[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 130 (Monday, July 26, 2021)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E808-E810]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  URGENT NEED TO PASS H.R. 40 ESTABLISHING A COMMISSION TO STUDY AND 
           DEVELOP REPARATION PROPOSALS FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, July 26, 2021

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I rise to speak on the importance of 
passing H.R. 40, legislation which I introduced that establishes a 
commission to study and develop reparation proposals for African 
Americans.
  Now--more than ever--the facts and circumstances facing our Nation 
demonstrate the importance of H.R. 40 and the necessity of placing our 
nation on the path to reparative justice. As I speak, H.R. 40 is 
cosponsored by 191 Members from all parts of the nation and was marked 
up and reported favorably to the House by the Judiciary Committee on 
April 14, 2021. In 2019, when the Judiciary Committee met to discuss 
this legislation, three overflow rooms were required. Since that time, 
we have seen a pandemic sweep the country, taking more than 600,000 
souls in its wake and devastating the African American community. 
According to the latest estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease 
Control, Black people get COVID-19 at a rate nearly one and a half 
times higher than that of white people, are hospitalized at a rate 
nearly four times higher, and are three times as likely to die from the 
disease.
  Interestingly, a recent peer-reviewed study from Harvard Medical 
School suggests that reparations for African Americans could have cut 
COVID-19 transmission and infection rates both among Blacks and the 
population at large. Their analysis, based on Louisiana data, 
determined that if reparations payments had been made before the COVID-
19 pandemic, narrowing the wealth gap, COVID transmission rates in the 
state's overall population could have been reduced by anywhere from 31 
percent to 68 percent. Last summer we saw hundreds of thousands 
peacefully take to the streets in support of Black Lives and 
accountability for law enforcement. Many of those protesters carried 
signs in support of H.R. 40 and made the important link between 
policing and the movement for reparative justice. Tragically, we have 
also witnessed insurrectionists attack this institution, brandishing 
symbols of division and intolerance, that echo back to the darkest 
periods of our nation's history. Clearly, we require a reckoning to 
restore national balance and unity.
  Four hundred years ago, ships set sail from the west coast of Africa 
and in the process, began one of mankind's most inhumane practices: 
human bondage and slavery. For two centuries, human beings--full of 
hopes and fears, dreams and concerns, ambition, and anguish--were 
transported onto ships like chattel, and the lives of many forever 
changed. The reverberations from this horrific series of acts--a 
transatlantic slave trade that touched the shores of a colony that came 
to be known as America, and later a democratic republic known as the 
United States of America--are unknown and worthy of exploration.
  Approximately 4,000,000 Africans and their descendants were enslaved 
in the United States and colonies that became the United States from 
1619 to 1865. The institution of slavery was constitutionally and 
statutorily sanctioned by the Government of the United States from 1789 
through 1865. American Slavery is our country's Original Sin and its 
existence at the birth of our nation is a permanent scar on our 
country's founding documents, and on the venerated authors of those 
documents, and it is a legacy that continued well into the last 
century. The framework for our country and the document to which we all 
take an oath describes African Americans as three-fifths a person. The 
infamous Dred Scott decision of the United States Supreme Court, issued 
just a few decades later, described slaves as private property, 
unworthy of citizenship. And, a civil war that produced the largest 
death toll of American fighters in any conflict in our history could 
not prevent the indignities of Jim Crow, the fire hose at lunch 
counters and the systemic and institutional discrimination that would 
follow for a century after the end of the Civil War.
  The mythology built around the Civil War has obscured our discussions 
of the impact of chattel slavery and made it difficult to have a 
national dialogue on how to fully account for its place in American 
history and public policy. While it is nearly impossible to determine 
how the lives touched by slavery could have flourished in the absence 
of bondage, we have certain datum that permits us to examine how a 
subset of Americans--African Americans--have been affected by the 
callousness of involuntary servitude. We know that in almost every 
segment of society--education, healthcare, jobs, and wealth--the 
inequities that persist in America are more acutely and 
disproportionately felt in Black America. This historic discrimination 
continues: African-Americans continue to suffer debilitating economic, 
educational, and health hardships including but not limited to having 
nearly 1,000,000 black people incarcerated; an unemployment rate more 
than twice the current white unemployment rate; and an average of less 
than \1/16\ of the wealth of white families, a disparity which has 
worsened, not improved over time. A closer look at the statistics 
reveals the stark disparity in these areas.
  Black household wealth is less than one fifth of the national 
average. The median black household had a net worth of just $17,600 in 
2016. Yet in that same year, the median white household held $171,000 
in wealth while the national household median was $97,300. The black 
unemployment rate is 6.6 percent, more than double the national 
unemployment rate. Approximately 31 percent of black children live in 
poverty, compared to 11 percent of white children. The national average 
is 18 percent, which suggests that the percentage of black children 
living in poverty is more than 150 percent of the national average.
  In the healthcare domain, the disparities suffered by African 
Americans is also troubling. Over 20 percent of African Americans do 
not have health insurance, compared to a national average between 8.8 
percent and 9.1 percent. One in four African American women are 
uninsured. Compared to the national average, African American adults 
are 20 percent more likely to suffer from asthma and three times more 
likely to die from it. Black adults are 72 percent more likely to 
suffer from diabetes than average. Black women are four times more 
likely to die from pregnancy related causes, such as embolisms, and 
pregnancy-related hypertension, than any other racial group. In our 
nation, among children aged 19-35 months, black children were 
vaccinated at rates lower than white children: 68 percent versus 78 
percent, respectively.
  Education has often been called the key to unlocking social mobility. 
African American students are less likely than white students to have 
access to college-ready courses. In fact, in 2011-12, only 57 percent 
of black students have access to a full range of math and science 
courses necessary for college readiness, compared to with 81 percent of 
Asian American students and 71 percent of white students. Black 
students spend less time in the classroom due to discipline, which 
further hinders their access to a quality education. Black students are 
nearly two times as likely to be suspended without educational services 
as white students. Black students are also 3.8 times as likely to 
receive one or more out-of-school suspensions as white students.

