[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.J. Res. 67 Introduced in House (IH)]
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119th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. J. RES. 67
Supporting the designation of August as ``Slavery Remembrance Month'',
to serve as a reminder of the evils of slavery, its continuing effects,
and the freedom fighters who fought to end this horrific crime against
humanity.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
March 3, 2025
Mr. Green of Texas (for himself, Mr. Cleaver, Mrs. McIver, Ms. Norton,
and Mr. Jackson of Illinois) submitted the following joint resolution;
which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
_______________________________________________________________________
JOINT RESOLUTION
Supporting the designation of August as ``Slavery Remembrance Month'',
to serve as a reminder of the evils of slavery, its continuing effects,
and the freedom fighters who fought to end this horrific crime against
humanity.
Whereas this resolution may be cited as the ``Original Slavery Remembrance Month
Resolution'';
Whereas it was during the month of August in the year 1619, that the enslavement
of African people in the American colonies destined to become the United
States of America occurred;
Whereas the House of Representatives and the Senate recognize August as
``Slavery Remembrance Month'' and commemorate the lives of all enslaved
people while also condemning the perpetration and perpetuation of
slavery in the United States of America and across the world;
Whereas the following Members of Congress are posthumously recognized,
individuals who served during and after the Reconstruction Era, as
honorary cosponsors of this resolution: the Honorable Joseph Hayne
Rainey (SC-01), Member of Congress from 1870 to 1879; Jefferson Franklin
Long (GA-04), Member of Congress from January 1871 to March 1871; Robert
Carlos De Large (SC-02), Member of Congress from 1871 to 1873; Robert
Brown Elliott (SC-3), Member of Congress from 1871 to 1874; Benjamin
Sterling Turner (AL-01), Member of Congress from 1871 to 1873; Josiah
Thomas Walls (FL-At Large), Member of Congress from 1871 to 1876; Alonzo
Jacob Ransier (SC-02), Member of Congress from 1873 to 1875; Richard
Harvey Cain (SC-At Large), Member of Congress from 1873 to 1875 and 1877
to 1879; John Roy Lynch (MS-06), Member of Congress from 1873 to 1877
and 1882 to 1883; James Thomas Rapier (AL-02), Member of Congress from
1873 to 1875; Jeremiah Haralson (AL-01), Member of Congress from 1875 to
1877; John Adams Hyman (NC-02), Member of Congress from 1875 to 1877;
Robert Smalls (SC-07), Member of Congress from 1875 to 1879 and 1882 to
1883 and 1884 to 1887; James Edward O'Hara (NC-02), Member of Congress
from 1883 to 1887; Henry Plummer Cheatham (NC-02), Member of Congress
from 1889 to 1893; John Mercer Langston (VA-04), Member of Congress from
1890 to 1891; Thomas Ezekiel Miller, Member of Congress from 1890 to
1891; George Washington Murray (SC-01), Member of Congress from 1893 to
1895 and 1896 to 1897; and George Henry White (NC-02), Member of
Congress from 1897 to 1901;
Whereas there are seminal moments in the annals of time that affect the rest of
time;
Whereas, during the month of August in the year 1619, a sinful seminal moment in
time occurred that invidiously sculpts and shamefully yet haunts the
United States of America;
Whereas August 20, 1619, became a seminal moment in time when the first 20
enslaved Africans were brought against their will to what was then Point
Comfort, now Fort Monroe, in Hampton, Virginia, and forced into chattel
slavery;
Whereas all, including Africans, who captured, enslaved, and sold captives to
transatlantic slave traders are condemned for their perpetration and
perpetuation of the evils of enslavement;
Whereas, over the period of the Atlantic slave trade, from approximately 1526 to
1867, millions of humans were abducted and shipped from Africa, and
approximately 10,700,000 arrived in the Americas as personal property;
Whereas the majority of enslaved Africans brought to British North America
arrived between 1720 and 1780;
Whereas about 6 percent of African captives were sent directly to British North
America;
Whereas, by 1825, in what has been called the New World, the United States
included about 25 percent people of African descent;
Whereas the deadly, wicked Middle Passage from West Africa to the West Indies
was dangerous and horrific for enslaved people;
Whereas mothers, fathers, children, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins,
as well as people from all walks of life, including artisans,
traditional healers, spiritual leaders, agriculturists, artists, chefs,
blacksmiths, merchants, and educators, survived the wicked Middle
Passage only to suffer the evils of slavery in the Americas;
