Bill Text: NJ S4459 | 2026-2027 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Establishes "The Truth, Reconciliation, and Repair Act of New Jersey."
Sponsorship: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1)
Status: (Introduced) 2026-06-15 - Introduced in the Senate, Referred to Senate State Government, Wagering, Tourism & Historic Preservation Committee [S4459 Detail]
Download: New_Jersey-2026-S4459-Introduced.html
Sponsored by:
Senator ANGELA V. MCKNIGHT
District 31 (Hudson)
SYNOPSIS
Establishes "The Truth, Reconciliation, and Repair Act of New Jersey."
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
An Act establishing "The Truth, Reconciliation, and Repair Act of New Jersey" concerning acknowledgment, responsibility, and accountability for the effects of human rights violations against Black people in this State from slavery and systemic racial discrimination.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. The Legislature finds and declares that:
a. In 2008, the 212th Legislature of the State of New Jersey became the fifth state to pass a resolution when it adopted Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 270 expressing "profound regret" for the State's role in slavery, but, in the resolution, affirmatively rejected a commitment to repair the harms and aftermath wrought by slavery in the State.
b. Eighteen years later, the Legislature confronts the truth: that the 2008 apology was insufficient, as it lacked, and in fact, affirmatively rejected, the necessary corresponding accountability.
c. Although slavery profoundly shaped New Jersey, more than half of New Jerseyans do not know it happened here.
d. Exposing the truth is New Jersey's great opportunity, particularly in this difficult moment where efforts are underway nationally to defund programs that teach about truth, history, and systemic racism, including attempts to censor and threats to cut funding to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C., a sacred space of memory and meaning.
e. These efforts are not simply attempts to bury the truth; they are aimed at erasing history and undermining the United States' democracy.
f. The recent report of the New Jersey Reparations Council tells the often overlooked and largely unknown story of slavery in New Jersey and outlines a clear, compelling, and courageous path forward: the development of meaningful policies that address the racial wealth gap; investment in Black communities; and confrontation of the systemic inequities that still exist in this State.
g. Perhaps for the first time in its State's history, New Jersey has an authoritative document that speaks the full truth about its deep participation in slavery and the ways in which its harms have not ended but evolved into mass incarceration, the racial wealth gap, segregated schools, and concentrated poverty that continue to disfigure democracy today.
h. New Jersey has the chance to lead, not just symbolically, but substantively.
i. New Jersey can resist actions to erase history by confronting its enduring legacy of slavery, taking responsibility for it, and together, with one of the United States' most diverse populations, building a new State of New Jersey where Black people and all people can flourish.
j. Doing so will not just make New Jersey a national leader, it will make residents of the Garden State better neighbors to each other and more engaged community members in a more just democracy.
k. Racial justice begins with truth. Justice cannot be obtained without history.
l. New Jersey's 2008 symbolic apology was an important start.
m. New Jersey now moves from symbolism to an apology that leads to accountability. From history to repair.
n. But first we must know and tell the truth.
o. On May 3, 1802, an enslaver offered a $20 reward for the capture and return of "Bill" and his wife "Hannah," who fled captivity in Newark, New Jersey.
p. For over two centuries, from 1630 to 1866, New Jersey authorized the enslavement of more than 12,000 Black people.
q. Although slavery has shaped almost every aspect of New Jersey from its founding through today, the majority of people in New Jersey do not know it happened here.
r. With sober minds and heavy hearts, New Jersey honors the more than 12 million African people who, after being stolen from their homes, chained and tightly packed in dark, filthy, sweltering ships for tortuous trips across the Atlantic Ocean, died during the journey through the Middle Passage from abuse, disease and heartbreak.
s. We also honor the millions of African people who fought to survive those monthslong trips, only to be sold into a system of slavery in New Jersey that lasted for more than 200 years.
t. From the beginning of slavery in New Jersey, Black people fiercely resisted, escaped, and fought to liberate themselves. Yet for generations, the brutal system of slavery extracted uncompensated Black labor to build New Jersey into one of the wealthiest states in the country.
u. New Jersey's deep and persistent commitment to slavery made it the "slave state of the North."
v. This goes back to the colony's founding in 1664, when each white family settling in the territory was given 150 acres of land, plus additional acreage for each enslaved person they brought with them.
