Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues

HR 40 · 119th CongressIn Committee

Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act

Latest updateJan 3, 2025

Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues

Sponsor

Ayanna Pressley

Introduced

January 3, 2025

Latest action

January 3, 2025

Legislative Progress

How far this bill has traveled through Congress

Introduced

Bill filed in chamber

Committee

Reviewed & reported

Passed Chamber

House or Senate vote

Passed Both

House & Senate agree

President

Sent to White House

Enacted

Signed into law

Introduced

Bill filed in chamber

Committee

Reviewed & reported

Passed Chamber

House or Senate vote

Passed Both

House & Senate agree

President

Sent to White House

Enacted

Signed into law

Latest Action

Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

Plain-Language Summary

AI Generated

Currently, no federal commission exists to systematically examine slavery's historical impact on African Americans or to develop reparations proposals. While various scholars, advocacy organizations, and state-level efforts have studied these issues, the federal government has not established a formal, comprehensive mechanism to document slavery's institution, trace post-Civil War discrimination, or assess its ongoing effects on living African Americans. This gap means that potential remedies—whether educational, legislative, or compensatory—lack an official federal foundation or recommendations to Congress.

This bill establishes the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans in the legislative branch. The commission comprises 15 members: three appointed by the President, three by the Speaker of the House, three by the Senate President pro tempore, and six subject-matter experts appointed by the commission's director and approved by the initial nine members. The commission must identify and compile evidence of slavery from 1619 to 1865, analyze federal and state government support for slavery, study discriminatory laws and practices after emancipation (including redlining and unequal education), examine lingering effects on African Americans today, and recommend remedies addressing compensation, formal apology, elimination of discriminatory policies, and forms of satisfaction and healing.

The commission must submit its findings and recommendations to Congress within 18 months of its first full meeting. Members must have expertise in African-American studies and reparatory justice and cannot be sitting members of Congress or federal, state, or local government employees. The bill does not specify funding amounts or sources, leaving appropriations to future congressional action. The commission's recommendations will inform potential legislative action on reparations but do not themselves authorize or implement any remedies—Congress would need to act separately on any proposals the commission advances.

Key Provisions

1Establish a 15-member Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans composed of politically appointed members and subject-matter experts in reparatory justice and African-American studies.
2Require the commission to identify, compile, and analyze evidence of slavery from 1619 to 1865, including the capture, transport, sale, and treatment of enslaved Africans and the destruction of their culture and families.
3Direct the commission to study and analyze federal and state government support for slavery through constitutional and statutory provisions, as well as discriminatory laws enacted after emancipation through the present.
4Require the commission to recommend appropriate remedies addressing compensation calculations, forms of compensation and eligibility, formal apology, elimination of discriminatory policies, and measures for racial healing and reconciliation.
5Mandate the commission to submit a written report of findings and recommendations to Congress no later than 18 months after the commission's first full meeting.

★ Why this matters

The bill creates an official federal mechanism to document slavery's history and its lasting economic, educational, and social effects on African Americans. If enacted, it would produce formal congressional recommendations on potential remedies—ranging from policy changes to compensation—that could inform future legislation. The commission's findings could reshape how federal law addresses racial inequality and historical injustice, though the bill itself does not implement any remedies.

● Who this affects

African Americans, particularly descendants of enslaved people, would be the primary focus of the commission's study and potential remedies. Members of Congress would receive the commission's recommendations and could use them to draft legislation. Historians, civil rights organizations, and reparations advocates would likely participate as commission members or provide testimony. Federal agencies—including the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Education, and Department of Justice—could face scrutiny regarding historical discriminatory policies and might be subject to future legislative changes based on the commission's work.

Bill Text

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<DOC>

119th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                 H. R. 40

     To address the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and 
inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies 
   between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to study and 
   consider a national apology and proposal 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 
     the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes.

                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            January 3, 2025

 Ms. Pressley introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                       Committee on the Judiciary

                                 A BILL

 
     To address the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and 
inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies 
   between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to study and 
   consider a national apology and proposal 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 
     the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Commission to Study and Develop 
Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.

    (a) Findings.--The Congress finds that--
            (1) approximately 4,000,000 Africans and their descendants 
        were enslaved in the United States and colonies that became the 
        United States from 1619 to 1865;
            (2) the institution of slavery was constitutionally and 
        statutorily sanctioned by the Government of the United States 
        from 1789 through 1865;
            (3) the slavery that flourished in the United States 
        constituted an immoral and inhumane deprivation of Africans' 
        life, liberty, African citizenship rights, and cultural 
        heritage, and denied them the fruits of their own labor;
            (4) a preponderance of scholarly, legal, community 
        evidentiary documentation and popular culture markers 
        constitute the basis for inquiry into the on-going effects of 
        the institution of slavery and its legacy of persistent 
        systemic structures of discrimination on living African 
        Americans and society in the United States;
            (5) the brutal overthrow of Reconstruction, which 
        represented a significant but constrained moment of advances 
        for Black rights as epitomized by the 13th, 14th, an…

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D-North Carolina · District 12

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Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act

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Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act

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