COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Wednesday, February 18, 2026 10:18 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCILMAN CURTIS JONES, JR., CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN QUETCY M. LOZADA, VICE-CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN KENDRA BROOKS COUNCILWOMAN JAMIE GAUTHIER COUNCILMAN JIM HARRITY COUNCILMAN JEFFREY YOUNG, JR. ALSO PRESENT:
Once again, good morning. Thank you all for coming. I want to take a moment to acknowledge those people who are experiencing their first day of Ramadan and those people who are doing the holiday. I see a lot of people getting ash on their foreheads. And isn't that an irony that all of these great religions are coming together at the same time to contemplate important issues before us. I want to also take a moment of silence to recognize the passing of Jesse Jackson, who was one of the pioneers that carried the baton past Martin Luther King's death, and we all over a period of time will gO that way. So if you would join me in a moment of silence on his reflection. (Moment of silence.)
Thank you. All right. So we are here to talk about Resolution No. 250781.
Before we go into that, I want to give some context as to why we are here. Everything has a moment in time. We are in the 250th anniversary of this nation. And many, many people would like to not acknowledge the good, the bad and the ugly as a part of history. But I think it's very important, as matter of fact vital, for us to recognize all chapters of American history so that we can have difficult conversations about things that happened and what we can do better and what we can do in the healing process. I don't know, I can speak for me, there are chapters in all of our lives that we don't want read out loud, but they did happen. And you can act like they didn't happen, but they exist. And only by facing those chapters can we confront ourselves to say, here's the things I did well, here's the things I need to do better, here's the things I'm doing from now on. America is no different than that. As we talk about the history of slavery in this country, one of the things that we are trying to define is what should be the qualifications for people who suffered that injustice, that their parents, their grandparents, their great-grandparents went through that travesty, we should, and that's a difficult question, because people experience the African Diaspora differently. We got to define how we do that. The second question before us is, what should be some of the commonsense remedies that we can employ as a nation, as a private sector. I can name the fact that many institutions in Pennsylvania in this country benefited from the free labor and atrocity of slavery. There are slaves buried under the White House that were completed in mass graves. Does the government have some responsibility to make whole those descendants? I think the answer is yes. If we look at institutions ranging from insurance companies to education institutions benefited through the process of slavery, should there be some compensation? And what could that possibly be? Could it be tax write-offs for descendants of slaves? Could it be scholarships for descendants of slaves that were taken advantage of other ethnic groups have benefited from that if we talk about Native Americans who now have been compensated to a degree through publicly-owned land that was given back to them as well as gambling casinos. That happened. There were Japanese internment camps, Korean internment camps that got compensation that was passed by the Freedmen. So we want to look at those questions. We want to know also, not just the federal, not just the private sector, but what is the City of Philadelphia's role and responsibility in this, in establishing a Freedmen's Bureau that will be a part of the solution. We have many guests here to get perspectives. This resolution is designed to begin the discussion. And so, I'm very glad to have that. Ms. Stack, can you please call the roll.
Thank you. A quorum has been established. Can you please read the title of Resolution 250781.
Authorizing the Committee on Public Safety to hold hearings to examine the potential establishment of an office of Freedmen Affairs within the City of Philadelphia.
Thank you. I just want to recognize my member Jamie Gauthier, who long before I got on this train, done a lot of homework on that. And I attended a piece that you did at Community College, which was so eye-opening in the sense that it's not one way, it's many views on this subject. Can you maybe give a comment or two?
Sure thing. Well, first, thank you so much for hosting this important hearing. It's a topic that definitely needs to be discussed and I support the effort to create the Freedmen's Office in the City of Philadelphia. So for the past several years, my office has been helping to facilitate the Philadelphia Reparations Task Force, who has been focused on putting together a set of recommendations for reparations for Black Philadelphians. And this is work that is important to me. It has always in part been organized around this idea of a Freedman's Office. It came out of the organization N'COBRA with Rashawn Williams and others who were involved from the very beginning. And, in fact, one of the task force members who have worked really, really hard to put together some of these recommendations, particularly around the criminal legal sector, is Cara McClellan. And she's here today also with students who have been helping her to put together the report. So I see this effort as intertwined. I'm fully supportive of what you're doing. And I look forward to the discussion today. And I see this as another step in the right direction, and I don't think it could come at a better time, as we look towards our country's 250th birthday, under a federal administration that would erase all of this. So it's really important that within these chambers we're acknowledging not just the truth, but the debt that is owed because of the truth. Thank you.
So I want to also recognize the fact that we as a people weren't in this alone. There were abolitionists, there were freedom fighters. There were people who operated the Underground Railroad that did not have literally skin in the game, but stood up for what was right. They have to be acknowledged as a part of why we are here today. And I'm truly thankful for the Quakers and those abolitionists. The Quakers even until this day have a strong, strong support system to do what is right for all people. And we can't operate in a silo, and I'm so very thankful for them. Do any other members have something to say? Member Lozada.
Thank you, Chairman Jones. I just want to say thank you to each one of you who is here today and who's going to contribute to the conversation. I think it's important that we remember, right, that if we don't hold ourselves accountable for what has happened in the past and what role government played in the past, we will repeat it. And so, I don't pretend to know Black History in its totality, right. But I think that I have learned a great deal of the roles that many people played in government in the City of Philadelphia through my past spaces of employment who created opportunities for African Americans to learn about the truth of our history through the great Charles Blockson and Michael Coard and the work that they did establishing the African American Museum and telling the story of the President's House that we find ourselves in a conflict today, right. And so, I'm grateful for those conversations that we had and the lessons that I learned. I think I learned more in those engagement conversations that I learned from textbooks and class, right. It was through the community and the community telling the story and holding all of us accountable. And so, I'm really looking forward to the conversation. But I also am grateful that each of you have stayed consistent and pushed to get us to where we are today. I'm looking forward to the conversation and to the establishment or the possibilities of establishing this office. Thank you for being with us this morning.
Any other members would like to be recognized? Member Young.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to thank all that's participating in this hearing as well. It's important that we get certain messages out and open in the public so people can understand that there is a different story and a different side. So I just want to thank you all for participating.
Member O'Rourke, would you mind joining us up here? We see you and we'd like you to be a part of this hearing. Although you're not on the committee, we'd like your input. Thank you, sir. Thank you, member. Would you like to say anything?
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just grateful to be asked to join for just a moment to listen in on something that has obviously, as Member Gauthier has mentioned, is very timely. Thinking about all that was lost since Reconstruction and how much more we need to retain and gain back, I think, is an appropriate conversation at all times. So just happy to listen in and see what will be discussed today. Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Member O'Rourke. Ms. Stack, will you please read the names of the first panel to testify.
Ogbonna Hagins, President of the Philadelphia Reparations Coalition for American Freedmen; Anthony Dickerson, Chief Compliance Officer from the Philadelphia Reparations Coalition for American Freedmen; Will Jackson, Administrator for the Philadelphia Reparations Coalition; and Rashawn Williams, a member of the Philadelphia Reparations Coalition.
Thank you very much. Please come up to the table and state your name for the record and please begin your testimony. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
Members of the Chair -- to the Chair, to the Crime and Safety Committee, before I begin, I want the record to show that I am not speaking as an observer. I'm speaking as a fourth generation chattel slavery survivor. My lineage traces directly to North and South Carolina. The Rollacks on my mother's side, Anne Hagins, her side fought in the Civil War. My great-grandmother was the grandchild of an enslaved person, and she told me herself what sharecropping was and how it felt to live under that brutal system. This history is not abstract to me. It's very personal. And in honor of my ancestors, I sit here today and I'm honored to speak on their behalf. I am obviously in strong support of the establishment of the Office of Freedmen Affairs. And I wanted to be very clear from the very beginning so that there is no 23 confusion, no misunderstanding and no mischaracterization. This is not a favor. This is not a policy preference. This is not a symbolic gesture. The establishment of the Office of Freedmen Affairs is a constitutional obligation. American Freedmen, the descendants of chattel slavery in the United States, they have a constitutional right to government protection, agency and enforcement mechanisms that flow directly from the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution. This is where the conversation must begin. Most people are taught that the 13th Amendment simply abolished slavery. That teaching is incomplete. And because it is incomplete, it has allowed generations of government actors to evade their responsibilities. The 13th Amendment did two things: First, it abolished slavery and involuntary servitude. Second, this is the part that matters today. It granted Congress affirmative power to enforce that abolition by eliminating what the Supreme Court and the 39th Congress called the badges, vestiges and incidents of slavery. That language is not simply poetic. Here in Philadelphia, City Council is the legislative body of the city. Functionally, it acts as the Congress of Philadelphia. With that role comes responsibility. Just as Congress was required to act on emancipation, City Council has the obligation to act where the consequences of slavery remain embedded in housing, policing, education, wealth, health and public safety. This is not theoretical. This is not a historical abstraction. We are talking about real, measurable disparities. For example, The Brooks Institute did a study, and it showed that homeownership rates for American Freedmen families in Philadelphia remain far below the city average, even when accounting for income. Neighborhoods historically built by Freedmen, such as the original Freedmen -- Philadelphia Freedmentown, you know the Black Bottom, you know, that 7th Ward. That was all Freedmentown. They have been undervalued and systematically denied investments for generations. American Freedmen in Philadelphia face higher rates of violent crime and lower access to quality education. And these outcomes are tied directly to structural inequalities rooted in the legacy of slavery. When government is aware of the ongoing harms tied directly to the legacy of slavery and fails to act, that is not neutrality. That is constitutional failure. Let me be very clear about why an office of Freedmen Affairs is necessary. Rights without enforcement mechanisms are meaningless. Let me repeat that. Rights without enforcement mechanisms are meaningless. You cannot claim equal protection while refusing to create the administrative structure required to deliver it. Philadelphia has offices for nearly every major population group, offices that coordinate policy, track data, advocate internally and ensure government accountability. But the descendants of the enslaved people, those whose unfree labor built this city, financed its growth and laid its economic foundation have no dedicated office, no institutional advocate and no formal agency charged with protecting their constitutional interests.
That is not accidental. That is structural. So many say we already have different offices, right, for other populations, that resources are limited. But the Constitution is not negotiable. The Constitution is not negotiable. The law explicitly recognized American Freedmen as a group with unique enforceable rights. To fail to act is to fail the Constitution itself. The question before City Council is simple: Will this body fulfill the duty promised and imposed by the 13th Amendment or will it continue the long tradition of delay, deflection and denial? The Constitution does not ask whether this is comfortable or not. It does not ask whether it is popular. It asks whether government will act. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery and impose the duty on government to act. Equal protection exists because of that duty. City Council must act because the duty has not been fulfilled at all. The Office of Freedmen Affairs again is not a favor. It's not optional. It's not symbolic. It is constitutional. It's a constitutional mandate. The same way we had off Dr. King Day, it was no question as to whether the children were going to have off, that's what this is. American Freedmen are not asking for recognition. We are demanding compliance with the United States Constitution. )
City council has the power. The Constitution gives Council the mandate. The Office of Freedmen Affairs is not a request. It is your duty. Thank you very much. (Applause.)
