HR0907 101ST GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0907 LRB101 21893 MST 72855 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, Since the Amendment's passage by Congress on January 31, 1965 and its ratification on December 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted; and

WHEREAS, The 13th Amendment did not end slavery and involuntary servitude; it merely changed slavery and involuntary servitude; and

WHEREAS, The exception to the 13th Amendment led to a carceral system and mass incarceration that did not exist before its passage; and

WHEREAS, After the passage of the 13th Amendment, laws and practices were implemented explicitly to make it a crime to be black in the United States; these laws and practices included Jim Crow, segregation, redlining, voter suppression, Dred Scott, the War on Drugs, and police brutality; and

WHEREAS, Systemic racism has prevented black Americans from building wealth, and even when they did, it has often been taken from them by violent force, such as in 1921 when the affluent black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma's Greenwood District, referred to as the Black Wall Street, was attacked by a white mob and burned to the ground; and

WHEREAS, The inability to build generational wealth relegates individuals to poverty and living without basic necessities; the prison industrial complex perpetuates this for three main reasons: (1) prison labor is slavery, (2) instead of paying workers, taxpayers pay for correctional centers to give corporations free labor, and (3) unfair justice systems are built to keep black inmates in prison; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE HUNDRED FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we urge the United States Congress to take action to amend the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States by striking "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted" in Section 1; and be it further

RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be delivered to all members of the United States Congress.