w. New Jersey was one of the first northern states to codify white supremacy in its laws when it restricted the vote to white men in 1807, and, in 1821, established a legal presumption that Black residents were enslaved until proven otherwise.
x. By 1830, over two-thirds of all people enslaved in the north were held in New Jersey.
y. Although New Jersey outlawed the importation of enslaved Africans in 1786 and enacted the "Gradual Abolition Act of 1804" to abolish slavery gradually, the State, instead of paying reparations to enslaved people, provided approximately $1 million in current dollars in reparations to compensate enslavers from 1806 to 1811 - until this nearly led the State into bankruptcy.
z. Under the Gradual Abolition Act, New Jersey's payments to enslavers accounted for nearly 30 percent of the State's budget in one year.
aa. New Jersey also opposed the Emancipation Proclamation and at the end of the Civil War in 1865, despite being part of the victorious Union, initially refused to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery.
bb. It wasn't until a State constitutional amendment in 1866 that slavery finally ended in the State, the same day that New Jersey became the last northern state to finally ratify the Thirteenth Amendment.
cc. Even after slavery finally ended, the oppression of Black people in New Jersey continued through the cottager system, a form of sharecropping, and then into the 20th century through the State's own Jim Crow segregation, including the widespread use of racially restrictive covenants, redlining, the denial of GI Bill homeownership opportunities for Black World War II veterans, exclusionary zoning, and discriminatory lending practices.
dd. From the 1870s to the 1940s, public and private facilities and establishments in New Jersey, including restaurants, taverns, and pools were segregated by race, and it was not until the State Legislature passed the Freeman Bill in 1949 that New Jersey law guaranteed equal access to schools, restaurants, stores, public transportation, theaters, and beaches.
ee. An overwhelming body of historical, legal, political, economic, sociological, and cultural scholarship, as well as community evidentiary documentation and the modern-day lived experiences of Black people in New Jersey, attest to the ongoing effects of the institution of slavery and the persistent harms of systemic discrimination.
ff. The enduring harm of slavery and its aftermath, and the lack of public awareness in New Jersey, require acknowledgment, apology, and repair by the State in the areas of economics, public education, and health, as well as in other institutions and contexts.
gg. New Jersey's deep roots in American slavery and its vestiges have endured to the present day, with Black people in New Jersey, who comprise more than 15 percent of the State's population, exceeding one million people, facing some of the worst racial inequalities in the nation in health, education, incarceration, exposure to environmental toxins including lead in water and homes, school segregation, and wealth, with a staggering median wealth gap between Black and white families of over $600,000.
hh. To address and educate about these systemic challenges in New Jersey, the New Jersey Reparations Council researched, wrote, and, in 2025 published a report, "For Such a Time as This: The Nowness of Reparations for Black People in New Jersey," that examines the institution of slavery in New Jersey as well as the extent to which the State of New Jersey perpetuated systemic racism and prevented, opposed, or restricted efforts of Black people to thrive upon the ending of slavery, and outlines policy recommendations that seek to repair the harm that has resulted from the country's original sin in the Garden State.
ii. In 2008, the 212th Legislature of the State of New Jersey adopted Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 270, apologizing for slavery in the United States but, in the resolution, affirmatively rejected a commitment to repair the harms and aftermath wrought by slavery in the State.
jj. The New Jersey Legislature, Black communities, and advocates around New Jersey believe that in order for New Jersey to fully live up to its potential to be a model multiracial democracy, it is necessary to honestly acknowledge and actively repair our past and present.
kk. According to the United Nations Principles on Reparation, an apology, when combined with material forms of reparative policies and practices as part of a larger, targeted but transformative process of reparations, including ending the ongoing harms and creating new systems and structures, provides an opportunity for communal reckoning with the past, and repair for moral, physical, and dignitary harms.
