On Thursday, legislators of the Illinois House of Representatives passed an historic resolution calling on President Obama to create a reparations study commission.
Introduced by Rep. Lashawn Ford and co-sponsored by Reps. Mary Flowers, Litesa Wallace, Monique Davis, Camille Lilly and Marcus Evans, Jr., House Resolution 1011 was adopted in an equally historic, unanimous vote.
The Resolution calls on President Obama, through executive order, to commission a study to detail the “economic impact” of enslavement and the failure of the nation to create a system that guaranteed equality to newly freed African descendants upon emancipation.
In addition, the study would look at how others who received reparations in America have benefited from them and offer reparation proposals that address the legacy of enslavement among current African descendants in the areas of “education, employment, housing health care and justice”
“Many years ago, it was promised to slaves and the descendants of slaves that they would be repaid not only for the forced labor that helped build this country to its current greatness, but for the terror that was slavery” said the sponsor of this legislation, Rep Ford.
“Given the real history of our country and the role slavery played in it, launching a commission to study slavery and the role of reparations is appropriate.”
This resolution is the first reparations legislation (in the modern era) passed by a state legislation calling for the federal government to intercede to address obstacles that people of African descent face resulting from the economic exploitation, abuse, and terror of enslavement and its aftermath, Jim Crow segregation.
It is a statement, in effect, that proclaims that Illinois recognizes that it is unable to address the acute in:equalities that enslavement and continued racial injustices have produced among its African American citizens.
Nor should this burden be on the states alone. Enslavement and racial segregation were laws sanctioned by the federal government. As such, and because they were crimes against humanity, the federal government is mandated by international human rights norms to fully repair the harms created by those crimes.
This is the message the Obama administration needs to hear now and address before he leaves office.
Rep Ford was inspired, in part, to present this legislation by the visit of the United Nations Working Group of Experts for People of African Descent. Concluding their Jan 2016 visit, they stated:
There is a profound need to acknowledge that the transatlantic slave trade was a crime against humanity and among the major sources and manifestations of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance and that Africans and people of African descent were victims of these acts and continue to be victims of their consequences. Past injustices and crimes against African Americans need to be addressed with reparatory justice.[i]