Thank you for your comments. Please stick around. We will ask questions after the entire panel presents its testimony. Whoever is next, please state your name and begin your testimony.
My name is Anthony Dickerson. I'm the Chief Compliance Officer for the Philadelphia Reparations Coalition for American Freedmen. My slave lineage traces back on my father's side to Brooksham(ph), Virginia and on my mother's side to Bennettsville, South Carolina. My testimony today should be viewed in the nature of a formal legal memorandum because the issue before you is not simply policy. It is constitutional enforcement. I want to address the structural problem in our legal system, one that affects how this city understands, responds to and prevents action rooted in the legacy of slavery. The problem is something called rational basis deference, and it has real consequences for how harms against Freedmen descendants are classified and addressed under rational basis. Courts treat certain acts as ordinary misconduct, minor wrongs, private disputes or generic public safety issues. When that happens, the deeper constitutional meaning of the act is never examined, the historical context is never acknowledged and the connection to the badges and incidents of slavery is erased. This is not an abstract concern. It affects how cross- burnings, racial threats, discriminatory denial of services and other acts with clear lineage to slavery are handled. When these acts are stripped of their historical meaning, they are pushed into the lowest level of constitutional scrutiny. They are treated as if they were no 17 different from a zoning violation or a noise complaint. That is the quiet power of rational basis deference. It lowers the constitutional stakes. It narrows the frame and it allows acts tied to a racial caste to proceed as routine misconduct. The phrase public safety often accelerates this collapse. When an act rooted in racial terror is described as simply public safety concern, that label becomes a shortcut and a way to avoid engaging with the constitutional dimension. It allows the system to treat the harms as generic rather than as part of a long, painful history that the 13th Amendment was written to confront. This is where the Office of Freedmen Affairs becomes essential. The Office will ensure that harms connected to the badges and incidents of slavery are not flattened into ordinary misconduct. It will provide the historical, legal and constitutional expertise that is currently missing from municipal decision-making. It will help the city recognize when an act is not a violation of public order but a continuation of the structures that once enforced slavery. By doing so, the office restores the proper constitutional frame. It ensures that the city does not unintentionally participate in the very dynamic the 13th Amendment sought to end, the minimization of racial harms and the erasure of their historical meaning. The Office of Freedmen Affairs is not about creating new categories of injury. It is about restoring the categories the Constitution already recognizes. It is about ensuring that the badges and incidents of slavery are not downgraded into the realm of ordinary misconduct. And it is about giving this city the tools to respond to these harms with the seriousness they deserve. Case in point, the public often assumes that a cross-burning is treated as a constitutional injury tied to the legacy of slavery. But that is not what happens in practice. Instead courts routinely place cross-burnings in the category of ordinary misconduct. They call it intimidation. They call it harassment or a public safety concern. Those labels sound serious, but legally they do something very specific. They move the act out of the constitutional category of slavery's badges and incidents and into the lower tier of constitutional protection. When descendants of American chattel slavery are denied loans, charged higher interest or steered into predatory products, courts almost treat this as a constitutional injury. They never treat these incidents as constitutional injuries tied to slavery.
Instead they reframe them as creditworthiness evaluation, underwriting discretion, business judgment, market-based modeling, neutral algorithm scoring. This reframing moves the issue out of the 13th Amendment's domain and into the weakest possible category, ordinary commercial decision- making, discretion. The racialized history of exclusion from capital, from the Freedmen's Bank's collapse to Jim Crow credit markets disappears. When the Freedmen applicants are underbanked, denied basic accounts, subject to excessive fees or flagged as high risk, courts and regulators often describe them as financial literacy, lack of documentation, insufficient collateral, market insufficiency. This reframing shifts responsibility away from institutions, from the constitutional history of exclusion. But the 39th Congress understood access to capital as a civil right essential to Freedmen. )
When Freedmen communities are targeted for subprime loans, balloon mortgages, payday traps, contract for deed schemes, exploitative feeds, courts often classify the issue as customer fraud, unfair business practices, regulatory violation, banking misconduct. Those labels sound serious, but they downgrade the injury into regulatory compliance. The constitutional dimension, the dimension of economic autonomy that slavery imposed is erased. In Philadelphia, harms rooted in structural racism are routinely misclassified from the very first point of contact. Police often treat radicalized displacement, predatory redevelopment pressure, neighborhood devaluation and harassment of Freedmen homeowners as isolated public safety issues, nuisance complaints or quality-of- life matters rather than modern badges of slavery tied to the city's long history of redlining, racist covenants and forced disinvestment. But that front line misclassification is shaped by legislature, which has never created a civil or criminal category that recognizes how Freedmen wealth inequality, land loss and gentrification flow directly from slavery's legacy. Courts then complete the cycle by accepting these narrow classifications and applying rational basis deference the lowest level of scrutiny, collapsing the longstanding injustices from the Antebellum era into ordinary misconduct and stripping them of constitutional meaning. The Office of Freedmen Affairs is designed to interrupt this entire chain by restoring the historical, economic and constitutional context that Philadelphia's current system consistently erase. The Freedmen's Bureau, the Freedmen's Bank were not charity projects. They were constitutional institutions designed to secure economic autonomy, protect savings, facilitate land acquisition and community development and integrate Freedmen into the financial system. Modern courts rarely acknowledge this lineage. They treat access to finance as a private market privilege, not a constitutional entitlement tied to the abolition of slavery. The City of Philadelphia cannot rely on ordinary rational basis deference when legislating. Rational basis deference applies only when a fundamental right is implicated and when the government is presumed to be acting in good faith. But the 13th Amendment exists precisely because the government did not act in good faith towards the formerly enslaved. And the right at stake here, the right to be free from slavery's ongoing structures is unquestionably fundamental. That means Council has both the authority and the constitutional duty to adopt a heightened standard when evaluating public safety policy. You are not merely permitted to consider the legacy of slavery. You are required to. The 13th Amendment enforcement clause empowers every level of government to dismantle the system that continues that legacy. (Applause.)
Rational basis review is constitutionally inappropriate where the badges and incidents of slavery are implicated. Rational basis only applies when no fundamental right is at stake. The 13th Amendment places the freedom of former enslaved and their descendants squarely within the category of fundamental rights. Philadelphia City Council has the authority to correct the failures of default legal settings. You ensure that Philadelphia does not rely on the lowest level of scrutiny when the highest constitutional values are at stake. You can ensure that the legacy of slavery is not treated as a footnote in our public safety system. In closing, Freedmen need the Constitution to follow them wherever they go, in every system they enter and in every interaction they have in public and private sectors for as long as the badges and incidents of slavery continue to shape their lives. Until the badges are eliminated, the protections of the 13th Amendment cannot be treated as optional, situational or symbolic. They must be active, present and enforceable. The 13th Amendment gives Freedmen the right to be free from the badges and incidents of slavery. What we lack is not the right, but the government structures that recognize, define and enforce it. Philadelphia has the opportunity to build the first institution that makes that constitutional promise real. City governments have a broad home rule and police power authority to define local public interest, create local rights, impose duties on municipal agencies, establish offices and enforcement mechanisms. Nothing in federal law prohibits Philadelphia from saying, Within this jurisdiction we recognize an affirmative duty to identify, prevent and eliminate the badges and incidents of slavery. In closing, the incident with Donald Trump removing the slavery exhibits, it wasn't just a breach of contract, it was a violation of 13th Amendment. Congress is clear, when you attempt to erase the memory of our enslavement in any form, it's a 13th Amendment violation. And the court never addressed that issue. But we're going to proceed with our appeal and handle that. I yield. (Applause.)
I would like to recognize Kendra Brooks, who has joined us and has a long history of establishing the discussion around the Freedmen's Bureau. Would you like to say anything, Member?
No. Just apologize for my tardiness. I'm really excited to hear this presentation and how we can move forward with this. Thank you so much for your advocacy around this.
Thank you so much, member. Who is the next to testify? Please state your name for the record and begin your testimony.
My name is Will Jackson. I'm the Administrator for the Philadelphia Reparations Coalition for American Freedmen. I want to thank the Public Safety Committee for allowing me to give this testimony. Today I come before you to address a grave issue that has persisted throughout history, the hijacking of American Freedmen assets. My research and investigation uncovered several instances where these assets have been undermined by White individuals. Nevertheless, today I will focus on two critical assets, the Freedmen's Bureau and the Freedmen's Savings Bank and Trust Company. When we look at the Freedmen's Bureau, we can compare it to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which operates with a substantial budget of $3 billion a year. Equally and in like manner, we can consider the Jewish Claims Conference, which has an impressive operations budget of $1 billion annually. The unfortunate reality is that the Freedmen's Bureau has vanished, operating with a budget of $0. As a result, American Freedmen are continually exploited, suffering from ongoing gentrification and our neighborhoods are far from thriving, as reported in the Roadmap to Safer Communities. Crime and violence persist systematically, supported by elected officials who fail to acknowledge the necessity of an office advocating for the descendants of emancipated people. The Freedmen's Bureau, formerly known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, was established in March 1865. The organization was created to aid formerly enslaved African Americans and poor Whites in the South. Its mission was expansive, including providing food, housing, education and medical care as well as facilitating labor contracts and managing abandoned lands. The Bureau's closure was in part a reflection of White individuals' inability to reconcile the 250 years of slavery with the restorative justice services needed to make American Freedmen whole, especially when compared to what should have been justified demands after a mere four years of Civil War. 5 billion. 3 trillion. Regrettably, the Freedmen Savings Bank and Trust Company, which was intended to benefit emancipated individuals, held potential assets that today could exceed $9 trillion. However, it stands with a net value of zero. For this reason, we believe in prioritizing the finalization of reconstruction for both current and future progeny of emancipated people impacted by historical injustice stemming from chattel slavery, as a matter of national security. We further aver that the 13th Amendment is evidence of a change in national values that justifies claiming that Freedmen Savings Bank and Trust Company's charter acts as a testament, proof of ownership and part of the vast estate, which established the progeny of the emancipated as the rightful heirs to this financial asset and instrument. The Freedmen's Bank was discontinued on June 10, 1872, leaving emancipated people and their offspring unbanked and underbanked. The bank's closure was due to racist attitudes and behaviors of its Board of Administrators, led by Henry D. Cook. An amendment was made to the Freedmen's Bank charter in 1870 to change its loan and investment policies to a policy allowing the bank to lend money and speculate in stocks, bonds, real estate and unsecured loans. In this case, we must rely on strict scrutiny. Strict scrutiny is a regular standard of judicial review used by courts to evaluate laws and policies that classify individuals based on race or other suspect classifications. When applying a test of strict scrutiny to this discontinuation caused by Henry D. Cook, the key questions must be answered: Was there a compelling governmental interest in discontinuing the Freedmen's Bank based on the racist attitudes, theft by its White employees, the corruption of its White administrators, namely Henry D. Cook? Was the discontinuation narrowly tailored to achieve governmental interests without infringing on the rights of Freedmen?
