Findings and purpose

(a) Findings Congress finds the following: (1) Following the Civil War, former enslaved Black Americans were promised 40 acres and a mule of confiscated Confederate land by the Government through General Sherman’s Field Order 15, which was never truly fulfilled, as Black Americans who were provided land by the Government following the Civil War had their land stripped away by President Andrew Johnson. (2) Following the Civil War, the 39th Congress passed H.R. 613, An Act to establish a Bureau for relief of Freedman and Refugees. In section 5 of that bill, it is stated that the established Bureau can...reserve from sale or settlement under the homestead or preemption laws, and assign for the use of the freedmen and loyal refugees, male or female, unoccupied public lands in Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas.... (b) Purpose The purpose of this Act is to establish a commission to study and develop land reparation proposals for African Americans as a result of— (1) the institution of slavery, including both the Trans-Atlantic and the domestic trade which existed from 1565 in colonial Florida and from 1619 through 1865 within the other colonies that became the United States, and which included the Federal and State Governments that constitutionally and statutorily supported the institution of slavery; and (2) the failure of previously proposed remediations to address the unkept promise of land to previously enslaved Americans upon the abolition of slavery in 1865.