Whereas, according to some historians, about 12 percent of the enslaved people
who embarked did not survive the voyage;
Whereas sharks have been said to have followed the slave ships to feed on bodies
of slaves thrown overboard;
Whereas, although the enslaved sexes were separated, men, women, and children
were often kept naked, packed close together, and the men were chained
for long periods;
Whereas enslaved people suffered a variety of miserable and often fatal maladies
as a result of being subjected to inhumane living and working
conditions;
Whereas infant and child mortality rates were twice as high among enslaved
children as among Southern White children;
Whereas enslaved people often worked from before sunup to after sundown, 6 to 7
days a week, often without sufficient food;
Whereas enslaved Black families lived with the perpetual, dreadful fear of
separation caused by the depravity of 1 or more family members being
sold;
Whereas it is estimated that approximately one-third of enslaved children in the
upper Southern States of Maryland and Virginia experienced family
separation through the sale of parents, including the sale of mothers or
fathers away from children;
Whereas many of the enslaved, liberated enslaved, freed, and abolitionists have
not received their righteous status in history as freedom fighters;
Whereas Prince Hall, a Black freedman, lived in colonial Boston, Massachusetts,
circa 1735 to 1807;
Whereas Prince Hall was an ardent pioneer abolitionist, human rights activist,
and freedom fighter who preceded Sojourner Truth, John Brown, Nat
Turner, and Harriet Tubman during the American Revolutionary period;
Whereas, in 1775, after being denied by an all-White Masonic lodge, freedom
fighter Prince Hall and 14 other free Black freedom fighters formed
their own lodge;
Whereas freedom fighter Prince Hall was elected as the leader, or ``Worshipful
Master'', within the newly formed African Lodge #1, later renamed
African Lodge No. 459;
Whereas because of this action the freedom fighter Prince Hall is also renowned
as the ``Father of Black Freemasonry'';
Whereas Prince Hall Freemasonry is the oldest human rights fraternity in the
United States of America, predating the Nation's founding;
Whereas Prince Hall Masons advocated for racial uplift, education, and improving
the condition of Black people in America;
Whereas the freedom fighter Nat Turner was born into slavery in Southampton
County, Virginia, in 1800;
Whereas Southampton County was home to many plantations, and enslaved people
outnumbered free Whites;
Whereas freedom fighter Turner learned to read and write at a young age,
becoming deeply religious;
Whereas freedom fighter Turner was sold to several different masters over the
course of his life, the last time in 1830;
Whereas freedom fighter Turner preached to fellow enslaved people, developing a
loyal following;
Whereas freedom fighter Turner began planning a revolt with a few trusted fellow
enslaved men from neighboring plantations;
Whereas freedom fighter Turner led a liberation rebellion beginning in August
1831, quickly growing from a small handful of enslaved people to more
than 70 enslaved and free Blacks;
Whereas the liberators went from house to house in Southampton County, freeing
enslaved people;
Whereas the liberators were ultimately defeated by a State militia that had over
twice their manpower, with 3 artillery companies reinforcing it;
Whereas freedom fighter Turner was captured 6 weeks after the liberation
rebellion was put down, whereupon he was promptly convicted and
sentenced to death;
Whereas, in retaliation for the liberation uprising, Virginia officially
executed 56 Black people, with at least 100 more killed by militias
through extrajudicial violence;
Whereas the liberation rebellion caused widespread panic among slaveholders
throughout the South, resulting in widespread violence against
defenseless enslaved people;
Whereas, in the wake of the liberation rebellion, the Virginia General Assembly
passed legislation making it illegal to teach enslaved or free Blacks to
read and write;
Whereas the Underground Railroad was a liberation network of freedom fighters
who helped around 100,000 enslaved people escape to freedom in the
North;
Whereas the liberation Underground Railroad began when a freedom fighter
``conductor'' often posing as an enslaved person would enter a
plantation and attempt to guide runaways;
Whereas liberated escapees would travel 10 to 20 miles each night between safe
houses or ``stations'' to avoid detection, waiting in safe houses for
the next freedom fighter along the line to be alerted to their presence;
Whereas freedom fighters supporting escapees at each station (many of whom were
White), knew only of local efforts and not the entire liberation
operation;
