This House resolution honors and seeks to protect Freedmen's settlements — towns and communities founded by free and formerly enslaved African Americans after emancipation. It describes historical harms these communities faced, notes modern examples (Sand Branch, Africatown, Mossville, Edmondson, Allensworth, Oberlin Village, Independence Heights), and urges documentation, historic preservation, and coordinated support.
The resolution asks federal, state, local, nonprofit, and community groups to coordinate on identifying and supporting freedmen's settlements. It encourages preserving history, protecting communities from harmful development and gentrification, improving basic services, and investing in economic and environmental recovery. As a House resolution, it expresses priorities and urges action but does not itself create spending programs or specific legal changes.
The text encourages designated funding for preservation and economic justice initiatives, but it does not include cost estimates or specific funding amounts. No publicly available information on total costs or appropriations is provided in the resolution.
Supporters say these settlements reflect community resilience and deserve recognition, preservation, and investment. The resolution links preservation to correcting long-term harms like racial discrimination, economic divestment, and environmental injustice, and it highlights federal programs and initiatives (for example Justice40 and EPA climate and environmental justice work) as part of the path to support these communities.
No publicly available information on opponents' views is included in the resolution or its metadata.