IA 
118TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. J. RES. 84 
Designating a ‘‘Slavery Remembrance Day’’ on August 20, to serve as a 
reminder of the evils of slavery. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
AUGUST 1, 2023 
Mr. GREEN of Texas (for himself, Ms. ADAMS, Ms. BARRAGA´N, Mrs. BEATTY, 
Mr. BISHOP of Georgia, Mr. BLUMENAUER, Mr. BOWMAN, Ms. BROWN, 
Ms. BUDZINSKI, Ms. BUSH, Ms. CASTOR of Florida, Mr. CASTRO of 
Texas, Ms. CLARKE of New York, Mr. CLEAVER, Mr. CONNOLLY, Mr. 
COSTA, Ms. DEAN of Pennsylvania, Mr. DOGGETT, Mr. ESPAILLAT, Mr. 
EVANS, Mrs. FOUSHEE, Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia, Mr. KHANNA, Mr. 
KILMER, Mr. LARSEN of Washington, Ms. LEE of California, Mr. LYNCH, 
Ms. MCCLELLAN, Ms. MCCOLLUM, Mr. MCGOVERN, Ms. MENG, Mr. 
MFUME, Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin, Mr. MULLIN, Mrs. NAPOLITANO, Ms. 
NORTON, Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ, Mr. PASCRELL, Ms. PRESSLEY, Ms. 
ROSS, Ms. SA´NCHEZ, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Ms. SEWELL, Mr. SHERMAN, 
Ms. STEVENS, Mr. TAKANO, Mr. THANEDAR, Ms. TLAIB, Mr. TORRES 
of New York, Mrs. TRAHAN, Mr. TRONE, Mr. VARGAS, Mr. VEASEY, Mrs. 
WATSON COLEMAN, Ms. WILLIAMS of Georgia, Ms. PORTER, Mr. DAVID 
SCOTT of Georgia, Mr. CA´RDENAS, Mr. CARSON, Mr. CASAR, Ms. CHU, 
Mr. COHEN, Ms. DELBENE, Mr. FROST, Mr. HUFFMAN, Ms. JACKSON 
LEE, Mr. KRISHNAMOORTHI, Mr. LIEU, Mr. PAPPAS, Mr. PAYNE, and 
Ms. WILSON of Florida) submitted the following joint resolution; which 
was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Accountability 
JOINT RESOLUTION 
Designating a ‘‘Slavery Remembrance Day’’ on August 20, 
to serve as a reminder of the evils of slavery. 
Whereas this resolution may be cited as the ‘‘Original Slavery 
Remembrance Day Resolution’’; 
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Whereas the House of Representatives and the Senate recog-
nize August 20th, as ‘‘Slavery Remembrance Day’’ and 
commemorate the lives of all enslaved people while also 
condemning the act and perpetuation of slavery in the 
United States of America and across the world; 
Whereas we posthumously recognize the following Members 
of Congress, who served during and after the Reconstruc-
tion Era, as honorary cosponsors of this resolution: the 
Honorable Joseph Hayne Rainey (SC–01), Member of 
Congress from 1870 to 1879; Jefferson Franklin Long 
(GA–04), Member of Congress from January 1871 to 
March 1871; Robert Carlos De Large (SC–02), Member 
of Congress from 1871 to 1873; Robert Brown Elliott 
(SC–3), Member of Congress from 1871 to 1874; Ben-
jamin Sterling Turner (AL–01), Member of Congress 
from 1871 to 1873; Josiah Thomas Walls (FL-At 
Large), Member of Congress from 1871 to 1876; Alonzo 
Jacob Ransier (SC–02), Member of Congress from 1873 
to 1875; Richard Harvey Cain (SC-At Large), Member of 
Congress from 1873 to 1875 and 1877 to 1879; John 
Roy Lynch (MS–06), Member of Congress from 1873 to 
1877 and 1882 to 1883; James Thomas Rapier (AL–02), 
Member of Congress from 1873 to 1875; Jeremiah 
Haralson (AL–01), Member of Congress from 1875 to 
1877; John Adams Hyman (NC–02), Member of Con-
gress from 1875 to 1877; Robert Smalls (SC–07), Mem-
ber of Congress from 1875 to 1879 and 1882 to 1883 
and 1884 to 1887; James Edward O’Hara (NC–02), 
Member of Congress from 1883 to 1887; Henry Plummer 
Cheatham (NC–02), Member of Congress from 1889 to 
1893; John Mercer Langston (VA–04), Member of Con-
gress from 1890 to 1891; Thomas Ezekiel Miller, Mem-
ber of Congress from 1890 to 1891; George Washington 
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•HJ 84 IH 
Murray (SC–01), Member of Congress from 1893 to 
1895 and 1896 to 1897; and George Henry White (NC– 
02), Member of Congress from 1897 to 1901; 
Whereas, on August 20, 1619, the first 20 enslaved Africans 
were brought to what is now Fort Monroe, then Point 
Comfort, in Hampton, Virginia against their will; 
Whereas African tribal chiefs captured, enslaved, and sold 
captives to transatlantic slave traders; 
Whereas over the period of the Atlantic slave trade, from ap-
proximately 1526 to 1867, millions of humans were ab-
ducted and shipped from Africa, and 10,700,000 arrived 
in the Americas as personal property; 
