IV 
116TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. CON. RES. 100 
Urging the establishment of a United States Commission on Truth, Racial 
Healing, and Transformation. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JUNE 4, 2020 
Ms. LEE of California (for herself, Ms. NORTON, Ms. MOORE, Mr. HASTINGS, 
Mr. ESPAILLAT, Ms. CLARKE of New York, Mr. BROWN of Maryland, 
Ms. TLAIB, Ms. BASS, Mr. GARCI´A of Illinois, Mr. MCGOVERN, Ms. 
OMAR, Ms. FUDGE, Ms. JAYAPAL, Ms. BARRAGA´N, Mr. THOMPSON of 
Mississippi, Ms. BLUNT ROCHESTER, Ms. MENG, Mr. BLUMENAUER, 
Mrs. HAYES, Mr. TRONE, Mr. KHANNA, Mr. LOWENTHAL, Mrs. CARO-
LYN B. MALONEY of New York, Ms. SA´NCHEZ, Mr. CONNOLLY, Ms. 
HAALAND, Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN, Mr. LEWIS, Mr. SCOTT of Virginia, 
Ms. JACKSON LEE, Ms. CLARK of Massachusetts, Mr. DESAULNIER, Ms. 
SEWELL of Alabama, Mr. BISHOP of Georgia, Ms. PRESSLEY, Mr. 
RASKIN, Mr. SARBANES, Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ, Mr. MEEKS, Mr. PAYNE, 
Mr. RUSH, Mr. COX of California, Ms. PINGREE, Mr. MCNERNEY, Mr. 
COHEN, Mr. SMITH of Washington, Mrs. BEATTY, Mr. CARSON of Indi-
ana, Mr. HORSFORD, Mr. CASTEN of Illinois, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Mr. 
COOPER, Mrs. LOWEY, Mr. CASTRO of Texas, Ms. ADAMS, Mr. KEN-
NEDY, Ms. DAVIDS
of Kansas, Mr. RUIZ, Ms. VELA´ZQUEZ, Mr. 
BUTTERFIELD, Mr. RICHMOND, Mrs. TRAHAN, Mr. PALLONE, Mr. 
ENGEL, Mr. GRIJALVA, Mr. EVANS, Mr. TAKANO, Mr. SERRANO, Mr. 
VELA, Ms. SPEIER, Ms. ESCOBAR, Mr. GALLEGO, Mrs. NAPOLITANO, Mr. 
CA´RDENAS, Mr. PANETTA, Mr. TED LIEU of California, Mr. SIRES, Mrs. 
LURIA, Mr. NEGUSE, Mrs. DINGELL, Mr. SEAN PATRICK MALONEY of 
New York, Mr. MCEACHIN, Ms. WILSON of Florida, Ms. KELLY of Illi-
nois, Mr. LAMB, Mr. RYAN, Mr. LEVIN of Michigan, Ms. BONAMICI, Mr. 
WELCH, Mr. VARGAS, Mr. PRICE of North Carolina, Mr. CRIST, Ms. 
LOFGREN, Mr. KEATING, Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Mr. SABLAN, Mr. 
CLAY, Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD, Mr. THOMPSON of California, Ms. ESHOO, 
Ms. JUDY CHU of California, Ms. DEGETTE, Mrs. KIRKPATRICK, Mr. 
JOHNSON
of 
Georgia, 
Mr. 
SWALWELL
of 
California, 
Mr. 
KRISHNAMOORTHI, Mr. NEAL, Mr. AGUILAR, Mr. SHERMAN, Mr. POCAN, 
Mr. CICILLINE, and Mr. SUOZZI) submitted the following concurrent reso-
lution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary 
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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 this event 400 years ago was significant not only be-
cause it ushered in the institution of chattel slavery of 
African Americans, but also because it facilitated the sys-
tematic oppression of all people of color that has been a 
devastating and insufficiently understood and acknowl-
edged aspect of our history over these past 400 years, 
and that has left a legacy of this oppression that haunts 
us to this day; 
Whereas the institution of American chattel slavery sub-
jugated African Americans for nearly 250 years, frac-
tured our Nation, and made a mockery of its founding 
principle that ‘‘all men are created equal’’; 
Whereas our Constitution failed to end slavery and oppres-
sions against African Americans and other people of 
color, thus embedding in our society the belief in the 
myth of a hierarchy of human value based on superficial 
physical characteristics such as skin color and facial fea-
tures, and resulting in purposeful and persistent racial 
and gender inequities in education, health care, employ-
ment, Social Security and veteran benefits, land owner-
ship, financial assistance, food security, wages, voting 
rights, and the justice system; 
Whereas these oppressions denied opportunity and mobility to 
African Americans and other people of color within the 
United States, resulting in stolen labor worth billions of 
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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 them 
their own land; 
Whereas the brutal overthrow of Reconstruction failed all 
Americans by failing to ensure the safety and security of 
African Americans and by emboldening States and mu-
nicipalities in both the North and South to enact numer-
ous laws and policies to stymie 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 
these efforts transitory and unsustainable, and further 
embedding the racial hierarchy in our society; 
Whereas examples of government actions directed against 
populations of color 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; 
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(3) the GI bill, which left administration of its pro-
grams to the States, thus enabling blatant discrimination 
against African American GIs; 
(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 they had oc-
cupied 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; 
(8) land policies toward Indian Tribes, such as the 
allotment policy, which caused the loss of over 90 million 
acres of Tribal lands, two-thirds of which were guaran-
teed to Tribes by treaties and other Federal laws, and 
similar unjustified land grabs from Tribes that occurred 
regionally throughout the late 1800s and into the Termi-
nation 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 them to fight continuously for equal ac-
cess to employment, housing, health, financial services, 
and education; 
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(12) the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which effec-
tively 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 
to the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans begin-
ning 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 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 it has treaty obligations; 
Whereas these governmental actions, among other govern-
ment policies that have had racially disparate impacts, 
have disproportionately barred African Americans and 
other people of color from building wealth, thus limiting 
potential capital and exacerbating the racial wealth gap; 
Whereas research has shown that this persistent wealth gap 
has had a significant negative impact on other racial dis-
parities, such as the achievement gap, school dropout 
rates, income gaps, home ownership rates, health out-
come disparities, and incarceration rates; 
Whereas American civic leaders and foundations have spear-
headed critical efforts to advance racial healing, under-
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standing, 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 
by the involvement, support, and dedication of individuals 
from any and all racial groups; 
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 American institution of slavery, as well as other 
examples enumerated in this resolution, represents inten-
tional and blatant violations of every American’s most 
basic right to a free and decent life; 
Whereas the consequences of these oppressions 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 every American’s right to life, liberty, and the pur-
suit 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 its citizens; and 
Whereas contemporary social science, medical science, and 
the rapidly expanding use of artificial intelligence and so-
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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 the Congress— 
(1) affirms on the 400th anniversary of the ar-
rival of the first slave ship, the United States long- 
overdue debt of remembrance to not only those who 
lived through the egregious injustices enumerated 
above, but also to their descendants; and 
(2) proposes a United States Commission on 
Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation to prop-
erly acknowledge, memorialize, and be a catalyst for 
progress toward jettisoning the belief in a hierarchy 
of human value, embracing our common humanity, 
and permanently eliminating persistent racial inequi-
ties. 
Æ 
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