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| 1 | HOUSE RESOLUTION
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| 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
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| 8 | WHEREAS, The 13th Amendment did not end slavery and | ||||||
| 9 | involuntary servitude; it merely changed slavery and | ||||||
| 10 | involuntary servitude; and
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| 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
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| 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
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| 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
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| 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
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| 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
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| 18 | RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be | ||||||
| 19 | delivered to all members of the United States Congress.
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