Was the discontinuation the least restrictive means to achieve the governmental interests? Given the historical context, it's unlikely that the decision to discontinue the Freedmen's Bank would meet these criteria, especially considering the bank's role in providing the economic floor and infrastructure of newly freed and manumitted people. Closing the bank's doors based on money stolen or lost due to misappropriations, fraud and poor decision-making could never survive a strict scrutiny test because such reasoning does not serve a compelling governmental interest. Once tested, the 42nd Congress will likely be seen as violating the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and exercising an inchoate right that was abolished by the 13th Amendment. The 13th Amendment, Section 2 provides Congress the authority to create any legislation needed to protect the rights of Freedmen, which includes a bailout of the Freedmen's Bank. )
The sabotage of the Freedmen's Bank Charter effectively nullifies the progress made by reconstruction by allowing states to implement policies known as Black Codes. That reversed the gains made by American Freedmen and ushered in an era of lynching. This created a legal landscape where past injustices could not be adequately addressed, as the courts were now controlled by those who sought to maintain white supremacy. This injustice is documented in several congressional reports, including House Report No. 9 502, the Douglas Report from the 44th Congress's first session held in 1876. The Douglas Report was an investigation into the collapse of the Freedmen's Savings Bank. It highlighted several critical points. The report pointed out severe mismanagement and fraud within the bank, including misuse of funds and poor financial decisions by the bank's officers. It criticizes the lack of proper oversight by the government, which allowed these issues to go unchecked. The report detailed the devastating impact on American Freedmen depositors, many of whom lost their life savings. It provided recommendations for improving oversight of financial institutions to prevent similar failures in the future. It must be understood that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was enacted to protect the civil rights of people who endeared a previous condition of slavery, ensuring they had the same rights as White citizens to make and enforce contracts, sue, give evidence, inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold and convey real and personal property. Unfortunately, on October 25, 2023 at the Freedmen's Bank Forum the rightful heirs of this estate, the descendants of the emancipated were discarded and replaced by a Vice-President Kamala Harris described a $12 billion funding package that should have been directly issued to second, third, fourth and fifth generation chattel slavery survivors and their offspring, blatantly reassigned this delivery to 162 community banks for the benefit of immigrants Asians, Latinos and Native Americans. Imagine that. This is a clear violation of the Freedmen's Bank Charter and a continuation of the undermining and inheritance hijacking that existed and caused the institution to close in 1872. What steps can we take to prevent further hijacking? To truly make America great again, we must support the needs of American Freedmen. (Applause.)
The managers and administrators of the Office of American Freedmen Affairs do not necessarily need to possess a doctorate or a law degree nor they must be esteemed members of the Boule or the Divine Nine. However, they must be well-versed in the parameters established by the 39th Congress, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the U.S. Constitution and the Equal Protection clauses identified in the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. (Applause.)
Freedmen managers and associates for the office will be confirmed through an indepth understanding of these concepts to safeguard against modern hijacking of the office, minimizing the risk of being compromised by those who neglect the best interest of American Freedmen. In conclusion, the Freedmen's Bureau Act would never formally repeal. Instead the Bureau was sunset through appropriations. As a matter of constitutional doctrine, the expiration of a federal agency does not distinguish the underlying constitutional right or enforcement duties that justified its creation. Courts have repeatedly held that when Congress create rights under the 13th Amendment, those rights persist independent of the administrative structures originally used to enforce them. The Freedmen's Bank Charter is the estate property of the progeny of the emancipated. And as heirs to this day, maintain the right to include this asset in current and future estate planning. To this date, there has never been a proclamation, executive order of a seated President, annulment, repeal or final resolution of Congress or U.S. Supreme Court ruling that vacates, concludes nor deems unconstitutional the Freedman Savings Bank Trust Company Act of 1865. Thank you. (Applause.)
Thank you. Thank you so much for your testimony. As we proceed with the next speaker, we want to kind of move this to the Q&A portion, so that we have so many questions to unpack. And one thing that I will ask is that as we continue this process, that there be a timeline of when things occurred and established and based on the Constitution, how these things happen. One of the things that caught my ear is the quickest way to close the agency is underfunded. If you want to kill it, starve it. And so, as we start to put these facts on a timeline, that we see where they occurred and what potentially should be the remedy. Thank you. Who's next? State your name for the record.
My name is Rashawn Williams. I was born and raised in Philadelphia. My ancestors reside in South Carolina and have since before the 13 colonies of the United States were formed in the late 1700s. I have worked on behalf of American Freedmen and the issues around American Freedmen for over seven years, and thank the elders and forebears whose work made it possible for me to be here today. During my time serving as the Co-chair to the Philadelphia National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, I organized, lobbied and authored and served as the Co-chair for the Philadelphia Reparations Task Force, to which I've become well- versed in the subject at hand, and establishing an Office of Freedmen's Affairs is an ideal continuation of that work, almost a unilaterally accepted and agreed- upon next step by organizers across the country who also work on behalf of reparations in order to address the badges of slavery and Jim Crow in the United States. So little bit of history. In 1862, the Pennsylvania Freedmen's Relief Association was established. Okay. Again, in 1862 the Pennsylvania Freedmen's Relief Association was established to support formerly enslaved Americans to transition into being Freedmen and women in the North. Okay. In 1863, the Friends Association of Philadelphia, again in 1863 the Friends Association of Philadelphia and its Vicinities for the Relief of Color Freedmen was established, and a part of that the "Port Royal Experiment" and "National Freedmen's Relief Association" from the Sea Islands of South Carolina was successfully established. Its successful establishment inspired and moved the federal Freedmen's Bureau to be enacted subsequently in 1865. Now, Philadelphia has had a Freedmen's bank in South Philadelphia, the 7th Ward. The reason why I'm mentioning this is because this has been done already. Pennsylvania, Philadelphia has had Freedmen's Bureaus as well as a Freedmen's Bank, South Philly. After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the political attacks on congressional acts to legally protect American Freedmen, the National Freedmen's Bureau was disbanded and the trustees of the Freedmen's Bank confiscated all of its deposits, causing the bank to go bankrupt and eventually taking wealth and assets from Freedmen communities. Philadelphia legislators have an opportunity to reverse those damages through this agency. So what would the agency do? Well, ensure human rights, constitutional rights, community building, family restoration, epigenetic repair, a whole lot of stuff that I'm going to start to talk about in the presentation. So Philadelphia is known as a city of firsts. I want to go through some of the other cities and states that have put together some sort of reparations legislation just so that we know we're not on an island. So the state of California, the state of New Jersey, cities like Evanston, Illinois; Amherst, Boston; and Cambridge, Massachusetts; Wilmington, Delaware; Detroit, Michigan; St. Louis, Missouri; Durham, High Point and Asheville, North Carolina; Providence, Rhode Island; St Paul, Minnesota; Burlington, Vermont and many more, but Philadelphia will be the first to establish a Freedmen's Office in this particular capacity, especially in the 21st Century. (Applause.)
So Philadelphia has long been a leader in abolition and reparations. It is the only city in the nation that has a slavery disclosure law that requires institutions to produce statements of financial reparations. (Applause.)
Again, Philadelphia. And that work was largely pushed by N'COBRA, The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America in 2004 and 2005. Again, the city has a slavery disclosure law where businesses are to disclose their ties to slavery and provide statements of financial reparations where there are ties found. So Bill 040133-A and Bill 050615 have yet to garner a projected impact since they were established in 2004 and 2005, but they show promise, potential and how Philadelphia has been a premier in freedom and justice. Now, to get to the 39th Congress of 1865 and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, this is an opportunity to deliver on those things. Now, let's jump to the slide. So I believe folks have this, this little colorful packet. I'm from Philly. I'm not reading, so you might hear a little ya-means and a little all rights, just as you follow me as I speak. I have this so that folks can see this history is not foreign to Philadelphia. We're continuing on work that was stopped. If folks want to learn more, they can speak with me afterwards. But this is enough information for folks to do their own research, specifically how South Carolina had the relationship with Philadelphia to make sure that folks were able to successfully be free in the United States of America. Next slide, please. So this is the language that specifically speaks to the slavery disclosure law and financial reparations laws. So you all have that in your packet as well. You can do the research. And it speaks on what the actual slavery disclosure law and financial reparations ordinance is supposed to do. Next slide as well. So I have this so that we can understand ecosystems. When we learned about ecosystems and ecology when we were like children, we learned how the frog had a relationship with the fish and how the fish had a relationship with the mosquito, and how this ate that, so city government, institutions, philanthropy, the private sector, the for-profit sector, these are all a part of the ecosystem that would make sure the Freedmen's Office would flourish. So outside of what the federal government has the obligation and preparation to do and the state, Philadelphia has the same. Next slide, please. So as we talk about timelines to your point, every generation is covered as well as how the office can implement some of the practices of restoration similar to the other offices that have been established for other ethnic and cultural groups in the city of Philadelphia. Next slide, please. So I have this so that we can see in your packets a wheel of repair. As we understand and think about reparations or think about an Office of Freedmen's Affairs, we primarily think about dollars. But it's not too often that we think about epigenetic repair, health care and reparations, trauma- informed care, land repatriation and restoring our actual environmental ecology. So this again is a reference for folks to continue to do their own research. It's colorful, it's bright and it's specific to the various ways that the Office of Freedmen's Affairs could implement some of the elements of restoration to the community. Next slide please. I also have this because it's important that each individual's journey is going to be different than the next. So Freedmen are going to need their own personal profile so that they can identify their wealth gaps, they can identify their epigenetic trauma. And folks can kind of look at this as their own profile, where you could look at your wealth, you could look at your education, you could look at your mobility. This is designed so that as we're thinking about actually establishing the office and the work that it's going to do, we can see a template of how individuals can actually get the restoration that they need. Next slide, please. So I have these slides so that we really understand what Black Americans, American Freedmen, folks whose ancestors were called Negro, all these different terms actually went through.
