholarly, legal, commu-
nity evidentiary documentation and popular culture 
markers constitute the basis for inquiry into the on- 
going effects of the institution of slavery and its leg-
acy of persistent systemic structures of discrimina-
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tion on living African Americans and society in the 
United States; 
(5) the brutal overthrow of Reconstruction, 
which represented a significant but constrained mo-
ment of advances for Black rights as epitomized by 
the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Con-
stitution, the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875 
and the Freedman’s Bureau, failed African Ameri-
cans by failing to ensure their safety and security; 
(6) following the abolition of slavery and end of 
Reconstruction the United States Government, 
through laws enacted at the Federal, State, and 
local level, continued to perpetuate, condone and 
profit from practices that continued to brutalize and 
disadvantage African Americans, including share 
cropping, convict leasing, Jim Crow, redlining, un-
equal education, and disproportionate treatment at 
the hands of the criminal justice system, resulting in 
stolen labor and ultimately forestalling landmark 
contributions in science, arts, commerce and public 
service; 
(7) the civil rights movement, and other efforts 
to redress grievances arising from systemic inequi-
ties, were sabotaged, both intentionally and uninten-
tionally, thus rendering the accomplishments of 
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those efforts transitory and unsustainable, and fur-
ther embedding racial inequality in society; 
(8) examples of discriminatory Federal Govern-
ment actions directed against African Americans in-
clude— 
(A) the creation of the Federal Housing 
Administration, which adopted specific policies 
designed to incentivize residential segregation; 
(B) the enactment of legislation creating 
the Social Security program, for which most Af-
rican Americans were purposely rendered ineli-
gible during its first two decades; 
(C) 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 discrimination against African- 
American veterans; and 
(D) the Fair Labor Standards Act of 
1938, which allowed labor unions to discrimi-
nate based on race; and 
(9) as a result of the historic and continued dis-
crimination, African Americans continue to suffer 
debilitating economic, educational, and health hard-
ships including but not limited to having nearly 
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1,000,000 Black people incarcerated; an unemploy-
ment rate more than twice the current White unem-
ployment rate; and an average of less than 1⁄16 of 
the wealth of White families, a disparity which has 
worsened, not improved over time. 
(b) PURPOSE.—The purpose of this Act is to estab-
lish a commission to study and develop Reparation pro-
posals for African Americans as a result of— 
(1) the institution of slavery, including both the 
Trans-Atlantic and the domestic ‘‘trade’’ which ex-
isted from 1565 in colonial Florida and from 1619 
through 1865 within the other colonies that became 
the United States, and which included the Federal 
and State governments which constitutionally and 
statutorily supported the institution of slavery; 
(2) the de jure and de facto discrimination 
against freed slaves and their descendants from the 
end of the Civil War to the present, including eco-
nomic, political, educational, and social discrimina-
tion; 
(3) the lingering negative effects of the institu-
tion of slavery and the discrimination described in 
paragraphs (1) and (2) on living African Americans 
and on society in the United States; 
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(4) the manner in which textual and digital in-
structional resources and technologies are being used 
to deny the inhumanity of slavery and the crime 
against humanity of people of African descent in the 
United States; 
(5) the role of Northern complicity in the 
Southern based institution of slavery; 
(6) the direct benefits to societal institutions, 
public and private, including higher education, cor-
porations, religious, and associational; 
(7) and thus, recommend appropriate ways to 
educate the American public of the Commission’s 
findings to advance racial healing, understanding, 
and transformation; 
(8) and thus, recommend appropriate remedies 
in consideration of the Commission’s findings on the 
matters described in paragraphs (1) through (7); 
and 
(9) submit to the Congress the results of such 
examination, together with such recommendations. 
SEC. 3. ESTABLISHMENT AND DUTIES. 
(a) ESTABLISHMENT.—There is established in the 
legislative branch the Commission to Study and Develop 
Reparation Proposals for African Americans (hereinafter 
in this Act referred to as the ‘‘Commission’’). 
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(b) DUTIES.—The Commission shall perform the fol-
lowing duties: 
(1) Identify, compile, and synthesize the rel-
evant corpus of evidentiary documentation of the in-
stitution of slavery which existed within the United 
States and the colonies that became the United 
States from 1619 through 1865. The Commission’s 
documentation and examination shall include facts 
related to— 
(A) the capture and procurement of Afri-
cans; 
(B) the transport of Africans to the United 
States and the colonies that became the United 
States for the purpose of enslavement, including 
their treatment during transport; 
(C) the sale and acquisition of Africans 
and their descendants as chattel property in 
interstate and intrastate commerce; 
(D) the treatment of African slaves and 
their descendants in the colonies and the 
United States, including the deprivation of their 
freedom, exploitation of their labor, and de-
struction of their culture, language, religion, 
and families; and 
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