Full Text of HR0907 101st General Assembly
HR0907 101ST GENERAL ASSEMBLY |
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| 1 | | HOUSE RESOLUTION
| 2 | | WHEREAS, Since the Amendment's passage by Congress on | 3 | | January 31, 1965 and its ratification on December 6, 1865, the | 4 | | 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States | 5 | | prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a | 6 | | punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly | 7 | | convicted; and
| 8 | | WHEREAS, The 13th Amendment did not end slavery and | 9 | | involuntary servitude; it merely changed slavery and | 10 | | involuntary servitude; and
| 11 | | WHEREAS, The exception to the 13th Amendment led to a | 12 | | carceral system and mass incarceration that did not exist | 13 | | before its passage; and
| 14 | | WHEREAS, After the passage of the 13th Amendment, laws and | 15 | | practices were implemented explicitly to make it a crime to be | 16 | | black in the United States; these laws and practices included | 17 | | Jim Crow, segregation, redlining, voter suppression, Dred | 18 | | Scott, the War on Drugs, and police brutality; and
| 19 | | WHEREAS, Systemic racism has prevented black Americans | 20 | | from building wealth, and even when they did, it has often been | 21 | | taken from them by violent force, such as in 1921 when the |
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| 1 | | affluent black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma's Greenwood | 2 | | District, referred to as the Black Wall Street, was attacked by | 3 | | a white mob and burned to the ground; and
| 4 | | WHEREAS, The inability to build generational wealth | 5 | | relegates individuals to poverty and living without basic | 6 | | necessities; the prison industrial complex perpetuates this | 7 | | for three main reasons: (1) prison labor is slavery, (2) | 8 | | instead of paying workers, taxpayers pay for correctional | 9 | | centers to give corporations free labor, and (3) unfair justice | 10 | | systems are built to keep black inmates in prison; therefore, | 11 | | be it
| 12 | | RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE | 13 | | HUNDRED FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that | 14 | | we urge the United States Congress to take action to amend the | 15 | | 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States by | 16 | | striking "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party | 17 | | shall have been duly convicted" in Section 1; and be it further
| 18 | | RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be | 19 | | delivered to all members of the United States Congress.
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