I'm going to read some specifically from my notes. Next slide, please. So we have -- first of all, there was something called the Negro Act and the Casual Killing Act. I just want y'all to do your own research on what the Negro Act was and what the Casual Killing Act was. We have the Fugitive Slave Act, the Missouri Compromise, Black Codes, Convict Leasing, the Sterilization Acts, Jim Crow laws. These were laws that were directly targeted to American Freedmen, to Black Americans, to the American Negro. And to this day, some of these laws have yet to be disbanded like the Negro Act, which basically made it illegal -- for example, that's where we get the outlaw of the drum. They made it illegal for us to drum and gather, just to give you some context. I want y'all to do y'all own research on some of these laws. Next slide, please. That's the Black Belt so that we can understand all of the work that our ancestors put in into the South. Next slide, please. So when you talked about timelines, this is a timeline of the boosts and blocks economically in America to different cultural, racial and ethnic groups. And I have this here as well as where it's cited from so that folks can again do their own research, like the GI bill and Black folks not being able to receive the benefits of such. Last slide. )
And the images that I'm using are specific so that we, you know, we have options. This is the diplomatic option that we're taking. The next generation is not going to do the diplomatic option. Y'all do understand that, right? I'm talking to my -- I'm not even talking to ya-mean right now. I'm talking to us. So we have the opportunity to do the diplomatic option so that we can rebuild the world before the next generation burns it and uses the ashes to grow something else. I'm being very clear about that. So in that, these images show our power and self-determination for us to do for self. Can you go back to the first slide, please, the very first one, all the way up? The thing that I want to emphasize is that the Office of Freedmen's Affairs is going to be us doing for self so that we can be well off. And y'all know when we good, the world is good. We've seen that time and time again. I ask that this body do what y'all know to do in your heart and your soul and to comprehend that this work has already been done in the City of Philadelphia. We've had a series of successes, from the Mayor to the Council body and the representation that we see, Philadelphia being a major contribution to the city of firsts. That's why we're having our celebration here. So this is the prime opportunity for us to do so. I thank you so much for your time and I'm looking forward to answering any questions that you have. (Applause.)
Wow. Again, a lot to digest. Members of the committee, would you like to ask questions? If not --
Thank you. I really appreciate everyone's testimony. It was very informative, very enlightening. A question I have is what are the metrics that we'll use before this bureau to define if it's successful?
So you have qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative that I would like to talk about is our people having a sense of pride, a sense of love, peace, culture, all of the innovation that we provide to the nation. The quantitative is we need to make sure that we have wills. We need to make sure that we have inheritances. I know the presentation isn't up, but there are a series of economic qualifiers. We can identify some of the poverty that our folks are living in. We can identify the education gaps, the issue of 20 schools being closed down and the oversight that -- (Applause.)
-- was taking place since. When I graduated in 2012, they would talk about closing schools. They did and then they're doing it again. Just identifying how, you know, redlining has contributed to gentrification in communities that we're seeing never got the investment or never got the promise for what they needed. We could look at the qualitative -- I mean, the quantitative measures of folks having like more employment, folks having more money, folks owning their vehicles, owning their homes. I also want to directly acknowledge and address some of the elements of crime, some of the elements of mother mortality rates, some of the elements of Black intellectual property. These are some of the quantitative things that we'll be able to see and measure from this particular office. (Applause.)
Let me piggyback on what he said. See, all those things that you described, everything we talked about as far as disparities, problems in the community, all stem from lack of enforcement of the 13th Amendment. (Applause.)
All of them. The badges, vestiges, incidents of slavery are not being addressed. You call them whatever name, you know, you apply deference. We'll call it public safety. We'll call it L&I. No, when it applies to us, the 13th Amendment is our shield. Everything that we get extends as an expression of the 13th Amendment. It's supposed to abolish slavery. It's not supposed to manage it. There's no budget attached to abolishing the badges of slavery. We have unlimited funds when we're dealing with the badges of slavery according to Congress. There's no cap on this. So whatever it takes, if we need to build 1000 schools, the money's there. We're not -- lawmakers are not accessing their authority under the 13th Amendment to address anything that's in that slide.
I want to answer the question again really quickly with some specific points. So folks will be able to identify their ancestry and genealogy, biological endowments, their inheritances, wills and their heirship, being able to establish beneficiaries, understanding their rights as benefactors as well as succession planning, identifying the issues of their actual living environment, like the health and well-being of their living -- like Nicetown, for example, all of the CO2 emissions in Nicetown. (Applause.)
I have a lot on my mind, but that's why I wrote it down. So looking at folks a bit like financial literacy, actual literacy, contracts, certifications, licenses. These are ways that we can actually be able to look measurably quantitatively. Land, property, real estate, copyrights, trademarks, patents, intellectual property, businesses, enterprises, the measurement of growth of these things, these are the ways that we can actually look at some of the numbers for the success of it.
And thank you for describing some of those ways. And you mentioned a lot of things that I think -- so let me ask my question: So why would creating a new agency translate into those measurable improvements, right?
Yeah. Because our people have a distinct set of human rights violations that no one else has in the country. We have gone through something that has to be acknowledged completely separately than what everyone else has gone through in the country. (Applause.)
Not White folk, not Indians, not Asians. Our folk have gone through something that is very distinct and very unique. For example, the police officers had to be trained on how to arrest and detain Japanese Americans where they -- during a certain period of time, maybe 40, 50 -- I'm not quite sure the exact time period, but I want to give you this example. If you were to tell a Japanese man or woman to get on their knees and be arrested, they would start to lash out. Why? Because the epigenetic trauma of kneeling down before someone who's going to detain you is that they would decapitate you in feudal Japan. Why am I bringing this example up? That's epigenetic trauma. That's how they responded to epigenetic trauma. There was a study that happened where police officers were then trained to not do that. Do I need to list our trauma in the country? Now, have we had --
That's why I have it on the slide. But have we had that study? Have we had a specific office dedicated to making sure that our issues and our traumas, our human rights violations were addressed with the same attention as everybody else? The answer is no. That's the reason why this is needed and important. And this would not be a country without us. Stop -- well, let me relax. Yeah.
Thank you, Member Young. Member Brooks and then Member Lozada.
Thank you so much for your presentation. It was very informative and I appreciate the timeline at the end. It probably brought it all together. So as I think about establishing the Office of Freedmen Affairs and the list of items that we would need to get there, have you thought of what city agencies would need to be incorporated to get us there? Some automatically came out as you were talking about wills and things like that, but have you guys thought about what other city agencies could kind of partner in the process to establishment?
Yeah. I would say all of the city agencies would participate. One of the interesting things that we know needs to take place with the Office of Freedmen's Affairs is folks need to do their genealogy and they need to do their ancestry. And so, our archival information needs to be disclosed to us, because there could be land repatriation that we were owed in the South. That's really important for us to understand what wealth we're sitting on and don't have access to. And then just even from that, we can then think about, you know, the financial institutions and organizations that would be part of it. Public safety and the historical preservation organizations that provide all of the plaques out front of the historical markers. As we do this, we're going to see way more history come up of the work that we've done. So every agency is going to be involved. What it's really going to take is knowledgeable, passionate, compassionate and personable individuals who are going to lead the charge to work with all of these organizations and agencies, not in a way where they're oppositional, but we understand that the genius of our folks have contributed to the greatest innovations in the country. So there's no office that this particular office would not work with. It's just how and the distinct elements that are unique to our struggle that would be different from how other offices are engaged. (Applause.)
I think you answered part of the question that I was looking for, right. I think that there's a difference between just describing some of the challenges are, right, but you explained what are some of those actionable things that we can do in order to kind of start this process. That was my question. In addition to that, beyond just city departments, right, how do you see this office or your group working with federal and state partners who would help to respond to some of the things that go beyond Council's authority?
So Philadelphia is unique because we are kind of a bully of the world in terms of culture, and I mean that in a good way. But the reason why I'm mentioning that is specifically because we have Pittsburgh, we have Harrisburg. Philadelphia is going to set a trend for other cities and states to comprehend how they can establish offices of Freedmen's Affairs as well. That's going to be very important. We're going to lead by example. That's number one. Number two is that the state and the federal government have an obligation based off of what Congress made sure existed through the 39th Congress so that resources can just be provided as we establish the office. That's number two. But number three is that our folks are all across this American Diaspora. And so, we're going to find best practices and information and support from philanthropy in the public sector, the nonprofit sector across the board, philanthropies in Western Pennsylvania, philanthropies in Florida, philanthropies in California that are waiting for innovation to come about so that they can invest and grant monies to support our work before there's even any money that comes from the federal government and the city. I really want folks to know that there is a world of individuals who are giving in the public and private sector through philanthropic dollars to accelerate this work. Once we start it, we're going to have a base line of funds to begin some of that work and develop these relationships and partners. And shout-out to Senator Sharif Street for his work at the state level as well. And I'm passing to Brother Ogbonna Hagins. (Applause.)
I want to piggyback off of what Rashawn said. We have been over the last maybe six months working with State Senator Sharif Street, who is a Congressional candidate, and he is currently circulating a memo to establish an Office of Freedmen Affairs at the state level. (Applause.)
So when you ask in regards to how will we implement these things, when Senator Sharif Street gets elected, he's going to take the Freedmen strategy right up to Washington. (Applause.)
Thank you. And then, Rashawn, I think you mentioned some other states and towns that have actually started an office like this one. Have you all had an opportunity to meet with them, talk about what some of their best practices are? What are they doing and what do you think would be maybe the first three to five steps or actions that you would want to take or follow?
There's currently no Office of Freedmen Affairs in the United States.
Yeah, they got task forces. There's no 7 dedicated office.
And so, what I'll say to that is that these other cities and states have done their research. There are nonprofit and grassroots organizations that have contributed a lot of education, a lot of groundwork to making sure that their legislative bodies have heard the voices of their folks. So there's data there. There's best practices there. There's a community that's willing to share information that we can consult with on a regular basis. They have examined how funds can be taken from different agencies in order to support some of those efforts. The only official office of Freedmen Affairs is Cambridge, Massachusetts. They just hired a director at the top of the year in January, so they could be a city and a state that we reach out to for best practices, how things are going. However, the thing that a lot of -- and this is my personal and professional opinion. A lot of folks lack imagination and innovation to comprehend how the work can actually be done. The reason why I had the graphics up is because I would like for us to be able to see all of the organizations, agencies and institutions that can play a role and how we have been doing this off of just the muscle, out the mud with no money. So when we get a little yahm-saying, we can do a little ya-mean. (Applause.)
