[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 130 (Thursday, July 27, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3772-S3773]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 19--URGING THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A UNITED 
     STATES COMMISSION ON TRUTH, RACIAL HEALING, AND TRANSFORMATION

  Mr. BOOKER (for himself, Mr. Coons, Mr. Markey, Mr. Durbin, Mr. 
Padilla, Mr. Cardin, Ms. Warren, Mr. Merkley, Mr. Menendez, Mr. 
Whitehouse, and Ms. Duckworth) submitted the following concurrent 
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary:

                            S. Con. Res. 19

       Whereas the first ship carrying enslaved Africans to what 
     is now known as the United States of America arrived in 1619;
       Whereas that event more than 400 years ago was significant 
     not only because it ushered in the institution of chattel 
     slavery of

[[Page S3773]]

     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 Nation's history over those past 400-plus 
     years, and that has left a legacy of that oppression that 
     haunts our Nation to this day;
       Whereas the institution of chattel slavery in the United 
     States 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 the signing of the Constitution of the United 
     States failed to end slavery and oppression against African 
     Americans and other people of color, thus embedding in 
     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 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 that oppression 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 for them land of 
     their own;
       Whereas the brutal overthrow of Reconstruction failed all 
     individuals in the United States 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 those efforts transitory and 
     unsustainable, and further embedding the racial hierarchy in 
     society;
       Whereas examples of government actions directed against 
     populations of color (referred to in this resolution as 
     ``discriminatory government actions'') 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 2 decades;
       (3) the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 (commonly 
     known as the ``GI Bill of Rights''; 58 Stat. 284, chapter 
     268), which left administration of its programs to the 
     States, thus enabling blatant discrimination against African-
     American veterans;
       (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 Native Americans 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 90,000,000 
     acres of Tribal lands, even though \2/3\ of that acreage was 
     guaranteed to Indian Tribes by treaties and other Federal 
     laws, and similar unjustified land grabs from Indian 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 Latino Americans to fight continuously for equal 
     access to employment, housing, health care, financial 
     services, and education;
       (12) the Act entitled ``An Act to execute certain treaty 
     stipulations relating to Chinese'', approved May 6, 1882 
     (commonly known as the ``Chinese Exclusion Act''; 22 Stat. 
     58, chapter 126), 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 the United States has treaty obligations;
       Whereas those discriminatory government 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 
     capital and exacerbating the racial wealth gap;
       Whereas research has shown that the persistent racial 
     wealth gap has had a significant negative impact on other 
     racial disparities, such as the achievement gap, disparities 
     in school dropout rates, income gaps, disparities in home 
     ownership rates, health outcome disparities, and disparities 
     in incarceration rates;
       Whereas United States 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, which is 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 United States institution of slavery, as well 
     as other examples enumerated in this resolution, represents 
     intentional and blatant violations of the most basic right of 
     every individual in the United States to a free and decent 
     life;
       Whereas the consequences of oppression against people of 
     color 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 the right of every individual in the United 
     States 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 their citizens;
       Whereas for 3 decades there has been a growing movement 
     inside and outside Congress to have the Federal Government 
     develop material remedies for the institution of slavery, 
     including through a Commission to Study and Develop 
     Reparation Proposals for African Americans described in H.R. 
     40, 118th Congress, as introduced on January 9, 2023, and S. 
     40, 118th Congress, as introduced on January 24, 2023;
       Whereas the formation of a United States Commission on 
     Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation does not supplant 
     the formation of a Commission to Study and Develop Reparation 
     Proposals for African Americans, but rather complements that 
     effort; 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 Senate (the House of Representatives 
     concurring), That Congress--
       (1) affirms, more than 400 years after the arrival of the 
     first slave ship to the United States, that the Nation owes a 
     long-overdue debt of remembrance to not only those who lived 
     through the egregious injustices enumerated in this 
     resolution, but also to their descendants; and
       (2) urges the establishment of a United States Commission 
     on Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation to properly 
     acknowledge, memorialize, and be a catalyst for progress 
     toward--
       (A) jettisoning the belief in a hierarchy of human value;
       (B) embracing our common humanity; and
       (C) permanently eliminating persistent racial inequities.

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