[[Page E809]]

  In addition, black children represent 19 percent of the nation's pre-
school population, yet 47 percent of those receiving more than one out-
of-school suspension. In comparison, white students represent 41 
percent of pre-school enrollment but only 28 percent of those receiving 
more than one out-of-school suspension. Even more troubling, black 
students are 2.3 times as likely to receive a referral to law 
enforcement or be subject to a school-related arrest as white students. 
School districts with the most students of color, on average, receive 
15 percent less per student in state and local funding than the whitest 
districts.
  And, of course, we cannot consider the disparities between black and 
white in America without considering the intersection of African 
Americans and the Criminal Justice system. There are more Black men in 
bondage today who are incarcerated or under correctional control, than 
there were black men who were enslaved in the 1800s. The United States 
locks up African American males at a rate 5.8 times higher than the 
most openly racist country in the world ever did: South Africa under 
apartheid (1993), African American males: 851 per 100,000 and United 
States (2006), African American males: 4,789 per 100,000

  Incarceration is not an equal opportunity punishment. For example, 
incarceration rates in the United States by race were: African 
Americans: 2,468 per 100,000; Latinos: 1,038 per 100,000; Whites: 409 
per 100,000. African American offenders receive sentences that are 10 
percent longer than white offenders for the same crimes and are 21 
percent more likely to receive mandatory-minimum sentences than white 
defendants according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
  Looking at males aged 25-29 and by race, you can see what is going on 
even clearer: For White males ages 25-29: 1,685 per 100,000; For Latino 
males ages 25-29: 3,912 per 100,000; For African American males ages 
25-29: 11,695 per 100,000. (That's 11.7 percent of Black men in their 
late 20s.) Looking at males aged 25-29 and by race, you can see what is 
going on even clearer: For white males ages 25-29: 1,685 per 100,000; 
For Latino males ages 25-29: 3,912 per 100,000; for African American 
males ages 25-29: 11,695 per 100,000. (That's 11.7 percent of Black men 
in their late 20s.)
  And African Americans are more likely to be victims of crimes. Black 
children die from firearm homicides at a rate 10 times higher than 
their white counterparts. Overall, one in 50 murders is ruled 
justified--but when the killer is white and the victim is a black man, 
the figure climbs to one in six. A handgun homicide is nine times more 
likely to be found justified when the killer is white and the victim is 
a black man. Handgun killings with a white shooter and a black male 
victim exhibit an even more dramatic bias: one in four is found 
justified. But then again, we knew these inequities existed because for 
many Black Americans, these disparities are just a part of daily life. 
Examined in the aggregate, they represent a stunning chasm between the 
destinies of White America and that of Black America. This is why, in 
1989, my predecessor as the most senior African American on this august 
Judiciary Committee, the honorable John Conyers, a past Chairman of 
this Committee introduced H.R. 40, legislation that would establish a 
commission to study and develop proposals attendant to reparations.
  Though many thought it a lost cause, John Conyers believed that a day 
would come when our nation would need to account for the brutal 
mistreatment of African-Americans during chattel slavery, Jim Crow 
segregation and the enduring structural racism endemic to our society. 
I would like to take this moment to personally thank the estimable John 
Conyers for his work on this legislation for the last thirty years. 
With the rise and normalization of white supremacist expression during 
the Trump administration, the discussion of H.R. 40 and the concept of 
restorative justice have gained more urgency, garnering the attention 
of mainstream commentator, and illustrating the need for a national 
reckoning. H.R. 40 is intended to create the framework for a national 
discussion on the enduring impact of slavery and its complex legacy to 
begin that necessary process of atonement.
  For many, it was not until The Atlantic published Ta-Nehisi Coates' 
The Case for Reparations that the mainstream public began to reckon 
with, or even consider, the concept of reparations. Though the Federal 
government has been slow to engage the issue of reparations, 
individuals, corporations, and other public institutions have engaged 
the discussion out of both necessity and conscience. In 1994, a group 
of California plaintiffs sued the Federal government and by 2002, nine 
lawsuits were filed around the country by the Restitution Study Group. 
Though litigation has yielded only mixed success in court, a serious 
foundation was laid for alternative forms of restitution. For example, 
in 2005, J.P. Morgan & Company tried to make amends for its role in the 
slave trade with an apology and a $5 million, five-year scholarship 
