Bill Text: TX HCR55 | 2019-2020 | 86th Legislature | Introduced

Texas House Concurrent Resolution 55 (Prior Session Legislation)

Introduced

Bill Title: Directing the State Preservation Board to initiate steps to provide for the replacement of the Children of the Confederacy plaque with a plaque to honor victims of the state's convict leasing system.

Sponsorship: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2019-03-25 - Left pending in committee [HCR55 Detail]

Download: Texas-2019-HCR55-Introduced.html

	86R9739 CLE-D

	By: Reynolds	H.C.R. No. 55



	CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
	WHEREAS, The convict leasing system that flourished in Texas
	in the late 19th and early 20th centuries began soon after the
	passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery or
	indentured servitude in the United States except as a punishment
	for a crime; and
	WHEREAS, Faced with housing and feeding an exploding number
	of new prisoners due to laws that were used to unjustly incarcerate
	free blacks after the Civil War, the State of Texas began leasing
	state prisoners to private businesses in 1867; the state took a
	negligent role in ensuring that the prisoners were treated
	appropriately, and working conditions at the sugar cane
	plantations, stone quarries, iron foundries, and other dangerous
	places were inhumane; and
	WHEREAS, The men and women who were victims of the state's
	convict leasing system suffered grievously, as shown in the remains
	of 95 African Americans that were discovered in 2018 on the grounds
	of the former Imperial Sugar Company State Prison Farm in Sugar
	Land; the remains indicate that amputations, bone breaks, extreme
	dehydration, mosquito-borne epidemics, frequent beatings, and a
	lack of medical care were common; and
	WHEREAS, For more than 30 years, the state's convict leasing
	system, an offshoot of slavery, provided revenue to the State of
	Texas and allowed the state to largely avoid the cost of housing and
	feeding state prisoners; for the businesses that employed the
	prisoners, the convict leasing system was also profitable, allowing
	the businesses to hire labor at a fraction of the appropriate cost;
	and
	WHEREAS, By the time the Texas Legislature passed S.B. 10,
	Acts of the 31st Legislature, 4th Called Session, 1910, to end
	convict leasing, the Capitol, officially completed in 1888, had
	already been built with convict labor; records show that the red
	granite and limestone used to construct the building were quarried
	by state prisoners and that all of the iron works, including the
	dome, columns, gates, and interior decorative features, were
	fabricated by state prisoners; and
	WHEREAS, It is in the public's interest to create a plaque to
	inform visitors to the Capitol that the Capitol was built with
	convict labor and to show that the men and women who were victims of
	the state's convict leasing system played an important role in the
	history and economic development of Texas; now, therefore, be it
	RESOLVED, That the 86th Legislature of the State of Texas
	hereby direct the State Preservation Board to initiate steps to
	provide for the replacement of the Children of the Confederacy
	plaque with a plaque to honor victims of the state's convict leasing
	system; and, be it further
	RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward an
	official copy of this resolution to the executive director of the
	State Preservation Board.