Whereas the majority of enslaved Africans brought to British 
North America arrived between 1720 and 1780; 
Whereas about 6 percent of African captives were sent di-
rectly to British North America; 
Whereas by 1825, the population of the United States in-
cluded about one quarter of the people of African descent 
in what has been called the New World; 
Whereas the Middle Passage from West Africa to the West 
Indies was dangerous and horrific for enslaved people; 
Whereas the Middle Passage carried mothers, fathers, chil-
dren, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, and people 
from all walks of life to slavery in the Americas; 
Whereas although the sexes were separated, men, women, 
and children were kept naked, packed close together, and 
the men were chained for long periods; 
Whereas, according to some historians, about 12 percent of 
the enslaved people who embarked did not survive the 
voyage; 
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Whereas sharks followed the slave ships to feed on bodies of 
slaves thrown overboard; 
Whereas enslaved people suffered a variety of miserable and 
often fatal maladies due to the Atlantic slave trade, and 
to inhumane living and working conditions; 
Whereas infant and child mortality rates were twice as high 
among slave children as among Southern White children; 
Whereas enslaved people often worked from before sunup to 
after sundown, 6 to 7 days a week, often without food 
for long periods of time; 
Whereas enslaved Black families lived with the perpetual pos-
sibility of separation caused by the sale of 1 or more fam-
ily members; 
Whereas it is estimated that approximately 1⁄3 of enslaved 
children in the upper South States of Maryland and Vir-
ginia experienced family separation in 1 of 3 possible sce-
narios: sale away from parents, sale with mother away 
from father, or sale of mother or father away from child; 
Whereas Nat Turner was born into slavery in Southampton 
County, Virginia, in 1800; 
Whereas Southampton County was home to many planta-
tions, and enslaved people outnumbered free Whites; 
Whereas Turner learned to read and write at a young age, 
becoming deeply religious; 
Whereas Turner was sold to several different masters over 
the course of his life, the last time in 1830; 
Whereas Turner preached to fellow enslaved people, devel-
oping a loyal following; 
Whereas Turner began planning a revolt with a few trusted 
fellow enslaved men from neighboring plantations; 
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Whereas Turner led a rebellion beginning in August 1831, 
quickly growing from a small handful of enslaved people 
to more than 70 enslaved and free Blacks; 
Whereas the rebels went from house to house in South-
ampton County, freeing enslaved people; 
Whereas the rebels were ultimately defeated by a State mili-
tia that had over twice the manpower of the rebels, with 
3 artillery companies reinforcing it; 
Whereas Turner was captured 6 weeks after the rebellion was 
put down, whereupon he was promptly convicted and sen-
tenced to death; 
Whereas in retaliation for the uprising, Virginia officially exe-
cuted 56 Black people, with at least 100 more killed by 
militias through extrajudicial violence; 
Whereas the rebellion caused widespread panic among 
slaveholders throughout the South, resulting in wide-
spread violence against enslaved people; 
Whereas in the wake of the rebellion, the Virginia General 
Assembly passed legislation making it illegal to teach 
enslaved or free Blacks to read and write; 
Whereas the Underground Railroad was a network of people 
who helped around 100,000 slaves escape to the North; 
Whereas the railroad began when a ‘‘conductor’’ often posing 
as a slave would enter a plantation and attempt to guide 
runaways; 
Whereas escapees would travel 10 to 20 miles each night be-
tween safe houses or ‘‘stations’’ to avoid detection, wait-
ing in safe houses for the next along the line to be alert-
ed to their presence; 
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Whereas people supporting escapees at each station, many of 
whom were White, knew only of local efforts and not the 
entire operation; 
Whereas Harriet Tubman, born Araminta Ross, lived as an 
