[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Con. Res. 59 Introduced in House (IH)]
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119th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. CON. RES. 59
Recognizing the difficult challenges Black veterans faced when
returning home after serving in the Armed Forces, their heroic military
sacrifices, and their patriotism in fighting for equal rights and for
the dignity of a people and a Nation.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
November 7, 2025
Mrs. Beatty (for herself, Mr. McGarvey, Mr. Horsford, Mr. Fields, Ms.
Kamlager-Dove, Mr. Cohen, Mr. Green of Texas, Mr. Bell, Mrs. McIver,
and Mr. Jackson of Illinois) submitted the following concurrent
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Recognizing the difficult challenges Black veterans faced when
returning home after serving in the Armed Forces, their heroic military
sacrifices, and their patriotism in fighting for equal rights and for
the dignity of a people and a Nation.
Whereas there has been no war fought by or within the United States in which
Blacks did not participate, including the Revolutionary War, the Civil
War, the War of 1812, the Spanish American War, World Wars I and II, the
Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, Operation Enduring Freedom,
and Operation Iraqi Freedom;
Whereas Frederick Douglass voiced his opinion on the civic value of military
service in one of his autobiographies, ``Life and Times of Frederick
Douglass,'' writing, ``I . . . urged every man who could, to enlist; to
get an eagle on his button, a musket on his shoulder, the star-spangled
banner over his head,'' and later remarking that ``there is no power on
Earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship in the
United States'';
Whereas, during the Civil War, Black soldiers, commonly referred to as the
United States Colored Troops, fought with honor and distinction despite
being treated as second-class citizens;
Whereas the health care and hospitals available to Black soldiers during the
Civil War were substandard, and Black soldiers often died from the
withholding of services that were supposed to be administered by medical
personnel;
Whereas Dr. W.E.B. DuBois and William Monroe Trotter, members of the ``first
generation of freedom's children,'' founded the Niagara Movement in 1905
and fought for desegregation in the Armed Forces in World War I;
Whereas, in his book, ``Black Reconstruction in America,'' published in 1935,
DuBois recognized the importance of equity in military service writing
that ``Nothing else made Negro citizenship conceivable, but the record
of the Negro soldier as a fighter.'';
Whereas the 369th Infantry, known as the Harlem Hell-fighters, continued the
history of distinguished military service despite treatment as second-
class citizens, fighting the Germans during World War I as part of the
French Army and serving the longest stretch in combat, 191 days without
replacement and without losing a foot of ground or a man as prisoner;
Whereas, at the end of the service of the 369th Infantry, the entire regiment
received the Croix de Guerre, which was France's highest military honor,
from a grateful French nation;
Whereas, in 1917, Charles Hamilton Houston encountered racism after entering
World War I as a commissioned first lieutenant in the segregated 17th
Provisional Training Regiment, later writing that ``I made up my mind
that if I got through this war I would study law and use my time
fighting for men who could not strike back.'';
Whereas Alain Locke, the first Black Rhodes Scholar, wrote in 1925 about a ``New
Negro'' who had returned from battle with a bold new spirit that helped
spark a new mood in the Black community;
Whereas, at the start of the United States involvement in World War II, Dorie
Miller, a messman attendant in the Navy, was catapulted to national hero
status and an icon to generations, after displaying heroism on board the
USS West Virginia during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December
7, 1941;
Whereas the famed Tuskegee Airmen, a group of Black pilots, flew with
distinction during World War II under the command of Captain Benjamin O.
Davis, Jr., the highly decorated officer who served for more than 35
years and became the first Black general in the Air Force;
Whereas, during World War II, the 6888 (known as the ``Six Triple Eights''), the
first postal battalion comprised exclusively of Black women, who served
in England and then France, was given the daunting task of clearing out
a 2-year backlog of more than 90,000 pieces of mail, completed the
mission in 3 months, and went on to make a positive impact on racial
integration in the Armed Forces;
Whereas, before becoming a famous baseball player, Jackie Robinson was court-
martialed in the Army in 1944 for refusing to sit in the back of the
bus, and when he was later acquitted, he wrote that ``[i]t was a small
victory, for I had learned that I was in two wars, one against the
foreign enemy, the other against prejudice at home'';
Whereas, during World War II, the Army's 92nd Infantry Division, better known as
the ``Buffalo Soldiers,'' which traces its direct lineage back to the
9th and 10th Cavalry units from 1866 to the early 1890s, was the only
Black segregated unit to experience combat during the Italian campaigns
of 1944 and 1945, with several members of the unit later earning Medals
of Honor for bravery;
Whereas Reverend Benjamin Hooks, who served in the 92nd Infantry Division, found
himself in the humiliating position of guarding Italian prisoners of war
who were allowed to eat in restaurants that were off-limits to him;
Whereas, even after President Truman issued Executive Order 9981, desegregating
the military on July 26, 1948, discrimination continued;
Whereas Oliver L. Brown, a World War II Army veteran from Kansas, and Harry
Briggs, a World War II sailor from South Carolina, were the fathers of 2
of the 5 named plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347
U.S. 483 (1952) and Briggs v. Elliott, 342 U.S. 350 (1952), the historic
school-desegregation cases of 1952;
Whereas the Black heroes and heroines of World War II and the Korean War, and
their offspring such as Private Sarah Keys and Women's Army Corps
officer Dovey Roundtree, won significant victories against
discrimination in interstate transportation in landmark civil rights
cases, including Keys v. Carolina Coach Company, 64 MCC 769 (1955),
which was decided 6 days before Rosa Parks' historic protest of
Alabama's Jim Crow laws in Montgomery;
Whereas, after serving overseas in the Army, Charles and Medgar Evers returned
home to Mississippi, where in 1946, they tried to register to vote but
were turned away at the polling stations;
Whereas, in 1952, Charles and Medgar Evers began to organize voter registration
drives for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP);
Whereas, in his address at Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr., commented on the irony of Blacks fighting in Vietnam to
guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia while not enjoying the same rights
at home;
Whereas Black veterans who were in the forefront of the leadership of the civil
rights movement, with their strong resolve to address the paradox of
military service abroad and the denial of basic rights at home, brought
deeper meaning to the word ``democracy,'' and through their example,
transformed the face of the United States;
Whereas Black veterans of the Nation's wars sowed the seeds for today's
bountiful harvest that includes the Niagara Movement, the NAACP, and the
modern-day civil rights movement, all of which share a common ancestry
in the Civil War, without which there would be no civil rights movement
and no equal rights for all Americans; and
Whereas Black veterans suffer at a disproportionate rate from chronic illnesses
and homelessness and are plagued by health disparities: Now, therefore,
be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring),
That Congress recognizes--
(1) the difficult challenges Black veterans faced when
returning home after serving in the Armed Forces, their heroic
military sacrifices, and their patriotism in fighting for equal
rights and for the dignity of a people and a Nation; and
(2) the need for the Department of Veterans Affairs to
continue to work to eliminate any health and benefit
disparities for minority veterans in the United States.
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