Title: Urging the establishment of a United States Commission on Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation.
Policy area: Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues

Summary:
This concurrent resolution (1) affirms, on the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first slave ship, the U.S. debt of remembrance not only to those who lived through the injustices of slavery but also to their descendants; and (2) proposes a U.S. Commission on Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation to properly acknowledge, memorialize, and be a catalyst for progress, including toward permanently eliminating persistent racial inequities.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Con. Res. 100 Introduced in House (IH)]

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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. Garcia of Illinois, Mr. McGovern, Ms. Omar, 
Ms. Fudge, Ms. Jayapal, Ms. Barragan, Mr. Thompson of Mississippi, Ms. 
 Blunt Rochester, Ms. Meng, Mr. Blumenauer, Mrs. Hayes, Mr. Trone, Mr. 
    Khanna, Mr. Lowenthal, Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney of New York, Ms. 
Sanchez, 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 Indiana, Mr. Horsford, 
  Mr. Casten of Illinois, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr. Cooper, Mrs. Lowey, Mr. 
  Castro of Texas, Ms. Adams, Mr. Kennedy, Ms. Davids of Kansas, Mr. 
 Ruiz, Ms. Velazquez, 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. 
  Cardenas, 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 Illinois, 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 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 this event 400 years ago was significant not only because it ushered in 
        the institution of chattel slavery of African Americans, but also 
        because it facilitated the systematic oppression of all people of color 
        that has been a devastating and insufficiently understood and 
        acknowledged 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 subjugated African Americans 
        for nearly 250 years, fractured our Nation, and made a mockery of its 
        founding principle that ``all men are created equal'';
Whereas our Constitution failed to end slavery and oppressions 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 features, and 
        resulting in purposeful and persistent racial and gender inequities in 
        education, health care, employment, Social Security and veteran 
        benefits, land ownership, 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 dollars while ultimately forestalling landmark 
        contributions that African Americans and other people of color would 
        make in science, arts, commerce, and public service;
Whereas Reconstruction represented a significant but constrained moment of 
        advances for Black rights as epitomized 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 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;
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 Administration, 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 GI bill, which left administration of its programs to the 
States, thus enabling blatant discrimination against African American GIs;

    (4) the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which allowed 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 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;

    (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 guaranteed 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 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 
them to fight continuously for equal access to employment, housing, health, 
financial services, and education;

    (12) the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which effectively 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 
beginning 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 Hawaiian people of Hawaii; and

    (15) the United States history of colonialism in the Pacific, which has 
resulted in economic, health, and educational 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 government 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 disparities, such as the achievement 
        gap, school dropout rates, income gaps, home ownership rates, health 
        outcome disparities, and incarceration rates;
Whereas American civic leaders and foundations have spearheaded critical efforts 
        to advance racial healing, understanding, 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 racial 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 characteristics 
        such as skin color and facial features;
Whereas the American institution of slavery, as well as other examples 
        enumerated in this resolution, represents intentional 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 pursuit 
        of happiness;
Whereas more than 40 countries have reckoned with historical injustice and its 
        aftermath through forming Truth and Reconciliation Commissions to move 
        toward restorative justice and to return dignity to its citizens; and
Whereas contemporary social science, medical science, and the rapidly expanding 
        use of artificial intelligence and social 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 arrival 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 properly 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 
        inequities.
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