IV 112th CONGRESS 1st Session H. RES. 41 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES January 19, 2011 Mr. Rush (for himself, Mr. Payne, Mr. Cohen, Ms. Lee of California, Mr. Towns, Mr. Hastings of Florida, Mr. Rangel, Ms. Brown of Florida, Mr. Butterfield, and Mr. Al Green of Texas) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs RESOLUTION Recognizing 2011 as the Year for People of African Descent.

Whereas, on December 18, 2009, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the year 2011 to be the International Year for People of African Descent; Whereas at least 11,000,000 Africans were brutally forced from their homelands and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean during the 400 years of the trans-Atlantic slave trade; Whereas the slave trade both relied on, and reinforced, systematic racism within the United States and other nations, and contributed to Africa’s impoverishment and destabilization; Whereas European colonization further entrenched the systematic and inequitable looting of Africa’s natural resources, the subjugation of its inhabitants, and the economic and political marginalization of Africans and people of African descent; Whereas Africa is the world’s poorest region, comprising only 2 percent of the global gross domestic product; Whereas Africa’s population surpassed 1,000,000,000 persons for the first time in 2009; Whereas significant populations of Africans and their descendants live in North America (40,800,000), South America (102,500,000), the Caribbean (22,700,000), Europe (9,300,000), the Middle East, and Asia; Whereas people of African descent living in the Diaspora often face racial discrimination, xenophobia, and intolerance, leading to widely documented disparities in access to education, justice, and economic opportunity; Whereas the African Diaspora is a vibrant and dynamic community that is also a potential lynchpin of Africa’s socioeconomic development, as exemplified by the estimated flow into Africa of $21,500,000,000 in 2010 from migrant African workers abroad; and Whereas Africans and people of African heritage have made significant contributions to global culture and the arts: Now, therefore, be it

That— (1)the House of Representatives supports the United Nations designation of the International Year for People of African Descent; and (2)it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States should— (A)strengthen bilateral, regional, and multilateral cooperation to promote the empowerment of people of African descent in relation to their social, educational, political, and economical rights; (B)make every possible effort to advance the diverse cultural traditions and heritage of people of African descent; and (C)strengthen its commitment to eradicate racism, undo the injustices of history, and celebrate the contributions of people of African descent across the political, social, and economic spectrum.