Whereas Harriet Tubman, born Araminta Ross, lived as an enslaved person through
her young life where she endured regular whippings and suffered a
traumatic head injury at the hands of an overseer enslaver, which caused
narcoleptic episodes and migraines throughout her life;
Whereas freedom fighter/liberator Tubman escaped from slavery along the
liberation Underground Railroad, the network of abolitionist freedom
fighters who guided the liberated to the North traveling primarily at
night to avoid bounty hunter enslavers;
Whereas freedom fighter Tubman returned to the South no less than 13 times to
liberate 70 enslaved people, including much of her family, for which she
would be given the name ``Moses'';
Whereas freedom fighter Tubman deftly led those she liberated North during the
fall and winter, when would-be enslaver captors would stay inside to
avoid the cold;
Whereas, in freedom fighter Tubman's own words, ``I never ran my train off the
track and I never lost a passenger'';
Whereas, during the Civil War, freedom fighter Tubman served as a nurse, scout,
and spy in the Union army, becoming the first woman to plan and lead a
military operation in the United States, liberating 700 enslaved people
in the slave State South Carolina;
Whereas, later in life, freedom fighter Tubman continued working to improve the
lives of oppressed people, raising funds for and building schools and a
hospital in the name of formerly enslaved people while participating in
the women's suffrage movement;
Whereas freedom fighter John Brown, a White abolitionist who ran an important
stop on the liberation Underground Railroad, dedicated his life to
ending slavery;
Whereas freedom fighter John Brown lead a militia in guerrilla attacks on
proslavery towns in Kansas, losing one of his sons in the liberation
struggle;
Whereas Brown, with the help of freedom fighter Harriet Tubman, planned and
organized a liberation invasion of the South to liberate all slaves;
Whereas Brown began his liberation invasion at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, but
was surrounded and captured by Federal troops led by enslaver Robert E.
Lee, losing 2 more sons in the fighting;
Whereas the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was passed by Congress on January
31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, and provides that ``Neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the
United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.'';
Whereas, beginning in the 20th century, African Americans began to relocate from
Southern farms to Southern cities, from the South to the Northeast,
Midwest, and West, in a movement known as the ``Great Migration'';
Whereas the relocation of formerly enslaved people and their descendants also
included unfavorable, and at times unjust, interactions with law
enforcement that often resulted in imprisonment and convict leasing;
Whereas convict leasing, slavery by another name, was a system that allowed
prisons to lease imprisoned people to private entities, often
corporations and plantations;
Whereas the remains of 95 persons, thought to be of African ancestry, who were
subjected to the convict leasing system in the State of Texas, were
discovered in 2018 at the construction site of the James Reese Career
and Technical Center of the Fort Bend Independent School District in
Sugar Land, Texas;
Whereas, while slavery was abolished, descendants of the enslaved continue to
live with the effects of slavery's progenies, including convict leasing,
Black codes, Jim Crow laws, mass lynching, lawful segregation, police
brutality, mass incarceration, and institutionalized invidious
discrimination (racism); and
Whereas, despite the horrors of slavery and against all odds, enslaved people
became thought leaders and revolutionaries and changed the course of
American history: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This resolution may be cited as the ``Original Slavery Remembrance
Month Resolution''.
SEC. 2. SLAVERY REMEMBRANCE MONTH.
That the House of Representatives and the Senate--
(1) supports the annual designation of a ``Slavery
Remembrance Month'' to serve as a reminder of the evils of
slavery, its continuing effects, and the freedom fighters who
fought to end this horrific crime against humanity;
(2) condemn slavery and its evil progenies, including--
(A) convict leasing;
(B) Black codes;
(C) Jim Crow laws;
(D) mass lynching;
(E) lawful segregation;
(F) police brutality;
(G) mass incarceration; and
(H) institutionalized invidious discrimination;
(3) encourage all to acknowledge the importance of slavery
remembrance; and
(4) authorizes and requests the President to issue a
proclamation calling upon the people of the United States to
observe such month with appropriate ceremonies and activities.
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