SUPPORT A COMMISSION TO STUDY REPARATIONS FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS

     During slavery, the federal government constitutionally and
statutorily sanctioned the denial of human rights and civil
liberties to African slaves. Then after the formal dissolution of
chattel slavery, the government supported a system of segregation
that inflicted massive damages upon the descendants of slaves.

     H.R. 40 would create the first federally chartered commission
to study the impact of slavery upon African Americans and the
nation, and make recommendations to Congress on methods of
recompense for harm not only from the institution of slavery but
from discrimination continuing through the present. The Commission
to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act would
follow the model of the reparations campaign for Japanese Americans
who were interned during World War II. In that case the findings of
a commission led to the Japanese reparations bill enacted in 1987.

     Write or call your Representative. Urge your Representative to
co-sponsor H.R. 40, The Commission to Study Reparation Proposals
for African Americans Act and request hearings on the bill. 

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