So I want to be clear that the Philadelphia Reparations Coalition for American Freedmen is the standard to follow. We are going strictly by what the 39th Congress said is supposed to happen, and that Congress is what created Reconstruction. So who else can we really consult but the 39th Congress, because they had what was called a Freedmen Inquiry Commission. And they did all the research to determine what the Freedmen actually needed, what needed to be done. And we're going by what they say. I'd like to just say too that a lot of times you hear me speaking when I come to City Council, I'm repeating what the 39th Congress said. I'm repeating what Charles Sumner said. This is not my words. We just were able to come together as an organization to do this research. And as Dr. King said, truth crush the earth will soon rise again. Well, this is that truth that he was referring to. Because Dr. King never talked about the 13th Amendment. He never talked about the Freedmen's Bureau. He never talked about -- as great as he was, and this is no knock on Dr. King, but he didn't have the information that we have today. We are entitled to what the 39th Congress said we're supposed to have. So as the public, we have to learn this information and find out what exactly am I entitled to as a descendant of slavery, not what everybody should have, because my ancestors didn't die for everybody. They died specifically for their people who were suffering all of these incidents and badges of slavery.
So what I'd like to do is focus on a couple of things that deeply touched me today, that if you look at the vestiges and badges of slavery and you go by topic, you go from school-to-prison pipeline where you can document that disparities have happened in the criminal justice era that has disproportionately placed Freedmen and people of color in prisons. If you look at the fact that the school-to-prison pipeline is predicated on illiteracy and the fact that in slavery you were legally prohibited from learning to read, and that they know today currently, that if a young man does not read up to his potential by the 4th grade, how many prison cells to build by the time they are 18. So if you multiply that by health and that we weren't allowed to eat proper foods and today that in our communities, we have the highest degree of infant mortality, the highest degree of organ failure, that all of these things are those badges and vestiges. If we look at the military, where discrimination was rampant. And that if me as a non-person of color went in and took a test and I got scheduled to be an airplane pilot and you infantry, those are two different trajectories upon going back into society and levels of income. If you look at food deserts and places that we call often ghettos, that those were by design, that they built the other side of the tracks to contain us. They built the other side of the expressway to contain us. And whenever they saw fit that that property became valuable, they took it back. So there are so many, you mentioned, measures and how do we see if we're making progress, if in five years after the establishment of the Freedmen Bureau, the population of prisons of people or descendants goes down, measurement. If we have increased graduation rates, measurement. If we have economic income in communities that have been left out, benefit, and we can track those things. So this is a beginning that we need to set up a structure called the Freedmen's Bureau to implement, monitor because it's the right thing to do. (Applause.)
I wanted to go back to Councilmember Brooks' inquiry. She talked about partnership. And I think we need to make sure that we keep that line of demarcation in place. There will be partnerships. But this office that we're talking about is specifically for American Freedmen, descendants of the emancipated. And I say that because sometimes we mention Black, we mention colored, we mention African American, we mention Brown, we mention Negro. But all those titles that I just mentioned, people in those groups don't qualify as descendants of emancipated people so we got to make that clear. And I believe that when we have these conversations this is where it gets tough, because that dividing line and those partnerships that was discussed, it will be partnerships, but the office would advocate our every need. So if it's something needed, the partnership would just be in relation to the bureau or to the office with that particular organization. This wouldn't turn into a partnership where someone is going to do a manipulation or modification to the office and then we start trying to do some type of outreach program for all people. I just wanted to make it clear as we talk about partnerships. Because in color, it'll start, you know, to seep out and we won't stay focused on descendants of the emancipated people. And as the administrator, I just want to make sure we stay there. As we take your questions, we're going to make sure we stay compliant. Because when the office starts, it shouldn't be no 10 surprises. When people line up, you know, humpbacks, giants, different people, we know that the people that's in that line should be descendants of emancipated people. (Applause.)
And as this brother said here, it'll be through genealogy studies and testing. (Applause.)
Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. And it's very important that we put all of that on the record because it's a lot of information and we are going to have to, as a group, figure that out so that we can take the next steps, which is to establish an office based on these discussions. (Applause.)
Ms. Stack, can you please read the next panel to testify.
Cara McClellan, Criminal Legal Chair for the Philadelphia Reparations Task Force. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
Okay. Please have a seat and begin your testimony. Thank you for your patience. MS. McCLELLAN: Thank you, Councilmember Jones, for calling this important history hearing to hear this important history. And I also want to say thank you to Councilmembers Gauthier and Brooks for the creation of the Philadelphia Reparations Task Force. So good morning. My name is Cara McClellan. I teach at Penn Carey Law School. I direct a clinic called the Advocacy for Racial and Civil Justice Clinic, and I also teach a course called the Unfinished Work of Reconstruction. So I want to say at the outset I plead the 13th, as the shirt says. I agree wholeheartedly with the information that you've just heard from the Coalition about the importance of grounding this conversation in the Constitution. We often talk about discrimination and institutional racism as if it's about right and wrong or being nice or mean or that type of thing. It's not. It's about the Constitution, and we really need to own that and the reality that the same way people talk about their 2nd Amendment rights or the 1st Amendment rights, we have 13th and 14th Amendment rights that require action. And so, it's not just about someone being nice and changing behavior. It's about what the Constitution entitles us to. So I really just wholeheartedly agree and want to -- I really recognize that framing that was already ably explained. But if it is ever helpful to this committee or generally for City Council, our clinic would be happy to draft a memo on some of the ways that the 13th Amendment has interpreted the remedies that are required, even though it's already been very ably explained. If it's helpful to just provide some additional case law, we'd be happy to do that. Happy to do that research. I'm here today with two of my students, Natalie Respond and Kate McNamara-Marsland. And I wanted to make sure that they were here because they are doing work through the clinic representing Dr. Walter Palmer and the Committee of Elders who are advocating for reparations for the Black Bottom displacement. A long history of displacement is relevant for this conversation, but also because both Kate and Natalie are on our legal team representing avenging the ancestors and Black journey and the lawsuit that is challenging the National Park Services, removal of a critical exhibit about the history of the nine people who were enslaved by President George Washington that is directly connected. We have to acknowledge our history and the truth of slavery is at the core of the foundation of this country, Philadelphia being the birthplace of democracy as we move forward and design remedy. So I wanted to acknowledge both of their work because they've been hitting the ground running as our team has been litigating this issue that is now being appealed to the Third Circuit. And then also just one other recognition. I want to acknowledge Morgan Smalls, who hails from West Philadelphia and is currently a law student at Howard Law School, but has been instrumental on the Reparations Task Force as an intern and supported me in creating these comments. Today I am going to be presenting not about the harms which are laid out in the Reparations Task Force Report, which we would welcome the opportunity to share more about the harms that we've identified and found so far, but about a framework for the Bureau which could enact the remedies that are recommended through the task force. And I want to begin again grounding us in the history of the Freedmen's Bureau that was created in the context of Reconstruction, and then I'll talk a little bit about the California Bureau that already is being enacted and then make some recommendations for Philadelphia, if that's okay. I want to also just acknowledge the work of N'COBRA to continue to make sure that we focus on the importance of this agency.
I've learned so much from N'COBRA locally in Philadelphia and nationally and the movement that they have been leading over many decades. S. government agency created during Reconstruction, and the mission was to support formerly enslaved people as they transition to full citizenship after the Civil War. It was established in 1865 by Congress and signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln, the result of the Freedmen's Bureau. It was started as an initiative to provide education for people who were formerly enslaved and had been recently emancipated. But really when we think about the legacy of our public schools across the country, it is the source of our public school system and has benefited all Americans. So I just think that that's important to say because there's many ways in which the legacy of the Freedmen's Bureau has served our country deeply and foundationally. It also provided food, clothing and medical care to formerly enslaved people. It assisted with legal matters, and I'll talk more about that, including protecting civil rights. It helped reunite families who had been separated by slavery. And this is something that I've written a little bit about. It also helped to ensure that formerly enslaved people were supported in finding jobs and negotiating labor contracts. When you look at what was happening at that time, there were many examples of people being formally emancipated, and under the 13th Amendment it was no longer legal to have formal slavery. But informally, we then see people entering these contracts that say, I'm going to continue doing exactly what I was doing on this plantation. And so, there was a real need to have enforcement in terms of ensuring that the realities of slavery weren't just perpetuated in new language through the device of a contract, and that was recognized as critical and core to what it means to be a citizen. So in short, the Freedmen Bureau's history can offer us important lessons about possibility, but also about the. Source of resistance, racism, violence, lack of resources and political opposition are the reason that the Freedmen's Bureau ultimately closed in 1872. And I just want to emphasize within that, lack of resources. It was truly, I think as Councilmember Jones already nodded to, it is truly a reflection of starving an agency that had such important potential. And again, that happens just seven years after its creation. So think about how long slavery lasted and then how quickly we declared the work of remedying it over. Clearly, it was not. Next slide, please. When we think about what has been, you know, where are examples that we can look across the country. So California is one place where there has been movement in terms of creating a Freedmen's Affair agency. California Statewide Reparations Task Force recommended establishing a new agency, and it would be called the California American Freedmen Affairs Agency. It's tasked with helping to implement reparations efforts and assisting descendants of enslaved people. And again, it is directly tied to the Reparations Task Force and implementing the recommendations that the report identified in California. In October 2025, Governor Newsom signed Senate Bill 518 establishing the agency as a Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery. This Bureau is tasked with overseeing reparations programs, genealogy services, outreach and legal aid. And this newly enacted law, the Bureau is established under the state Civil Rights Division Department. A deputy director is going to be appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate. The bill also requires the Bureau to have a mission statement consistent with the state Reparations Task Force to achieve its objectives. The bill outlines specific divisions and functions, I think, many of which are worth looking at and I'll give some examples. The Bureau has an Education and Outreach Division to develop and implement a public education campaign. I think that's critical.
So much of this is about educating the public about this history and building consensus around the need for a remedy. The Bureau also has a legal affairs division that provides legal advice and counsel and ensures programs are enacted consistent with legislative authority. It also advises on legal and regulatory initiatives and serves as a liaison on legal matters with state agencies and other entities. California's Bureau provides insight into how we could establish a Freedmen's Bureau here in Philadelphia. And we can click to the next slide now. At the city level, a Freedmen's Bureau can provide support in some of the following ways: First of all, I think it's critical that we have institutional continuity, right. We know that this work is multi-generational work and that we need a commitment that is institutional and long-term that won't change with administrations. So the Bureau could create an administrative structure that would control and reform programming when necessary. This would support the goal of having a multi-generational program sustained beyond current task force members, for example. The Bureau would build institutional knowledge over decades about what interventions are most effective, and it would track outcomes across generations and adapt programs based on evidence rather than being at the whim of political cycle. So that's the first thing. I think it has to be an institutional commitment. Second, it would provide centralized support. Instead of scattering programs, as we've already acknowledged, across different departments, it would be a way of housing collaboration between different departments and agencies so that it could be -- so that the issues would not be deprioritized, but would be front and center for every agency. I also want to say I agree with Mr. Williams that it really does implicate every agency, because all of our agencies and departments have a role in creating and sustaining institutional racism and therefore have to have a role in addressing it. A Freedmen's Bureau would serve as the centralized hub. It would be a source of contact for appropriate city officials, provide various services and programmings and it would function as a one-stop shop for all of the sectors of the task force in terms of the report and the recommendations to impact, including housing, education, economic development, criminal justice and community investment. This coordinated approach would allow residents to access multiple services through a really intersectional approach and through a single point of contact, reducing bureaucratic barriers and ensuring comprehensive support. Third, data, documentation, accountability. A critical component of the programming will require data tracking and documentation. This is both with regard to who will receive reparations and what the harms that have been experienced are that require a remedy. So a bureau that is dedicated to conducting ongoing research and safeguarding documentation of past and continued disparities is critical, and this would provide evidence for why compensation or programs should be implemented, sustained and expanded. I want to in particular, and I'd be happy to pass this out, a recommendation of having a racial impact statement required within different city departments. This is a policy that has been adopted at the municipal level and at the state level all over the country, and this brief memo just kind of lays that out as a one-pager. And it's important because, as you just heard from the last panel, the Supreme Court has weakened our tools for addressing intentional discrimination. And in particular, when action is facially neutral, when it does not explicitly say that it's classifying people based on race or taking action because of race, but where we know that the impact, the disproportionate impact is predictable, right.
