Bill Amendment: IL HR0453 | 2023-2024 | 103rd General Assembly
NOTE: For additional amemendments please see the Bill Drafting List
Bill Title: SUPPORT FAMILY ROOTS GENEALOGY
Status: 2024-04-10 - Resolution Adopted [HR0453 Detail]
Download: Illinois-2023-HR0453-House_Amendment_001.html
Bill Title: SUPPORT FAMILY ROOTS GENEALOGY
Status: 2024-04-10 - Resolution Adopted [HR0453 Detail]
Download: Illinois-2023-HR0453-House_Amendment_001.html
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1 | AMENDMENT TO HOUSE RESOLUTION 453 | ||||||
2 | AMENDMENT NO. ___. Amend House Resolution 453 by deleting | ||||||
3 | everything after the heading and inserting the following:
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4 | "WHEREAS, Slavery provided much of the revenue for the | ||||||
5 | young State of Illinois and severed ties between enslaved | ||||||
6 | people and their ancestors, resulting in the erasure of family | ||||||
7 | histories for both enslaved people and their descendants; and
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8 | WHEREAS, The U.S. has a social responsibility and duty | ||||||
9 | towards African American descendants of enslaved individuals | ||||||
10 | to provide the public service of assisting Black citizens in | ||||||
11 | reconnecting with their ancestral history; the State of | ||||||
12 | Illinois has an equal responsibility to Black Illinoisans; and
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13 | WHEREAS, Although Illinois is a northern state, slavery | ||||||
14 | was prevalent within its boundaries before the Northwest | ||||||
15 | Ordinance of 1787, and enslaved individuals still worked the |
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1 | salt springs of the Illinois Salines until 1825; slavery in | ||||||
2 | the Illinois Salines was permitted because it provided as much | ||||||
3 | as a third of the yearly revenue for the young State; | ||||||
4 | indentured servitude at the salt springs continued until 1870; | ||||||
5 | this history of slavery in Illinois deepens the responsibility | ||||||
6 | of the State to assist African American citizens in recovering | ||||||
7 | their lost history; and
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8 | WHEREAS, Since the first direct-to-consumer genetic | ||||||
9 | ancestry test was pioneered in 2000, technological | ||||||
10 | capabilities have vastly improved, enabling refined genetic | ||||||
11 | genealogy that can trace ancestral connections over the past | ||||||
12 | 500 years; given this advancement in technology, the U.S., | ||||||
13 | honoring its moral obligation to descendants of enslaved | ||||||
14 | Africans, is now exceptionally positioned to facilitate this | ||||||
15 | reconnection through a genealogy-based pilot program; and
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16 | WHEREAS, In addition to restoring a sense of personal | ||||||
17 | belonging and ethnic identity, both being critical for | ||||||
18 | psychological well-being, genetic genealogical evidence | ||||||
19 | provides descendants of enslaved African Americans with robust | ||||||
20 | genetic evidentiary support of their African family origins; | ||||||
21 | several African countries, including Ghana, Sierra Leone, | ||||||
22 | Gabon, and Eritrea have begun offering citizenship to | ||||||
23 | individuals who can trace their ancestry back to their | ||||||
24 | respective country, including ancestry traced through genetic |
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1 | genealogy; improvements in genetic genealogical technology | ||||||
2 | provide new found support for the desire expressed by | ||||||
3 | president Abraham Lincoln in the Emancipation Proclamation to | ||||||
4 | establish a voluntary repatriation program for African | ||||||
5 | descendants to return to their African ancestral homelands; | ||||||
6 | and
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7 | WHEREAS, Nearly all Black Americans can successfully trace | ||||||
8 | their genetic ancestry to one or more African countries; | ||||||
9 | today, there are currently 42 million African American | ||||||
10 | descendants of those enslaved in the U.S.; the genetic | ||||||
11 | analyses completed in the Genetic Consequences of the | ||||||
12 | Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Americas study by Steven | ||||||
13 | Micheletti and colleagues found that African Americans tend to | ||||||
14 | have ancestry from four main regions in Atlantic Africa, | ||||||
15 | including Nigeria, Senegambia (Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, | ||||||
16 | and Senegal), Coastal West Africa (Sierra Leone, Ghana, Côte | ||||||
17 | d'Ivoire, and Liberia), and the Congo region, which includes | ||||||
18 | Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; approximately | ||||||
19 | 71% of African American 23andMe research participants had | ||||||
20 | detectable segments of DNA that are identical with current | ||||||
21 | ethnolinguistic groups from all four Atlantic African regions | ||||||
22 | stemming from a common ancestor; as documented by Jazlyn | ||||||
23 | Mooney and her colleagues in their study On the Number of | ||||||
24 | Genealogical Ancestors Tracing to the Source Groups of an | ||||||
25 | Admixed Population, there is a high probability, over 97.5%, |
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1 | that an average African American can trace their ancestry back | ||||||
2 | to at least one African ancestor from each of eight to 12 | ||||||
3 | generations ago culminating in an approximate total of 269 | ||||||
4 | African ancestors within this timeframe; and
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5 | WHEREAS, Approximately 15% of Black adults in the U.S. | ||||||
6 | have taken consumer genetic genealogy tests; African Americans | ||||||
7 | should not be economically burdened to obtain information | ||||||
8 | regarding their ancestral history, which was forcibly taken | ||||||
9 | from them through practices of slavery that economically | ||||||
10 | benefited the growing United States; and
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11 | WHEREAS, Reparations have been granted towards other | ||||||
12 | groups residing in the U.S., yet African Americans have never | ||||||
13 | been compensated to redress the racial harms enacted upon | ||||||
14 | their person during times of slavery; while white slave owners | ||||||
15 | were compensated for the emancipation of their slaves, | ||||||
16 | enslaved individuals only had access to social support via the | ||||||
17 | Freedmen's Bureau Act of 1865 and 1866, which provided basic | ||||||
