The Living Consequences

The uncomfortable truth is that the United States owes its position as the most powerful nation in the world to its slave-owning past.

Rep. Jackson Lee

The 118th U.S. Congress convened earlier this month, and legislation to establish a commission to study reparations for slavery and racism has been re-introduced in the House and Senate.

The uncomfortable truth is that the United States owes its position as the most powerful nation in the world to its slave-owning past.

Rep. Jackson Lee

The 117th U.S. Congress convened for the first time at noon on Sunday, and yesterday, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) re-introduced H.R. 40, the bill which would establish a commission to study reparations for slavery.

H.R. 40, proposed in every Congress since the 101st, would acknowledge our nation’s unresolved history of slavery and racial discrimination and establish a commission to study its impact, consider a national apology, and suggest remedies. As Rep. Jackson Lee noted in her remarks introducing H.R. 40, it is “a holistic bill” which “establishes a commission to examine the moral and social implications of slavery,” and not just its economic consequences.

Update, January 25: Today, Senator Cory Booker introduced a Senate version of H.R. 40, to be known as S. 40, as he did in the last Congress.

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Senator Cory Booker announced this afternoon that he is introducing legislation to study the possibility of reparations for slavery.

The presidential candidate’s proposal is intended to be a Senate companion to H.R. 40, the reparations bill introduced into the House this year by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.).

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Yesterday, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) re-introduced H.R. 40 in the new 116th U.S. Congress. This bill, proposed in every Congress since the 101st, would acknowledge our unresolved history of slavery and racial discrimination and establish a commission to study its impact, consider a national apology, and suggest remedies.

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) first proposed H.R. 40 in 1989, and he reintroduced the bill in every new Congress until his resignation from Congress in 2017. Rep. Jackson Lee assumed first sponsorship over H.R. 40 at that time, and has now re-introduced the legislation as required with each new Congress.

H.R. 40 has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee, on which Rep. Jackson Lee sits. The text of the bill is not yet available to the public, although it is likely to be the same as in past years.

In the last, Republican-controlled Congress, H.R. 40 received no hearing or other consideration. It will be interesting to see whether there is activity on the bill in the new, Democratic-controlled, and more diverse 116th Congress.

Congressman John Conyers (D-Mich.) has re-introduced H.R. 40, the “Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act,” for the 111th Congress.

This legislation is enthusiastically supported by several DeWolf family members who appear in Traces of the Trade, and Rep. Conyers prominently mentioned our documentary when he introduced the bill. He is also a long-time supporter of our work, having flown to Park City, Utah last year to appear at the film’s world premiere on Martin Luther King Day at the Sundance Film Festival.

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Since last year, there has been a series of legislative developments, at the state and national levels, related to the legacy of slavery and the slave trade. I’ve blogged about each of these efforts separately in the past, but in this entry, I want to offer a quick overview of the various legislative proposals and their current status.

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The House Judiciary Committee has released the witness list for tomorrow’s hearing, by the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, on the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade.

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The House Judiciary Committee has just scheduled a hearing for next Tuesday, December 18, on the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade.

This hearing is expected to cover H.R. 40, the bill proposed each year by the committee chair, Rep. John Conyers, to establish a commission to study reparations for slavery; H.Res. 194, a resolution calling for the House to apologize for slavery; and perhaps H.R. 3432, legislation to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the U.S. slave trade.

The hearing will be held by the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, in Room 2141 of the Rayburn House Office Building at 10:00am. Witnesses will be announced later.

There is a rumor going around that Congressman John Conyers, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, has scheduled a hearing next week on H.R. 40, the bill which would establish a commission to study reparations for slavery.

There is even a press release, apparently issued by N’COBRA, which has been e-mailed to interested persons and is currently making its way around the Internet. This press release gives a specific day, time, and location for the hearing.

However, the House Judiciary Committee has not scheduled a hearing on H.R. 40 for next week, and is not even scheduled to hold any hearings next week.

Whether Rep. Conyers will schedule a hearing on H.R. 40 for another date in the near future remains to be seen.

Update: The committee has now scheduled a hearing for Tuesday, December 18, at 10:00am on the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade. This is the hearing which was expected earlier in the month, and it should cover H.R. 40 among other bills.

Many people are familiar with H.R. 40, the perennial House bill proposing a commission to examine the legacy of slavery and possible remedies. Rep. John Conyers (D), currently chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has introduced this bill in every Congress since 1989. (The bill number is chosen to reflect the phrase “forty acres and a mule,” which came to symbolize the brief and unrealized promise of compensation to slaves freed after the Civil War.)

There are two other major items pending in the U.S. House which also bear on slavery and the slave trade:

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