2. There is hereby established by the Legislature of the State of New Jersey that the following apology supersedes and replaces Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 270 of the 212th Legislature.
a. The State of New Jersey, on behalf of the people of New Jersey, apologizes, accepts responsibility for, and commits to taking active accountability for the State's role in slavery and its aftermath, which continues today.
b. The State of New Jersey recognizes and accepts responsibility for the harms and atrocities committed by the State, its representatives, and entities under its jurisdiction who promoted, facilitated, enforced, and permitted the institution of slavery and the enduring harms of ongoing badges and incidents from which the systemic structures of discrimination have come to exist and continue to exist.
c. The State of New Jersey apologizes for perpetuating the harms Black people faced by the State having instituted racism through segregation, public and private discrimination, unequal disbursement of State and federal funding, and various other State sanctioned practices and patterns of racial discrimination and declares that such actions shall not be repeated.
d. The State of New Jersey expresses its deepest sympathies and solemn regrets to those Black people who were enslaved and the descendants of those enslaved, and all Black people in the State who were deprived of life, human dignity, and the constitutional protections accorded through the United States Constitution and New Jersey's Constitution over the course of New Jersey's past and present.
e. The State of New Jersey affirms its role in protecting all Black people in New Jersey as well as their civil, political, and sociocultural rights.
f. The State of New Jersey humbly asks for forgiveness from those affected by past atrocities, both deliberately and negligently, and acknowledges and affirms its responsibility to end ongoing harm.
g. The State of New Jersey commits to restoring and repairing affected peoples with actions beyond this apology, including, but not limited to, rectifying the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against Black people under slavery, Jim Crow, and ongoing harms; stopping the occurrence of human rights violations in the future; and building a new State of New Jersey where Black people can flourish.
h. The State of New Jersey acknowledges the work of the New Jersey Reparations Council and its report, "For Such a Time as This: The Nowness of Reparations for Black People in New Jersey." The Council, convened by the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, details in its report the past and present harms faced by Black people in New Jersey and provides numerous recommendations to repair those harms, including this formal apology.
i. The State of New Jersey acknowledges that the harms identified in this act, P.L. , c. (C. ) (pending before the Legislature as this bill), and the New Jersey Reparations Council Report, "For Such a Time as This: The Nowness of Reparations for Black People in New Jersey," are ongoing and that the State bears a continuing responsibility to address and prevent the recurrence of such harms through lawful legislative, executive, and administrative action.
j. Through the State's historical societies and educational and cultural institutions, the Legislature encourages all people in the State of New Jersey and the United States to remember, learn, and teach their children, families, friends, co-workers, and community members about the history of slavery, Jim Crow laws, and ongoing systemic racism in New Jersey and the United States, to ensure that these tragedies will neither be forgotten nor repeated.
k. The State of New Jersey urges schools, colleges and universities, religious and civic institutions, businesses, and professional associations to do all within their power to acknowledge and teach the transgressions of New Jersey's journey from a colony to a State and how the State's institutions benefitted from and continue to perpetuate these harms, as well as to learn the lessons of history in order to avoid repeating mistakes of the past and to promote the repair of harms and transgressions to build a new State of New Jersey where Black people and all people in New Jersey can flourish.
l. Toward that end, the Amistad Commission shall incorporate the findings of the New Jersey Reparations Council Report, "For Such a Time as This: The Nowness of Reparations for Black People in New Jersey," into its curriculum standards and guidance, and shall work in consultation with the Department of Education to ensure that such materials are integrated into instructional resources beginning in the first full academic year following enactment of this act.
3. Nothing in this act, P.L. , c. (C. ) (pending before the Legislature as this bill), shall be construed to limit, impair, or substitute for any rights, protections, or remedies otherwise available under State or federal law.
4. This act shall take effect immediately and shall first apply to the first full school year following the date of enactment.
STATEMENT
This bill establishes "The Truth, Reconciliation, and Repair Act of New Jersey." The purpose of this bill is to acknowledge, take responsibility for, and take active accountability to repair the effects of the gross human rights violations against Black people in the State from slavery and the ongoing harms of systemic racial discrimination.
This bill, among other things, requires the State to:
apologize for the institution of slavery within the State of New Jersey;
apologize for the extent to which the State of New Jersey and the federal government prevented, opposed, or restricted efforts of Black people and their descendants to economically thrive upon the ending of slavery;
apologize for the lingering negative effects of slavery and its vestiges on the contemporary lives of Black people in New Jersey and the United States; and
commit to restoring and repairing affected peoples with actions beyond this apology, including, but not limited to, implementing public education to raise awareness about New Jersey's history of slavery and its ongoing harms; rectifying the lingering consequences of the wrongs committed against Black people under slavery and Jim Crow and other ongoing harms; stopping the occurrence of human rights violations in the future; and building a new State of New Jersey where Black people can flourish.