Because we don't have the disparate impact liability tools that we used to in courts because of the ways that federal courts have rolled it back and the way that this administration has withdrawn the regulations, we know Department of Justice has now withdrawn the disparate impact regulations, this is a critical tool we used to have for addressing systemic racism. And without it, as the last panel already talked about, we need new tools. And one of the ways that different local governments have gotten at this is by requiring a racial impact statement when a policy or a law is being enacted. So, for example, when making budgetary decisions, doing an analysis upfront on what is the racial impact going to be, what are the disparities or disproportionalities that we at the outset should recognize and try to address before the law is even passed. So it would be research and assess the disproportionalities, then a requirement to mitigate the disproportionalities, and then if it's not mitigated, the department, this agency, the Freedmen's Bureau would have that record, would have that data and it would be an additional tool of addressing the disparity going forward, including by being able to show that an actor was aware and enacted something even knowing that there was going to be this disparity. This is a critical basic step in my opinion that is necessary at the municipal level because we don't have the tools that used to exist for addressing disparate impact violations. The Bureau could also (inaudible) annual reports, measuring outcomes, tracking wealth-building progress and holding the city accountable to its commitments. The last thing I want to say, Mr. Williams really I think covered very eloquently, about the importance of the slavery disclosure law. It's not currently being enforced. I think the legal division of a Freedmen's Bureau could play a key role in enforcing this law. And in addition, it could be a source of funding if we hold accountable the actors, private actors, that have benefited from slavery and have acknowledged this history now. So that's a critical tool. The other two categories I want to talk about --
Hold on please. Ms. Stack, can you research who passed that law in 205?
(Inaudible). MS. McCLELLAN: It's Philadelphia Code 171042.
John Street. 205, that is amazing. All right. Thank you. Go ahead. Keep going. MS. McCLELLAN: And you can click to the last slide. So the divisions I've talked about so far, the legal division, the Research and Data Division would organize and maintain data collected. Again, this is in line with what California has done. It would continue the research started by the Reparations Task Force. It would be structured based on various policy areas, recognizing that these substantive areas are interconnected. But it would study housing discrimination, criminal justice disparities, economic disinvestment. And it would make this really accessible to the public. The division would not only keep current data, but it would track disparities over time as a way of measuring progress. And going back to the question about accountability and what is the standard for assessing progress made by this agency, this would be a source for assessing that progress. And then lastly, a Programs and Remedies Administration Division. This could handle the direct implementation of reparations, programming and manage any trust funds or financial accounts used to deliver compensation. This would include overseeing community investment programs, applications for individual payments and managing business development funds for community members. The division should establish clear criteria and steps for individuals to obtain these benefits. And so, in closing I just want to emphasize this is not just a theoretical conversation. It has to be a very practical conversation about how to implement the remedies that are required for the harms that are being documented. And in doing so, as we've already heard, we can build on history. We can also build on what we know is being implemented in other states and at the local level, but it has to be with grassroots voices at the heart of this, and the people who are most directly impacted really being at the center of this. Thank you. (Applause.)
Thank you so much for your testimony. Will the next presenter -- oh, you have a question, comment.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to thank you, Cara. Thank you and your team for all of your contributions to the Reparations Task Force, but to this work more broadly and thanks for the presentation today. I love the racial impact statement. The first thing that popped into my head is that we need this for the School District Facilities Plan posthaste, because what has been laid out will have a significant inequitable impact on Black and Brown communities throughout Philadelphia. But I love the concept and think we should implement this in Philly government in addition to the Freedmen's Bureau. Thank you so much. MS. McCLELLAN: Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Professor, for your testimony. A couple questions. I only read the city's brief so I apologize. I only read the city's brief in regard to the memorial removal, so the city didn't raise the 13th Amendment claim in their brief. Can you talk about if this claim has been raised during this process in order to try to win this in the courts? MS. McCLELLAN: So we actually did raise a 14th Amendment claim on behalf of attack and the Black journey. This was just in our amicus brief, which really lays out the equal protection implications of the removal. And I really appreciated the testimony of the first panel in terms of all the ways that the Supreme Court has chipped away at our ability to establish intentional discrimination. What we are left with -- as I know you're an attorney, so you know. What we're left with is these tools through indirect and when we have it, direct evidence of establishing discrimination, right. And so, in the case of the President's House removal, we talk about how to establish an equal protection violation for the decision to remove the exhibit based on the Arlington Heights test. And so, we go through the different factors. So we talk about -- and I'll be brief because I know this is -- I'm happy to also send the brief. But we talk about all of the statements that this administration has made as one source of evidence about erasing discussions of slavery, erasing discussions of race and erasing discussions in particular of Black History through National Park Service, for example, not honoring Martin Luther King Day as a holiday. There's so many examples of the removals that have been identified as disparaging American history under the executive order, but are really just telling honest history and including Black stories in that. And when you look at the way it has targeted Black History explicitly, when you look at the process, which was not a normal process, right, despite all of the deliberative process that led to the creation of the exhibit, then we just have people coming in from NPS with crowbars in the middle of the day, throwing these panels in the back of a pickup truck, that is not a deliberative process. And Arlington Heights tells us that that's another factor for showing an equal protection violation. So I won't go on for too long, but in the brief we very much lay out that this is a violation of the 14th Amendment. I certainly think that it is also an example of a badge and incidence of slavery that we don't have discussions of slavery in our national monuments. This is, in fact, the first example of a memorial to enslaved people on federal ground. And so, we do talk about the equal protection violation under the 14th Amendment.
So in the beginning of your answer, you were talking about how the federal courts have begun to kind of dilute the tools that we have, right. So what makes you so sure that or why should I guess the -- why should we fund an office on a municipal level if courts have found that these tools are I guess not legal or constitutional, right? So how would our office be deemed to be under the Constitution? MS. McCLELLAN: Well, I mean to be fair I don't I don't want us part of what the Trump administration has done is to misstate what is required under current law and to suggest and to chill action that could be affirmatively ameliorating discrimination by suggesting that, for example, students for fair admissions, the lawsuit that the Supreme Court decided on affirmative action requires a whole plethora of action, including getting rid of diversity, equity and inclusion, right. That's not true. Students for fair admissions is a much more limited decision about considering race as a factor in admissions. I worked on the case so I know what was presented at trial and what was ultimately decided. So to suggest that that case requires a whole slew of other things, it's just actually an inaccurate description of the law. And so, although there are ways that the Supreme Court has chipped away at, for example, disparate impact liability under Title 6, it still is the case that Title 6 exists. It still is the case that the Equal Protection Clause exists and requires, particularly under Title 6, federal actors and local actors to ensure that you're not going to be violating those laws, and that in many cases, requires affirmative, ameliorative steps that a body like City Council is permitted to take. But if it's helpful, again I hope my students don't kick me under the table as I'm creating more work, but if it's helpful for us to lay some of that out in a memo, we would be happy to because we think there is strong legal support under Title 6 and the Equal Protection Clause.
Thank you. That'd be helpful. Yes, thank you. MS. McCLELLAN: Sure. Absolutely.
Thank you so much for that insightful commentary. Can we have the next witness to testify please. Thank you for your patience. State your name for the record and begin your testimony.
Anton Moore, Director of the Office of Neighborhood and Community Engagement; and Abu Edwards, Executive Director of the Office of Black Male Engagement. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
Young warriors, come to the table. Have a seat. I've had extensive conversations with each of you. Both of you are well-versed in what happens today to African Americans, particularly the descendants of slavery. So state your name and begin your testimony.
My name is Anton Moore. Good morning to the entire Committee, Chairman. Thank y'all for welcoming us here. It's my first time here so I'm getting a little, you know.
You know what I mean. I feel good though. So good morning, Chairperson Jones and members of the Committee on Public Safety. My name is Anton Moore and I serve as the Executive Director of Public Engagement and Neighborhood Affairs in the Mayor's Office, Cherelle Parker. Joining me today is Abu Edwards, the Director of Black Male Engagement. I appreciate the opportunity to testify on Resolution No. 250781, exploring the potential to create an Office of Freedom Affairs in the Office of Public Engagement and Neighborhood Affairs. We are committed to engaging every community in the City of Philadelphia, in addition to our City Hall action centers, which provide constituent services, we have commissions and directors whose work is tailored to enriching specific communities and constituencies. This includes the Offices and Commissions for Muslim Engagement, Faith-based Engagement, Women Engagement, HBCU and Pan-Hellenic Engagement, Latino Engagement, Youth Engagement and Black Male Engagement. We work to ensure all communities, all neighborhoods and all residents from backgrounds are engaged by City Hall. There is always more work to do, more residents to engage, more ways to make government work for Philadelphia. I look forward to continue to partner with City Council on this work. I think all the speakers today who are speaking on such a touching topic. I too have family members who come from Down South. My grandmother used to pick cotton and she would tell me different stories like that. So hearing the testimonies, you know, it resonates with my family, because my grandmother is from Kingstree, South Carolina, and my other grandmother, which is my mother's mother, she's from Wilmington, North Carolina. So like I said, hearing these testimonies and having you guys here is very important. And thank you for allowing me to testify today and I'm happy to answer any questions that you guys may have.
I'm just going to introduce myself. My name is Abu Edwards. I serve as the Director of the Mayor's Office of Black Male Engagement and I serve as the Executive Director of the Mayor's Commission of African American males. And I'm just here listening and looking forward to answering any additional questions.
Well, let's get started. How do you see your agency interacting with the Freedmen's Bureau?