fund for Black undergraduates in Louisiana.
  In 2008, the Episcopal Church apologized for perpetuating American 
slavery through its interpretation of the Bible and certain diocese 
have implemented restitution programs. In 2003, Brown University 
created the Committee on Slavery and Justice to assess the University's 
role in slavery and determine a response. Similarly, in 2016, 
Georgetown University apologized for its historical links to slavery 
and said it would give an admissions edge to descendants of slaves 
whose sale in the 19th century helped pay off the U.S. school's debts. 
In 2017, my alma mater, Yale University, announced that it would rename 
Calhoun College--named for John C. Calhoun--would be changed to honor 
Grace Murray Hopper, a trailblazing computer scientist who also served 
as rear admiral in the United States Navy. The University's president, 
Peter Salovey, indicated that removing Calhoun's name was consistent 
with its values because Calhoun had a legacy of a white supremacist and 
a national leader who passionately promoted slavery as a positive good. 
And, in April of this year, students at Georgetown University voted in 
favor of paying reparations to the descendants of enslaved people who 
were sold by the university to satisfy its debts.
  In 1838, in a practice likely far wider spread than is likely 
accounted for, Georgetown Jesuits sold 272 slaves who worked on 
plantations. When the results of the Georgetown poll were announced, 
the numbers were overwhelming: \2/3\ of students indicated that 
payments should be funded to descendants of these slaves and would be 
paid for by a fee that would apply to all undergraduate students. While 
the vote was nonbinding, it nonetheless represents the first time the 
student body of a university has voted to implement a mandatory fee to 
account for reparations. These are only a few examples of how private 
institution have begun reckoning with their past records. I expect that 
a growing number of institutions will be forced to examine their 
histories of discrimination, if for no other reason than increasing 
public scrutiny will force their history to light.
  Since my reintroduction of H.R. 40 at the beginning of this Congress, 
both the legislation and concept of reparations have become the focus 
of national debate. For many, it is apparent that the success of the 
Obama administration has unleashed a backlash of racism and intolerance 
that is an echo of America's dark past which has yet to be exorcised 
from the national consciousness. Commentators have turned to H.R. 40 as 
a response to formally begin the process of analyzing, confronting, and 
atoning for these dark chapters of American history. Even conservative 
voices, like that of New York Times columnist David Brooks, are 
starting to give the reparations cause the hearing it deserves, 
observing that ``Reparations are a drastic policy and hard to execute, 
but the very act of talking and designing them heals a wound and opens 
a new story.''
  Similarly, a majority of the Democratic presidential contenders have 
turned to H.R 40 as a tool for reconciliation, with 17 cosponsoring or 
claiming they would sign the bill into law if elected. Though critics 
have argued that the idea of reparations is unworkable politically or 
financially, their focus on money misses the point of the H.R. 40 
commission's mandate. The goal of these historical investigations is to 
bring American society to a new reckoning with how our past affects the 
current conditions of African Americans and to make America a better 
place by helping the truly disadvantaged. Consequently, the reparations 
movement does not focus on payments to individuals, but to remedies 
that can be created in as many forms necessary to equitably address the 
many kinds of injuries sustained from chattel slavery and its 
continuing vestiges. To merely focus on finance is an empty gesture and 
betrays a lack of understanding of the depth of the unaddressed moral 
issues that continue to haunt this nation.
  While it might be convenient to assume that we can address the 
current divisive racial and political climate in our nation through 
race neutral means, experience shows that we have not escaped our 
history. Though the Civil Rights Movement challenged many of the most 
racist practices and structures that subjugated the African American 
community, it was not followed by a commitment to truth and 
reconciliation. For that reason, the legacy of racial inequality has 
persisted, and left the nation vulnerable to a range of problems that 
continue to yield division, racial disparities, and injustice. By 
passing H.R. 40, Congress can start a movement toward the national 
reckoning we need to bridge racial divides. Reparations are ultimately 
about respect and reconciliation--and the hope that one day, all 
Americans can walk together toward a more just future.
  We owe it to those who were ripped from their homes those many years 
ago an ocean away; we owe it to the millions of Americans- yes, they 
were Americans--who were born into bondage, knew a life of servitude, 
and

