[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 178 (Thursday, November 17, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H8551-H8554]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
RECONCILIATION AND RESTORATION
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from
Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) for 5 minutes.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I rise this morning to engage in a
limited, but hopefully important, discussion about America's history
and to encourage my colleagues for collaboration. It is in reference to
H.R. 40, the Commission to Study Slavery and Develop Reparation
Proposals.
I stand on the perspective of how important it is for us to engage in
dialogue. We are hearing across America that Americans are frightened
about the discussion of our differences.
This land was first held by the indigenous people, Native Americans.
Every other group came to America, whether or not you are of European
heritage, Hispanic heritage, Asian-Pacific, Southeast Asian, or whether
you are African heritage. As a descendant of enslaved Africans, we are
the only group that came as slaves to this country and held in bondage
for over 200 years.
You have not seen African Americans refuse their patriotism, refuse
to serve. We have served in every war since the Revolutionary War.
You have never seen African Americans refuse to shed blood for the
freedom of this country or to wear the uniform.
You have not seen us shy away from serving as firefighters and law
enforcement, teachers, businesspersons, social justice leaders, such as
Dr. King, John Lewis, and, yes, Malcolm X.
You have not seen us, as women--Rosa Parks, Sojourner Truth, Harriet
Tubman, Coretta Scott King--stand away from the fight. We have embraced
freedom, justice, and equality.
You did not see us attack this most solid and somber institution,
sacred, on January 6, 2021. We were not the masses that were trying to
undermine democracy. In fact, in this last election, I stood on the
premise of defending democracy, and I take no back seat to my love of
this Nation.
And so I ask my colleagues, why do you in any way doubt the value and
importance of H.R. 40? The purpose is to acknowledge the fundamental
injustice and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and to
establish a commission to study and consider a national apology and
proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery.
It was based on the premise of racism. There was, in fact, no
compensation, no life insurance, no salaries. Slaves were born, lived,
and died in slavery, never seeing freedom. They worked from sunup and
beyond, and they worked until they fell dead in the fields.
They built this Nation. They built the United States Capitol. They
built the White House. They, in fact, created an economic engine by
making cotton king, and they created an economic engine by this
transatlantic slave trade.
The traders decided to stop trading spices and gold and to use the
human beings that they marched for 300 miles to weaken the slaves so
they would not have a fight before getting on those ships. Many dropped
into the watery grave before they got on. Many died in the dark
passage.
But yet, here we are today.
And so this is not pointing the finger. This is not accusatory. This
is, in fact, a reconciliation. I insist that we establish this
commission, and we must establish it by a vote or establish it by
executive order.
Reverend Mark Thompson, a political activist for social justice,
said: If we were granted H.R. 40 by executive order, it would be
America once and for all saying Black lives actually do matter and this
Nation must be repaired. It is restoration and repair, but it stands on
the basis of facts. There is no doubt that we have been impacted, that
DNA in the trajectory of slavery to today.
For example, COVID, Black African Americans got COVID at a rate
nearly 1\1/2\ times higher than that of White people, were hospitalized
at a rate nearly 4 times higher, and 3 times more likely to die. COVID
hit us very desperately.
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. Reparations are curative, they are not punishment.
The analysis continued to look at data throughout the Nation.
And so as we move in this lame duck session, it is important that we
come together for reconciliation, restoration, and provide the
Commission to Study Slavery and to Develop Reparation Proposals.
I thank my colleagues for their support, and I believe together we
make America strong, America free, America just, and America equal.
Madam Speaker, I am proud to have authored H.R. 40, legislation that
establishes a commission to study and develop reparation proposals for
African Americans. Congress must pass this bill to begin the process
toward reconciliation with the Black community. I have also called upon
President Biden to create the H.R. 40 Commission by Executive Order.
The purpose of H.R. 40 is to acknowledge the fundamental injustice
and inhumanity of slavery in the U.S. and to establish a commission to
study and consider a national apology and proposal for reparations for
the institution of slavery, its subsequent racial and economic
discrimination against African Americans, and the impact of these
forces on living African Americans. The Commission is also charged to
make recommendations to Congress on appropriate remedies.
Now--more than ever--the timing is ripe for the enactment of H.R. 40.
We have a President in the White House who has expressed his undeniable
support and we urge President Biden to institute this executive order.
