1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act . 2. Findings and purpose (a) Findings The Congress finds that— (1) approximately 4,000,000 Africans and their descendants were enslaved in the United States and colonies that became the United States from 1619 to 1865; (2) the institution of slavery was constitutionally and statutorily sanctioned by the Government of the United States from 1789 through 1865; (3) the slavery that flourished in the United States constituted an immoral and inhumane deprivation of Africans’ life, liberty, African citizenship rights, and cultural heritage, and denied them the fruits of their own labor; (4) a preponderance of scholarly, legal, community evidentiary documentation and popular culture markers constitute the basis for inquiry into the on-going effects of the institution of slavery and its legacy of persistent systemic structures of discrimination on living African Americans and society in the United States; (5) the brutal overthrow of Reconstruction, which represented a significant but constrained moment of advances for Black rights as epitomized by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875 and the Freedman’s Bureau, failed African Americans by failing to ensure their safety and security; (6) following the abolition of slavery and end of Reconstruction the United States Government, through laws enacted at the Federal, State, and local level, continued to perpetuate, condone and profit from practices that continued to brutalize and disadvantage African Americans, including share cropping, convict leasing, Jim Crow, redlining, unequal education, and disproportionate treatment at the hands of the criminal justice system, resulting in stolen labor and ultimately forestalling landmark contributions in science, arts, commerce and public service