We're looking to take this information back to the Mayor's office and have that conversation of how this may work, how it may not work or whatever, but we see it through a lot of engagement that we do. The work that Abu does with Black male engagement is very important with engaging brothers here in Philadelphia and then the Women's Commission as well. So we're looking to take this information back to the Mayor who makes that ultimate decision and go from there.
One of the origins of Black male engagement was the negative impacts, and as mentioned, vestiges of slavery in the areas of criminal justice, in the areas of education, in the areas of health. Every negative category doggone near there was, we were at the bottom of the barrel being impacted by So to some degree, there is a natural gravity that relates to some of those origin problems that can be traced back to slavery. So it is important that some of the things that you may be working on now, some of the things that you are coming up with solutions for be incorporated in the Freedmen's Bureau, so we can start to kind of look at how that could potentially work together.
Well, first I just want to thank you, Councilman Jones, because in 2016 you are the one who fought to get the Commission on Referendum on a ballot to make it a permanent commission, meaning that this commission can't be removed, because you thought in your heart and you knew in your heart the implications that Black men go through every single day, you heard every single day folks were coming into your office saying that I can't get a job or I may not be able to own a home. The goal for our office is to address those disparities impacting Black men and boys of color, while the Commission's responsibility is to develop policy recommendations that address those disparities, to be able to present that to the Mayor and to be able to present that to City Council. Just this year alone, in February we had two really great events, right. We had a homeownership program meeting focused specifically on trying to get more Black men to become homeowners in the city of Philadelphia. About two weeks ago, we had 100-plus young Black men here for three and a half hours talking about civic engagement and how city government works and how they can see a government that they can see, touch and feel. So, yes, we have a lot of work to do. Our office, you know, the Office of Black Male Engagement, we work with any and everybody. Our goal is really to move forward to close those disparity gaps between Black men and boys. And if this office were to move, we will be open to be working with any office, any agency that helps improve the lives of Black men and boys across the city.
I truly appreciate the work you guys do. I think you will be a part of the data gathering on what the current day impacts are, memorializing those so that we can create some solutions. We don't intend to just sit on this information. We intend to be a verb and not a noun. We want action behind these data gatherings. So thank you for your testimony and we will now begin to hear testimony from the public. Ms. Stack, can we bring up the first group --
I have Mr. Casher, Kaylee Saleem and Robert Williams please. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
Thank you. Thank you so much for your patience. It's okay to submit your testimony and writing and abbreviate it if that's your wish. Who is first? State your name and please begin.
Good afternoon. My name is Renee Andrea Mills, Director of Anti-Freedmenism and Community Efficiency for the Philadelphia Reparations Coalition for American Freedmen.
I support resolution 250781, but my statement is a public service announcement for our Mayor, City Council, the community at large and the 700,000 American Freedmen residing in the city of Philadelphia. The establishment of an Office of Freedmen Affairs is a paramount importance in addressing the historical injustices faced by descendants of emancipated individuals. This office was served to advocate for and protect the rights of Freedmen, ensuring that their voices are heard and their issues are prioritized in policymaking. Now, I wanted to share something that has been on my mind regarding opportunity and fairness in the city of Philadelphia government. After earning my Master's Degree in Public Administration from Villanova University, I believe that there would be clear pathways for qualified descendants of formerly enslaved Americans to accept leadership and non-bargaining roles within municipal government. Given the well- documented legacy of slavery and systemic exclusion, it seems reasonable to ask whether enough has been done to create structured opportunities that specifically address those historical harms. I bring this up because during my time at Villanova, I became more aware how professional networks and hiring pipelines can influence who gain access to government roles. For example, I think I've been applying to the city for about years. And when I got my 7 rejection letter back, it was 8 perhaps an Asian name or something 9 to that effect. So I was in class 10 one evening at Villanova and I 11 said, why is it that I can't get a 12 job here in the city. So I found 13 out that the Director of Hiring was 14 from I believe Venezuela or 15 Guatemala, and he was hiring those 16 with degrees -- immigrants with 17 degrees were getting hired over the 18 folks here in the city, the 19 citizens in the city. So I was 20 very interested in following up on 21 if we can have something 22 established where the city citizens 23 of Philadelphia can have, you know, 24 preference for jobs. But another thing I just wanted to cover, I'm a first graduate of Martin Luther King High School 1977. When we had our high school, we had all kinds of programs, I mean, from art to music to carpentry to automotive. And I'm also on the Board of the Alumni Association. So I want to also work with the Office of Freedmen Affairs, work in the office just to get some of these things back into our schools or address situations like -- I stopped at the post office today because I had to mail something. It was so dirty in there. So I asked the workers, I said, you guys don't have anybody to clean up? They said, no, the custodian retired and we didn't -- they didn't send anyone. So I said, well, do you have a union just to address all this. It's not just a little thing of not being clean, but stuff like this can be put through the Office of Freedmen Affairs, so we can just help these folks have guidance on where to go. So anyway, I just think it's important that the Office of Freedmen Affairs will be good for our people to have a voice and to have resources. We can't have resources without agency, and to have just what everybody else was having as far as getting things to run their communities. Well, that's it. (Applause.)
Thank you for your testimony. Will the next presenter begin. State your name for the record.
My name is Kimberly Mathis. I'm here today in support of the Committee of Freedmen for our future Office of Affairs that what I'm praying that comes into fruition. My basic is just testimony. First of all, I'd like to thank you my Councilwomen and Councilmen. I come from a descendant of the Muse-Coleman legacy. Joseph E. Coleman was my second cousin as well as the American -- as well as a democratic -- and I'm about to cry. Please forgive me. Okay. I'm getting teared up, Democrat, chemist and beyond. I grew up in a household where I sat in earshot -- I'm 65 years old now and I sat in earshot of politicians, Dave Richardson, Marian Tasco. I can keep going. So this right here is an honor for me to sit before you to testify. Our family are descendants of a plantation family that migrated from the Nago region of West Africa and winded up in Halifax, Virginia. My great- grandmother had children, and I can keep going on because the Muse- Coleman legacy is vast. But to say that I'm here in support of this initiative, many of you I have -- you witnessed, you've seen me. I am a homeowner through Habitat for Humanities. Thank you, Congresswoman, and beyond. So I'm just here to testify, my sister here who pulled me up. We are serving as Board members of the Martin Luther King -- the associated alumni of Martin Luther King High School. I am a graduate of the class of 1979 in there right now with grassroots, working with the Men Who Care of Germantown. And I'm going to stop and yield on that. Thank you so much.
Thank you for your contribution. Appreciate you. Your President Coleman was one of the most distinguished educated presidents this body ever had, and part of our legacy, a part of our history. He held it down and he was from the Germantown area. You mentioned other names like David P. Richardson and others that we stand on the shoulders of. And it's real clear how it has impacted not only us as individual elected officials, but our policymaking and our shift to this hearing could not have happened years ago, just 15 wouldn't have. And it was the 16 evolution of thought that got us 17 here today. So thank you and thank 18 you for President Coleman. 19 Next person. 20
Thank 21 you. Good afternoon, everyone. My 22 name is Robert E. Williams. First 23 thing I want to say I guess is it's 24 time. When we look at the history and the celebration of 250 years and we reflect on the history of America, it's time for us to remember our history in America and remember the promises that were made and our support. And I thank you guys for finally -- I know Hagins wore you guys out over the years, but I applaud his effort for the past four years consistently coming down here every Thursday, because politicians work for us and sometimes when we don't get what we need, we don't consistently fight for it. You can't win a war without any bloodshed. Now, we don't mean physical blood, but he darn sure beat everybody up one time or another. And I want to thank him for that, because he wasn't doing it for self. He was doing it for us. That is a big part of us sitting here. Now, everybody looks at their -- and the lineages of where we come from is something to really think about. Fortunately, I've been blessed to some of the last names that I am connected to. You may have heard around the city because we all know each other one way or the other. And that is Alma Dow, D-o-w. My grandmother is Mabel Dow. She actually had got with her first cousins during 1970s after Roots came out, and they created a Dow Association. And yes, Curtis, that Dow family is my family. And went down to the plantation, and we seen everybody on that plantation was not a blood relative but from the same plantation. Zotero Dow, as my great-grandmother descent, that me and Supreme have in common, is one of the last slave ships that came over to this country. So she was on one of the last slave ships that was enslaved. I share that this is the opportunity, unlike ever before, for us to dig into our history of where we are and where we come from, but also the gentleman on Hagins team did a great job of covering so many issues. I don't have to reiterate some of the history that they found, that most people migrated to South Philly when they came from Down South, so a lot of things were established in South Philly. It's not that hard for us to channel. And I like the fact that Will indicated that we want to be clear about those of us that have been lynched and killed in this country, that we can see the history has gotten the least amount of benefits. We have focused so much on Black excellence nowadays that we have given up Black power, and that's Freedmen power. We got to keep that in mind. This is about our power. We still got power in this country, but it's always been controlled through many other sources. This is why Hagins is probably being upset. He's right. There's so many things that we have that we supposed to get entitled to that will take care of all of our issues, but we don't control the power. The purpose of this bureau will help us to control the power of Philadelphia, the state of Pennsylvania and even around the country. This is a great, monumental moment that, if nothing else, legacy for all of us is important. We are three generations away being forgotten, three. But when you have something significant your kids and grandkids can point to, to say, hey, my people is a part of that, because it happens in a negative way. And it was a big question. I talked with Hagins a lot about what happened, why haven't we been doing this before. There's been a lot of really bright people before us. We can't answer that, but we're going to fix it today because they were fighting, the fights that they had to fight. We're the only ethnic group in this country as a class of people that have laws written against us since slavery ended. And this is a way to start channeling those things and start addressing those things. So it is a mandate that we request and we are requiring everyone to follow the taxpayers, the citizens, the Freedmen. And we are definitely demanding that we get what we need to have to increase and improve our conditions.
Brother Dow, if you're 1 person of 17, you'll have your say. If you're 9 of 17, you'll have your way. And we are close to that kind of majority because all of us are open-minded to listen and figure out where we fit in this equation. So thank you guys --
Thank you -- I said thank you to Hagins and his team for coming out consistently every Thursday. But I want everyone to know the city has waken up. The Freedmen community may be confused, may need some education, but I sit here not representing just myself, I'm representing North Philly, South Philly, West Philly, Chester, other areas when I've been blessed to be active in the community. And right now, everyone is watching and I'm glad to let people know that the room is not filled with physical bodies, but it's filled a whole bunch of spirit unlike ever before. And I say thank you to Hagins for waking us up. (Applause.)
Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Stack, can you read the next panel to testify.
Oh, one more? You can call up some other members as she gets ready.
Can I have AJ Rogers, Lola Pastor, Tina Russell, King X. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
Thank you. Thank you for your patience. Please state your name for the record and begin your testimony.
