[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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