enslaved person through her young life where she en-
dured regular whippings and suffered a traumatic head 
injury at the hands of an overseer, which caused narco-
leptic episodes and migraines throughout her life; 
Whereas Ms. Tubman escaped from slavery along the Under-
ground Railroad, the network of abolitionists who guided 
escaped slaves to the North traveling primarily at night 
to avoid bounty hunters; 
Whereas Ms. Tubman returned to the South no less than 13 
times to free 70 enslaved people, including much of her 
family, for which she would be given the name ‘‘Moses’’; 
Whereas Ms. Tubman deftly led those she saved North dur-
ing the fall and winter, when would-be captors would stay 
inside to avoid the cold; 
Whereas in Ms. Tubman’s own words, ‘‘I never ran my train 
off the track and I never lost a passenger’’; 
Whereas during the Civil War, Ms. Tubman served as a 
nurse, scout, and spy in the Union army, becoming the 
first woman to plan and lead a military operation in the 
United States, liberating 700 enslaved people in South 
Carolina; 
Whereas later in life, Ms. Tubman continued working to im-
prove the lives of oppressed people, raising funds for and 
building schools and a hospital in the name of formerly 
enslaved people while participating in the women’s suf-
frage movement; 
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Whereas John Brown, an abolitionist who ran an important 
stop on the Underground Railroad, dedicated his life to 
ending slavery; 
Whereas Brown lead a militia in guerrilla attacks on 
proslavery towns in Kansas, losing one of his sons in the 
struggle; 
Whereas Brown, with the help of Harriet Tubman, planned 
and organized an invasion of the South to free all slaves; 
Whereas Brown began his invasion at Harpers Ferry, West 
Virginia, but was surrounded and captured by Federal 
troops led by Robert E. Lee, losing 2 more sons in the 
fighting; 
Whereas the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was passed 
by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on De-
cember 6, 1865, and provides that ‘‘Neither slavery nor 
involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime 
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall 
exist within the United States, or any place subject to 
their jurisdiction.’’; 
Whereas beginning in the 20th century, African Americans 
began to relocate from Southern farms to Southern cities, 
from the South to the Northeast, Midwest, and West, in 
a movement known as the ‘‘Great Migration’’; 
Whereas the relocation of formerly enslaved people and their 
descendants also included unfavorable, and at times un-
just, interactions with law enforcement that often re-
sulted in imprisonment and convict leasing; 
Whereas convict leasing, also known as slavery by another 
name, was a system that allowed prisons to lease impris-
oned people to private entities, often corporations and 
plantations; 
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Whereas the remains of 95 persons, thought to be of African 
ancestry, who were subjected to the convict leasing sys-
tem in the State of Texas, were discovered in 2018 at the 
construction site of the James Reese Career and Tech-
nical Center of the Fort Bend Independent School Dis-
trict in Sugar Land, Texas; 
Whereas, while slavery was abolished, descendants of the 
enslaved continue to live with the effects of the progeny 
of slavery: Jim Crow, mass lynching, segregation, police 
brutality, mass incarceration, and institutionalized rac-
ism; and 
Whereas, despite the horrors of slavery and against all odds, 
enslaved people became thought leaders and revolution-
aries and changed the course of American history: Now, 
therefore, be it 
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives
of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This resolution may be cited as the ‘‘Original Slavery 
Remembrance Day Resolution’’. 
SEC. 2. SLAVERY REMEMBRANCE DAY. 
That the House of Representatives and the Senate— 
(1) designate a ‘‘Slavery Remembrance Day’’ 
annually to serve as a reminder of the evils of slav-
ery; 
(2) condemn slavery and its evil progenies; 
(3) encourage all to acknowledge the impor-
tance of slavery remembrance; and 
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