[[Page E810]]

died anonymous deaths, as prisoners of this system. We owe it to the 
millions of descendants of these slaves, for they are the heirs to a 
society of inequities and indignities that naturally filled the vacuum 
after slavery was formally abolished 154 years ago. The Judiciary 
Committee hearing held in the 116th Congress was the first time in 
history that the House of Representatives held a hearing on H.R. 40, we 
held another earlier this year on February 17, 2021, before marking up 
this landmark legislation on April 14, 2021. It was fitting that the 
first hearing occurred on the 19th of June, also known to many in this 
room, as Juneteenth--the day that, 154 years ago, General Gordon 
Granger rode into Galveston, Texas and announced the freedom of the 
last American slaves; belatedly freeing 250,000 slaves in Texas nearly 
two and a half years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation 
Proclamation.
  Juneteenth was first celebrated in the Texas state capital in 1867 
under the direction of the Freedmen's Bureau. Juneteenth was and is a 
living symbol of freedom for people who did not have it. Today, 
Juneteenth now is both the oldest known celebration of slavery's demise 
and the nation's newest national holiday. It commemorates freedom while 
acknowledging the sacrifices and contributions made by courageous 
African Americans towards making our great nation the more conscious 
and accepting country that it has become. Let me end by noting that the 
recently passed 400th commemoration of the 1619 arrival of the first 
captive Africans in English North America, at Point Comfort, Virginia. 
With those dates as an historical marker for today's hearing, let us 
proceed to the work of repair with free hands, full hearts, and a 
passion for achieving justice. Let us also do the work in the spirit of 
reconciliation and understanding that H.R. 40 represents.

                          ____________________