Six Georgia state representatives put forward a resolution last week asking that members of the U.S. Congress create a formal commission to study whether the government should provide reparations for slavery.
“The racial bigotry fed by slavery did not end with slavery or with segregation. And many of the issues that still trouble America have roots in the bitter experience of other times. But however long the journey, our destiny is set: liberty and justice for all,” according to the language of the resolution.
“To address the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865, a federal commission needs to be established to study and consider proposals for reparations for the institution of slavery, its subsequent de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African Americans, to make recommendations to Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes.”
Those state representatives asked that members of the 117th U.S. Congress support and create “a commission to study and develop reparation proposals for African-Americans.”
The six representatives who submitted the resolution are:
• State Rep. Dar’Shun Kendrick (D-Lithonia)
• State Rep. Billy Mitchell (D-Stone Mountain)
• State Rep. Sandra Scott (D-Rex)
• State Rep. Al Williams (D-Midway)
• State Rep. Shelly Hutchinson (D-Snellville)
• State Rep. Kim Schofield (D-Atlanta)
These legislators appear to have based their proposal on one in Congress that the late U.S. Rep. John Conyers, Democrat from Michigan, sponsored in 2017. U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX-18) later requested that she take over as the bill’s first sponsor, according to Congress.gov.
That bill, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act, calls on a Commission “to study and develop reparation proposals for African-Americans to examine slavery and discrimination in the colonies and the United States from 1619 to the present and recommend appropriate remedies.”
As The Minnesota Sun reported Monday, the St. Paul City Council unanimously voted to create a committee dedicated to researching reparations for descendants of slavery in order to engage in “racial healing.”
The resolution, which the Minnesota’s city council members approved during a Wednesday night meeting, names the new group the “Saint Paul Recovery Act Community Reparations Commission.” The main goal of the committee is to “make significant progress toward repairing the damage caused by public and private systemic racism in the City of Saint Paul.”
As reported in November, University of California Los Angeles School of Law professor Laura Gomez advocates for the United States to provide reparations for the Latino community.
Former Vanderbilt University professor Carol Swain told The Tennessee Star Report last year that reparations would only worsen race relations in America.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Georgia Capital” by DXR CC4.0
