72nd OREGON LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY--2003 Regular Session
 
NOTE:  Matter within  { +  braces and plus signs + } in an
amended section is new. Matter within  { -  braces and minus
signs - } is existing law to be omitted. New sections are within
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 LC 216
 
                     Senate Joint Memorial 1
 
Sponsored by Senator GORDLY
 
 
                             SUMMARY
 
The following summary is not prepared by the sponsors of the
measure and is not a part of the body thereof subject to
consideration by the Legislative Assembly. It is an editor's
brief statement of the essential features of the measure as
introduced.
 
  Urges leaders of Congress to establish commission to examine
institution of slavery, subsequent de jure and de facto racial
and economic discrimination against African-Americans and impact
of these forces on living African-Americans and to make
recommendations to Congress on appropriate remedies.
 
                         JOINT MEMORIAL
To the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United
  States of America, in Congress assembled:
  We, your memorialists, the Seventy-second Legislative Assembly
of the State of Oregon, in legislative session assembled,
respectfully represent as follows:
  Whereas millions of African-born people died from starvation,
disease, execution or other brutal treatment in transit to the
United States as part of the slave trade and after arrival in the
United States; and
  Whereas millions more people of African descent were enslaved;
and
  Whereas, when foreign slave trade was prohibited by federal law
in 1808, the emphasis shifted to the breeding of native-born
people of African descent to increase the slave population; and
  Whereas the uncompensated slave labor of foreign-born and
United States-born people of African descent was the primary
source of labor for clearing land, cultivating, planting and
harvesting crops, processing products and all other functions for
the economic enrichment of slave owners and their families; and
  Whereas the use of uncompensated slave labor was embraced by
the United States in its Constitution and laws and is a major
cause for the rise of the United States as the strongest and
wealthiest nation in the world; and
  Whereas uncompensated slave labor of foreign-born and United
States-born people of African descent allowed slave owners and
their families to accumulate great economic wealth and to
bequeath that wealth to their descendants; and
  Whereas uncompensated slave laborers received no benefit from
their labor and accumulated a history of abuse, denigration and
diminished expectations to bequeath to their descendants, but no
accumulated economic wealth; and
  Whereas, even following emancipation, African-Americans
experienced 100 years of segregation and discrimination under law
and under color of law; and
  Whereas the international slave trade, the institution of
slavery and the segregation and discrimination under law and
under color of law for a period of centuries is undeniably cruel,
inhumane and a crime against humanity; and
  Whereas the United States Government has actively supported
initiatives to indemnify other peoples wronged or forced to labor
without compensation; and
  Whereas more than 30 million African-Americans living today are
direct descendants of slaves, living with the extreme and
persistent social, cultural and psychological effects of
centuries of inhumane and degrading treatment of themselves and
their ancestors by their fellow citizens under law and under
color of law; and
  Whereas there cannot be true racial healing in these United
States without acknowledgment of the injuries inflicted upon so
large a part of its citizenry coupled with genuine efforts to
resolve and heal the injuries by disgorgement and reparations of
some portion of the economic wealth claimed under law and under
color of law by slave owners, their families and descendants and
denied to slave laborers, their families and descendants; now,
therefore,
Be It Resolved by the Legislative Assembly of the State of
  Oregon:
  That the leaders of the United States Senate and the United
States House of Representatives are respectfully urged to
establish a commission to examine the institution of slavery, the
subsequent de jure and de facto racial and economic
discrimination against African-Americans and the impact of these
forces on living African-Americans and to make recommendations to
the Congress of the United States on appropriate remedies; and be
it further
  Resolved, That a copy of this memorial shall be sent to the
Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House of
Representatives of the United States, to each member of the
Oregon Congressional Delegation and to each member of the
Congressional Black Caucus.
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