18 | needs including food, clothing, and shelter, due to the | ||||||
19 | displacement of southerners after the Civil War; while the | ||||||
20 | Evacuation Claims Act of 1948 and the Civil Liberties Act of | ||||||
21 | 1988 paid reparations to Japanese Americans, up to $20,000 per | ||||||
22 | survivor, and the Indian Claims Commission allocates | ||||||
23 | approximately $1,000 per person, enslaved persons of African | ||||||
24 | descent and their descendants have never received monetary |
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1 | compensation for the atrocities committed against them prior | ||||||
2 | to the abolition of slavery; this is despite there having been | ||||||
3 | over 10 million African Americans human trafficked from their | ||||||
4 | families and homeland only to be forced to build the | ||||||
5 | infrastructure of America and generate wealth for early white | ||||||
6 | Americans; in 1989, H.R. 40 was introduced to establish a | ||||||
7 | commission to investigate the impacts of enslavement and to | ||||||
8 | evaluate proposals for reparation; though this resolution has | ||||||
9 | been introduced for decades, it has not been passed; and
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10 | WHEREAS, It is technologically straightforward and a moral | ||||||
11 | imperative to rectify the erasure of family histories | ||||||
12 | resulting from slavery; it is now possible to establish a | ||||||
13 | family roots genealogy pilot program that can equip | ||||||
14 | descendants of enslaved African Americans with robust genetic | ||||||
15 | evidentiary support of their African family origins; Dr. | ||||||
16 | LaKisha David, an assistant professor at the University of | ||||||
17 | Illinois (U of I) Urbana-Champaign in the Department of | ||||||
18 | Anthropology, is a distinguished expert on reuniting African | ||||||
19 | Americans with long lost kin in Africa through autosomal DNA | ||||||
20 | genetic testing; she is a former postdoctoral fellow of | ||||||
21 | Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of Genetics and | ||||||
22 | Genomics at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School | ||||||
23 | of Medicine; she will be the principal investigator in | ||||||
24 | establishing this genealogy-based family roots program; U of | ||||||
25 | I's Department of Anthropology has expressed their commitment |
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1 | to these efforts and interest in ways they can continue to | ||||||
2 | serve both reparative and decolonizing efforts of the State | ||||||
3 | more generally; and
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4 | WHEREAS, The procedure will begin with the collection of | ||||||
5 | saliva samples that will be processed at The Illinois Roy J. | ||||||
6 | Carver Biotechnology Center, situated in Urbana, pending | ||||||
7 | appropriation funding; once the processing is completed, the | ||||||
8 | saliva samples will be securely destroyed; the resulting data | ||||||
9 | will then be transferred to a secure storage and computing | ||||||
10 | environment that adheres to the Health Insurance Portability | ||||||
11 | and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) regulations; the sample | ||||||
12 | will be accompanied by a unique identifying code rather than | ||||||
13 | participants' personal information; nongenetic data for this | ||||||
14 | project will be stored in facilities that meet requirements | ||||||
15 | established by HIPAA; participants logging in will receive | ||||||
16 | results that are hosted on a HIPAA-compliant platform; for the | ||||||
17 | protection of all participants, DNA samples collected may not | ||||||
18 | be subjected for subpoenas or accessed for any other purposes; | ||||||
19 | and
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20 | WHEREAS, Researchers cannot release or use information, | ||||||
21 | documents, or samples that may identify participants in any | ||||||
22 | action or suit unless the participant consents; researchers | ||||||
23 | also cannot provide data as evidence unless participants have | ||||||
24 | agreed; this protection includes federal, state, local, civil, |
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1 | criminal, administrative, legislative, or other proceedings; | ||||||
2 | this does not stop participants from willingly releasing | ||||||
3 | information about their involvement in this research and does | ||||||
4 | not prevent participants from having access to their own | ||||||
5 | information; and
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6 | WHEREAS, The U of I at Urbana-Champaign, established as a | ||||||
7 | land-grant institution through the Morrill Act of 1862, was | ||||||
8 | entrusted with a mission to democratize higher education and | ||||||
9 | serve the public interest across Illinois and beyond; despite | ||||||
10 | this intent, U of I's historical record is marked by periods of | ||||||
11 | exclusion and insufficient representation of African Americans | ||||||
12 | that cast a shadow over its commitment to true inclusivity; | ||||||
13 | these specialized centers, backed by the State of Illinois, | ||||||
14 | hold the potential to make amends and realign with the | ||||||
15 | original vision of the land-grant mission; the centers carry a | ||||||
16 | paramount duty to redress past neglect, actively engage with | ||||||
17 | the African American community, and to emphasize the profound | ||||||
18 | need to reconnect individuals to their ancestral roots; | ||||||
19 | through this initiative, the centers have an opportunity, and | ||||||
20 | indeed an obligation, to play a transformative role in | ||||||
21 | facilitating understanding, reconnection, and healing, and, in | ||||||
22 | doing so, work towards rectifying the U of I's historical | ||||||
23 | shortcomings in relation to a community with a deeply | ||||||
24 | impactful, yet often sidelined, history; therefore, be it
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1 | RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE | ||||||
2 | HUNDRED THIRD GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that | ||||||
3 | we urge support for the Family Roots Genealogy Pilot Program | ||||||
4 | as it provides African American descendants of enslaved | ||||||
5 | individuals the opportunity to trace their roots back to their | ||||||
6 | ancestral homelands, to reconnect with their ancestral | ||||||
7 | heritage, and to promote their well-being; and be it further
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