My Democratic colleagues in the 117th Congress and I have made
historic strides in advancing H.R. 40 since it was first introduced in
1989 by the late Michigan Congressman Rep John Conyers. H.R. 40
garnered more support over the past 33 years; it has approximately 200
co-sponsors, including 25 U.S. senators. Also, it is supported by over
300 organizations and allies, including the National Conference of
Mayors.
One of my top priorities for this lame duck session of Congress in
November and December, regardless of who controls Congress, is to have
H.R. 40 pass the House of Representatives because. This will send a
message of broad support to President Biden and strengthen our hand in
urging him to create the Commission to Study and Develop Reparations
Proposals through Executive Order.
Reparations are overdue. Our entire country needs reparations, to
allow us to move forward as an untied society.
The concept of reparations is a well-established principle of
international law, defined as the act or process of repairing or
restoring.
It is payment for an injury; redress for a wrong done. In the context
of Black people in
[[Page H8552]]
North America, the concept of reparations essentially constitutes four
elements:
1) the formal acknowledgment of an historical wrong;
2) the recognition that there is a continuing injury;
3) the commitment to redress by the federal government which
sanctioned the enslavement and subsequent discrimination; and
4) the actual compensation in whatever form or forms that are agreed
upon.
The reparations movement does not focus on payments to individuals.
The harms under discussion from the legacy of slavery and racial
discrimination are seen in well-documented racial disparities in access
to education, health care, housing, insurance, employment and other
social goods.
Reparations settlements can be created in as many forms as necessary
to equitably address the many forms of injury sustained from chattel
slavery and its continuing vestiges.
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.
Reverend Mark Thompson, a political activist for social justice
remarked ``If we were granted H.R. 40 by executive order, it would be
America once and for all saying Black lives actually do matter, and
this nation must be repaired.'' I along with many others share in the
same sentiment.
The impact of the pandemic changed the nature of the conversation.
COVID has devastated 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.
In 2019, we have also seen 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 insurrectionist 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.
H.R. 40 follows the successful model of the reparations campaign for
Japanese-Americans interned during WWII. The campaign began with a 1980
congressional bill establishing a commission to investigate the
internment, evaluate and consider the amount and form reparations would
take, and make recommendations to the Congress for remedy. Based on the
Commission's findings, President Reagan signed into law the Civil
Liberties Act of 1988.
In short, H.R. 40 is not about direct payments to individuals. The
legislation creates the framework for a national discussion on the
enduring legacy of slavery, and the complex web of
discriminatory conduct sanctioned by the Federal government well into
the 20th century, to begin the necessary process of atonement and
recovery.
Assessing the quantifiable amount owed to Black citizens due to
generational racism and injustice should be left in a commission's
hands.
H.R. 40 seeks to establish a national commission to examine the
lasting economic effects of slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and racially
discriminatory federal policies on income, wealth, educational, health,
and employment outcomes; to pursue truth and promote racial healing;
and to study reparations.
The committee should comprise of appointed members (seen in section
4) and pioneers in the field of reparatory justice.
I also support President Eiden in creating a reparations committee
through executive action.
Given the political limitations of moving legislation in the Senate,
an executive order is the only practical method for establishing an
H.R. 40 commission.
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 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.
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In addition, black children represent 19 percent of the nation's
preschool 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.
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
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
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.
The designation of this legislation as H.R. 40 is intended to
memorialize the promise made by General William T. Sherman, in his 1865
Special Field Order No. 15, to redistribute 400,000 acres of formerly
Confederate owned coastal land in South Carolina and Florida,
subdivided into 40 acre plots.
In addition to the more well-known land redistribution, the Order
also established autonomous governance for the region and provided for
protection by military authorities of the settlements.
Though Southern sympathizer and former slaveholder President Andrew
Johnson would later overturn the Order, this plan represented the first
systematic form of Freedmen reparations.
Since its introduction, H.R. 40 has acted to spur some governmental
acknowledgement of the sin of slavery, but most often the response has
taken the form of an apology.
However, even the well intentioned commitments to examine the
historical and modern day implications of slavery by the Clinton
administration fell short of the mark and failed to inspire substantive
pubic discourse.
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 brought suit against 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 roth 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 in order 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.
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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.
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 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.
Let us also do with the spirit of reconciliation and understanding
that this bill represents.
Finally, if we truly want to build better, brighter future, we can't
do it on a rotten foundation. Therefore, for the house that is America,
we must repair the damage caused by the original crime that separates
us. A house divided against itself cannot stand.
The H.R. 40 Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for
African Americans must be created by executive order. Today we call on
President Biden to right this historical wrong and take a monumental
step towards reparative justice.
____________________