H. Res. 517 
In the House of Representatives, U. S., 
July 27, 2022. 
Whereas this resolution may be cited as the ‘‘Original Slavery 
Remembrance Day Resolution of 2021’’; 
Whereas the House of Representatives recognizes August 20, 
2021, as ‘‘Slavery Remembrance Day’’ and commemo-
rates the lives of all enslaved people while also con-
demning 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, Alanzo 
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
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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, Roberts 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, Herney Plum-
mer Cheatham (NC–02), Member of Congress from 1889 
to 1893, John Mercer Langston (VA–04), Member of 
Congress from 1890 to 1891, Thomas Ezekiel Miller, 
Member of Congress from 1890 to 1891, George Wash-
ington 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 the House of Representatives recognizes August 20, 
2021, as ‘‘Slavery Remembrance Day’’ and commemo-
rates the lives of all enslaved people while also con-
demning the act and perpetuation of slavery in the 
United States of America and across the world; 
Whereas African tribal chiefs captured, enslaved, and sold 
their 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;
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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 indi-
viduals 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 
those who embarked did not survive the voyage; 
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 one or more 
family members; 
Whereas it is estimated that approximately one third of 
enslaved children in the upper South States of Maryland
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and Virginia experienced family separation in one of 
three possible scenarios: sale away from parents, sale 
with mother away from father, or sale of mother or fa-
ther 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 his fellow enslaved people, devel-
oping a loyal following; 
Whereas Turner began planning a revolt with a few trusted 
fellow enslaved men from neighboring plantations; 
Whereas Turner’s rebellion began in August 1831, quickly 
growing from a small handful of enslaved individuals 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 
three 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 ex-
ecuted 56 Black people, with at least 100 more killed by 
militias through extrajudicial violence;
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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 individ-
uals who helped around 100,000 slaves escape 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; 
Whereas individuals running 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, causing her narco-
leptic episodes and migraines throughout her life; 
Whereas Ms. Tubman escaped from slavery along the Under-
ground Railroad, a 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 persons, including much of her 
family, for which she would be given the name ‘‘Moses’’;
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Whereas Ms. Tubman deftly led those she saved North dur-
ing the fall and winter when their would-be captors 
stayed 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 as well as a hospital in the name of for-
merly enslaved people while participating in the women’s 
suffrage movement; 
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 two more sons in the 
fighting; 
Whereas the 13th Amendment was passed by Congress on 
January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, 
and provides that ‘‘Neither slavery nor involuntary ser-
vitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the