- Nancy Pelosi (CA-12), Speaker of the U.S. House: (202) 225-4965, (415) 556-4862; https://pelosi.house.gov/zip-code-lookup?form=/contact/email-me
- Steny Hoyer (MD-5), Majority Leader of U.S. House: (202) 225-4131 (legislative office), (202) 225-3130 (real office); https://www.majorityleader.gov/email (currently experiencing problems with CAPTCHA verification)
- Jim Clyburn (SC-6), Majority Whip of the U.S. House: (202) 225-3315; https://clyburn.house.gov/contact-me; [email protected] (<--email provided by his office. Should try official module on government URL as well, though)
If access to anyone is blocked by a zip code, CAPTCHA malfunction, or any other impediment, contact [email protected] for tips on how to bypass such inconveniences and get your communication to them.
Bolded in red sections require filling in!
Call Script
This call script was inspired by Human Rights Watch and the H.R. 40 Coalition's Letter to Congress, a letter which 350+ organizations signed onto in support of H.R. 40. The DA Reparations Task Force is also a proud signatory of this letter.
Dear Speaker Pelosi / Majority Leader Hoyer / Majority Whip Clyburn:
Greetings,
My name is ____ and I am calling Rep. XXX's office on behalf of Democrats Abroad, the foreign arm of the U.S. Democratic Party. As a DNC-recognized State Party, we seek to represent the more than 6.7 million voters who live abroad. This Black History Month, we strongly urge Rep. XXX to immediately bring House Resolution (H.R.) 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act, to a full vote on the House floor.
H.R. 40 has a record 215 members of Congress committed to voting “yes” when the bill comes to the House floor. Furthermore, the enactment of a commission to study reparations is a part of the Democratic Party's own 2020 platform. Now is the time to bring the bill to the floor. The world is watching.
We Dems Abroad firmly believe that addressing pervasive anti-Black racism and providing reparations, long overdue, cannot wait another day, month, year, or decade. We must act now.
We appreciate your listening to us. If you have any additional questions or need additional information, please contact me at: ______.
Or contact the DA Reparations Task Force at: [email protected]
Email Script
This email script was inspired by Human Rights Watch and the H.R. 40 Coalition's Letter to Congress, a letter which 350+ organizations signed onto in support of H.R. 40. The DA Reparations Task Force is also a proud signatory of this letter.
Dear Speaker Pelosi / Majority Leader Hoyer / Majority Whip Clyburn:
My name is ____ and I am writing Rep. XXX on behalf of Democrats Abroad, the foreign arm of the U.S. Democratic Party. As a DNC-recognized State Party, we seek to represent the more than 6.7 million voters who live abroad. This Black History Month, we strongly urge Rep. XXX to immediately bring House Resolution (H.R.) 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act, to a full vote on the House floor.
H.R. 40 has a record 215 members of Congress committed to voting “yes” when the bill comes to the House floor. With this level of support, it should pass the House, so long as Leadership sticks to public promises to get behind it and advance the bill. Furthermore, the enactment of a commission to study reparations is a part of the Democratic Party's own 2020 platform. Now is the time to make our words reality. American voters around the world are watching.
People in the US are now more eager than ever to pull back the curtain on institutions to see whether they have helped to advance or stall racial progress, and those institutions include the US Congress. As states, cities, and other institutions, including the state of California; Providence, Rhode Island; Burlington, Vermont; Tallahassee, Oklahoma; Greenbelt, Maryland; Detroit, Michigan; Evanston, Illinois; Georgetown University; the Jesuits; and others pursue reparations at an accelerated pace, it would be sheer irony for the federal government, which sanctioned the kidnapping and trafficking in human beings that slavery entailed, and maintained subsequent anti-Black laws and institutions, to continue to lag behind.
H.R. 40 would establish an expert commission to study the legacy of slavery and how the failure to address harms stemming from it have resulted in huge racial disparities between white and Black people in: the ability to accumulate wealth; to access health care, education, housing and employment opportunities; environmental outcomes; and policing, among other things.
Like the commission that investigated the forced relocation and wrongful incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, H.R. 40 can help pave the way for a critical and truthful reckoning and accounting for past harms and the present harms that flow from them.
The US Congress made history when, on April 14, 2021, the House Judiciary Committee voted to move H.R. 40 to the House Floor for full consideration, the first time in the bill’s 32-year history. Eight months later, the bill continues to languish. When the bill has so much support, it would be an indictment against everything we, as Democrats, stand for if we allow the bill to die. While we recognize the importance of symbolic measures, such as the speedy and nearly unanimous vote in the House of Representatives this year to establish Juneteenth as a federal holiday, the House must similarly act without delay to bring H.R. 40 to the floor for a vote so that a substantive study can proceed that can bring about real change.
The world is waiting to see how the US government makes amends and repairs the harm stemming from slavery and legal discrimination, but every year the same message gets sent: Black votes matter, but not Black lives. Continued investments in good public policy measures, such as tax cuts for families with children and investments in affordable housing in the Build Back Better Act, are important, but public policy alone does not address past harm and has never been enough to end contemporary forms of racism, dehumanization, and exclusion. Undoing racial injustice and achieving racial healing requires remedy and repair, a principle well established in international human rights law.
We Dems Abroad firmly believe that addressing pervasive anti-Black racism and providing reparations, long overdue, cannot wait another day, month, year, or decade. We are in a once-in-a-lifetime moment that we cannot let slip away if we are to begin the process of righting the country’s wrongs. Voters will remember what Congress did and did not do when it had the power to act. It has that power now. It should ask itself: How do we want history to remember us?
We hope that we can count on you to be on the right side of history and move Congress to take this meaningful first step in the right direction. We ask that you bring H.R. 40 to the House floor for a vote as soon as possible.
We appreciate your time and consideration. If you have additional questions or need additional information, please contact me at: ______.
Or contact the DA Reparations Task Force at: [email protected]
Democratically Yours,
______