IV 
118TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. CON. RES. 44 
Urging the establishment of a United States Commission on Truth, Racial 
Healing, and Transformation. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MAY 17, 2023 
Ms. LEE of California (for herself and Ms. BUSH) 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 facili-
tated 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; 
Whereas the institution of chattel slavery in the United 
States subjugated African Americans for nearly 250 
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•HCON 44 IH 
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 oppressions 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, vot-
ing 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 contribu-
tions that African Americans and other people of color 
would make in science, arts, commerce, and public serv-
ice; 
Whereas Reconstruction represented a significant but con-
strained moment of advances for Black rights as epito-
mized by the Freedman’s Bureau, which negotiated labor 
contracts for ex-enslaved people but failed to secure their 
own land for them; 
Whereas the brutal overthrow of Reconstruction failed all in-
dividuals 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 
the socioeconomic mobility and political voice of freed 
Blacks, thus maintaining their subservience to Whites; 
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•HCON 44 IH 
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 Administra-
tion, 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 two 
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 al-
lowed 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 Ameri-
cans had occupied for millennia; 
(7) Federal Indian Boarding School Policy during 
the 19th and 20th centuries, the purpose of which was 
to ‘‘civilize’’ Native children through methods intended to 
eradicate Native cultures, traditions, and languages; 
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•HCON 44 IH 
(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 two-thirds 
of that acreage was guaranteed to Indian Tribes by trea-
ties 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, fi-
nancial 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 immigra-
tion from China and barred Chinese immigrants from be-
coming 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 
to the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans begin-
ning in 1942; 
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•HCON 44 IH 
(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 Ha-
waiian people of Hawaii; and 
(15) the United States history of colonialism in the 
Pacific, which has resulted in economic, health, and edu-
cational 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 Ameri-
cans and other people of color from building wealth, thus 
limiting potential 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 dispari-
ties in incarceration rates; 
Whereas United States civic leaders and foundations have 
spearheaded critical efforts to advance racial healing, un-
derstanding, and transformation within the United 
States, recognizing that it is in our collective national in-
terest to urgently address the unhealed, entrenched divi-
sions 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 
by the involvement, support, and dedication of individuals 
from any and all racial groups; 
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•HCON 44 IH 
Whereas, at the same time, much of the progress toward ra-
cial healing and racial equity in the United States has 
been limited or reversed by our failure to address the 
root cause of racism, the belief in the myth of a hierarchy 
of human value based on superficial physical characteris-
tics 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 de-
cent life; 
Whereas the consequences of oppression against people of 
color have cascaded for centuries, across generations, be-
yond the era of active enslavement, imperiling for de-
scendants 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 histor-
ical injustice and its aftermath through forming truth 
and reconciliation commissions to move toward restora-
tive justice and to return dignity to their citizens; 
Whereas for three decades there has been a growing move-
ment 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 de-
scribed in H.R. 40, 118th Congress, as introduced on 
January 9, 2023, and S. 40, 118th Congress, as intro-
duced on January 24, 2023; 
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•HCON 44 IH 
Whereas the formation of a United States Commission on 
Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation does not sup-
plant the formation of a Commission to Study and De-
velop 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 so-
cial 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 
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate 
concurring), That Congress— 
(1) affirms, more than 400 years after the ar-
rival of the first slave ship to the United States, that 
the Nation owes a long-overdue debt of remem-
brance to not only those who lived through the egre-
gious injustices enumerated in this resolution, but 
also to their descendants; and 
(2) urges the establishment of a United States 
Commission on Truth, Racial Healing, and Trans-
formation to properly acknowledge, memorialize, and 
be a catalyst for progress toward— 
(A) jettisoning the belief in a hierarchy of 
human value; 
(B) embracing our common humanity; and 
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•HCON 44 IH 
(C) permanently eliminating persistent ra-
cial inequities. 
Æ 
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