Title
Committing to racial healing through the exploration of reparations for American descendants of Chattel Slavery Living in Saint Paul.
Body
WHEREAS, the institution of slavery in the United States, beginning in 1619 and continuing through 1863, enriched American industries, commercial and financial corporations and transformed the newly established United States into an international economic power through the oppressive, dehumanizing and torturous system of enslaved Black labor; and
WHEREAS, after slavery ended in the US, the slaveowners were compensated for the loss of their slaves, but those who had been held in bondage were never compensated for their labor, despite the promise of “40 acres and a mule”; and
WHEREAS, although slavery was illegal in Minnesota, Dred Scott and Harriet Scott were in bondage at Fort Snelling as well as other African Americans who were used for enslaved labor by US Army officers, which was in violation of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and the Missouri Compromise of 1820; and
WHEREAS, in the aftermath of slavery, African American citizens of this country continued to face brutal discrimination, as evidenced by Jim Crow, forced segregation, mass atrocities in Tulsa and Rosewood, the lynching period and to this day, mass incarceration; and
WHEREAS, in Saint Paul, systemic discrimination was perpetrated through redlining and racial covenants, access to housing, environmental injustice and the removal of Saint Paul’s Rondo neighborhood - the center of Saint Paul’s African American business, residential, spiritual and cultural life - for the construction of Interstate 94; and
WHEREAS, the pervasiveness of structural institutionalized racism in Saint Paul and all of American society has led to overwhelming black-white disparities in every area of endeavor, from housing to education and employment, business investment, economic prosperity, health and wellness, including life expectancy and infant mortality; and
WHEREAS, a...
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