Good afternoon, City Councilmembers. My name is Karen Lee. I'm here as an emancipated Freedman and also to advocate for the establishment of the Office of Freedmen Affairs. When I look around this city, I don't see a United Philly, rather I see a city ravaged by structural racism, characterized by poverty, high unemployment, an underachieving school system, crumbling neighborhoods and the absence of Black businesses. I am reminded of the Mayor of Pittsburgh, Ed Gainey, when he was asked, and I quote, "Which part of the city do you feel needs the most attention and why?" His answer was, and I quote again, "I don't think there is one part. I think that the priority determines which area of the city needs the most attention." I'm not here to land bash this administration or its hierarchy, but rather there was a persistent question that I have. If you do the same thing over and over again with the same results, is it insanity or is it that some of us are in need of a fresh set of eyes, new ideas and a new approach? The Office of Freedmen Affairs is that fresh set of eyes that brings with it legally- mandated solutions. In order for this city to thrive and be truly unified, every group and person needs to be represented. There's representation for marginalized groups, undocumented groups, gender groups, political groups, but not much in the way of representation for emancipated Freedmen in Philadelphia. I want to believe that collectively we all want what's best for our city. But as long as we see this great divide, you have to ask yourself how do we bridge this gap and achieve our collective aspirations, where does our intent lie. The Office of Freedmen Affairs' intent is clear. And, that is, to raise the bar of the standard of living for emancipated Freedmen in the City of Philadelphia. Thank you. (Applause.)
Thank you for your testimony. Will the next person state your name and -
Good afternoon, Council and the committee. I just want to first -- my name is Myzie Casher. I'm a community servant. I want to acknowledge you, Councilmember Jones, for taking this step with the resolution. I want to acknowledge Ogbonna and Tone and Will and the whole coalition for bringing us to this day. As I stated, I'm a community servant. I think about and I take action often on various challenges that we face in this city, a city that often feels as if it is in the grip of some spirit of unthinking, as evidenced by our sometimes provincial and tribal behavior toward one another, behavior that will have the most earnest and selfless gestures held up by clickish gatekeeping, but by some miracle today a great idea has made it to this stage. I really came down here to be a part of this history, because this is what it is. So whether in the reentry space or the violence prevention space or the workforce development space, we hear a lot of buzz words, trauma, trauma-informed, justice-impacted, marginalized, disenfranchised, opportunity youth, on and on and on. But the most powerful of all those is probably these words, root cause. What is the root cause of this or what is the root cause of that. And I think the beauty of what we had the opportunity here is to acknowledge that actually it's chattel slavery and it's repercussions. It's a business model that has shaped every aspect of public and private life in this country, not just for the African American, the Black, the Negro, the colored, the Freedmen, but for everybody. And establishing this office, the Office of Freedmen Affairs, is the only celebratory thing this city should be doing as we count down the 250. So I just want to add my voice to those who came today and said absolutely, definitely, this must happen and right now is the time. Thank you. (Applause.)
Thank you for your testimony. Please state your name and begin your comments.
Yes. Good morning. My name is Adam Rogers. I'm a fifth generation survivor Freedman. I trace my family back to North Carolina as well as South Carolina on my paternal side. As humbly and as servantly as I am, I'm just a man created from the dust, and we're looking for someone who we can trust. And that's an old saying that I was brought up on. We're looking for someone who we can trust, and we trust in this body that you guys are going to do what you already know. We call that Yan when we grew up, you already know what to do. And if you don't know, you're going to find out. And I'm not going to piggyback on what everything that has already been said. And I want to thank this committee and the Chair, Councilman Jones, and everyone else, especially my Councilman Young. I'm from the old school. I've been around but I stay in the background. I appear when I need to appear. And I want to give a thanks for why I'm here. Something called h-i-m, him. I'm here because of him. And this is history in the making. This is where we are right now. We take a deep moment and a breath to recognize Jesse Jackson's that just passed, a moment of silence for the brother. Three presidents, President Washington, we know what's going on about the House down the street, right. He was the first one, the revolutionary with the exclusionary in the Constitution that was first provided. Let's talk about the second president, Abraham Lincoln, the emancipator, proximator. He included us when he did the 13th, 14th Amendment, all the way until today. For me, it's been 22,277 days since my birth. I was born on the day, the month and the year that Malcolm X was assassinated. So that's always been kind of like this for me, right. We are looking at President Trump. That's where we are right now, but the difference from the exclusion to the inclusion to now where we are, look at it as in three generations, because time flies by like that. But it's been written that a good man leaves and provides wealth for three generations, so let's count that like three generations. So we have the benefit of that first generation that struggled and was enslaved, etc, etc. We know about that, right. That second generation, they got some benefit in terms of the emancipation and all those other good, positive bills, civil rights bills, etc, etc, etc versus, you know, the Jim Crow laws and the Black Crow laws. That's that second generation. Look at today as we're down a third generation. Why we keep going back to the first generation is because we can't break the curse. You ever heard that old saying when they said generational curses. But if you know your oppressor -- if you're an oppressor, if you study your oppressor, if I can break your generations and don't let you get to a third generation, you start back at one. Here comes the drugs, here comes the guns, here comes the incarceration, right. That's the game that we're up against. We're not fighting against just regular, normal people. , that's the true oppressor. So where we are right now, how do we make change. And this is all in support of our resolution here because this is the historical part I'm talking about. And it's not about just him, it's about her too, the female ladies. We honor you to earn your respect. We as men we have to honor you to earn the respect. We honor you. We commit to this resolution to establishing something that has already been established before. We're re-establishing and creating. Okay. How do you do that. And this goes to my brother Ogbonna. He has a blueprint and he's following it. I come from old school politicians and rabble-rousers and movers and shakers. I wouldn't be a lawyer today if it wasn't for Michael Coard. I was like this in handcuffs. He got me out, okay, and Judge Merryweather. And one of the things that they taught me from Frederick Douglass, and I took it to another level. Of course, power can see nothing without demand.
But Ogbonna, he started the first step, agitate, agitate, agitate. Okay. )
Guess what, the next thing is educate. By agitating, get you agitated, ah, starting good trouble, bam. Now, they was like what's wrong with him. Now, your ears are open to be educated. So you heard all that education today. That's the second step. After you educate, you negotiate. He's been negotiating with all three levels of the executive, the legislative, the judicial, the municipal, the state and the federal, negotiate, what can we agree on and what we cannot agree on. Then we hit mitigate, mitigation. What we agree, great. What we don't, that's what we fighting about. This is a you already know. It's nothing to fight about. There's no real negotiations. There's no real mitigation, but we'll go through that step. So that's where he's at. He's got us right here with those steps. After that comes possible last step -- some people don't take it in this order -- you litigate. They're in litigation. They found a friend's brief with the federal court already on the White House, how it all ties in. And litigation already. Now, win, lose, draw, we know that's the legislature. That's the judicial portion of it. And I won't go on specifics because we have an attorney, my Councilman, and we have educators here, so we have all those things covered. Now, what I say is this, once that's done and as all those parts are moving in unison, we create something. The name is what the name is, but you create something that -- I was born, my father used to always say, you were born for a cause. And I was named Adam after my father and my friends called me the first man. And so, my thing is I want to be a part of creating something that's never been done before. I don't care what the name is. So we can create something that has never been done before. Tweak that. You can change the name, we can do whatever, but it's a new baby. It's a new creation. So in the spirit of most of the advocating that I've been doing over my life in and out on different situations, I know what it's like to be abased. I know what it's like to be plentiful. I've been in handcuffs. I grew up in North Philadelphia. I went to public school Strawberry Mansion, who they say is one of the violent schools but that's a whole other thing. So I've been in certain schools. But I also been a spook behind the walls, to behind the door. I went to PWI, you understand me. I did those things. And all of us have our own background. But this is a time if we follow what we advocate for, most people advocating in their life, and I've been spending my life advocating for these issues based on spirituality, based on education, based on economics, based on housing, based on health and justice. We need this resolution to move forward from your committee and the other committees, the Committee of the Whole and Commerce or the Executive -- Legislative Oversight, etc, etc. You guys know your job, you know your job. And I know the committees that you're on. And this one right here, the Public Safety is important because this is going to serve all those things that this committee is trying to resolve with a spear, the head of the spear. So I highly recommend and I highly support and I propose and I place my trust in you that you're going to get this job done. Thank you for your time. (Applause.)
Thank 20 you for your testimony. 21 Ms. Stack, who do we 22 have next, one more? 23
Yeah. Good 24 afternoon. Thank you so much for your time and your kind attention. My name is Nabeela Bey. I am a Doctoral candidate at Drexel University and my major is behavioral and mental health advocacy. And I'm very concerned, Councilman Jones. Councilman Jones. Anyway, my major concern is incarcerated juveniles and that's who I'm studying to serve and to improve outcomes for them. Like I said, again I want to thank you all for your kind attention. I want to thank the other presenters. I'm a former Chairwoman of N'COBRA Philadelphia Chapter, and I'm completely in favor of establishing the full funding and the establishment of the Office of American Freedmen Affairs. The 13th Amendment provides for reparations, repair and restoration of dignity. The office provides the ability to finish the work of the descendants of Africans who were enslaved and who presently reside in the city of Philadelphia. Afro-Americans was a title used by our ancestors. And I would like to -- when the office is established, I would like to see some inference that we are descendants of Africans as well as Freedmen in Philadelphia. But at any rate, those of African emancipated ancestry can benefit from the office to improve the quality of life to address systematic discrimination and social inequities. In specific, I spoke in 2022 here in favor of reparations, and my specific idea besides other issues that we are in need of assistance with is a phrase called peoplehood and also self- determination. So two issues that I would like to see handled by the Office of Freedmen Affairs is the assistance for us to have dual citizenship. We were taken from lands. We really don't know exactly where we came from. However, as a part of self- determination we have the right. Other people do it. They are members of another country and then also a member of the United States. So I think that's something that our office could facilitate. I also would like to see free or minimal charge for legal name changes. People of African descent, that's part of our peoplehood, have had our names taken from us. And we should have that free self-determination in order to -- provided that they follow the legal steps and everything, to have their name change if they so choose to without having to incur $600 to over $1,000 to get their names changed. So maybe we can find the funding to facilitate that. So I just wanted to ask us all if we can work together and see what we can do better for African Freedmen. Thank you. (Applause.)
Thank you so much for your -- there's another person to testify. Ms. Stack -- would you come to the table.
I'm Tina Marie Russell. I want to say thank you to a bona for making this a day that should go down to infinite. I'm not here for me. I'm here for my grandfather. I'm here for his father and I'm here for his father before him. My niece -- my cousin, I'm sorry, she did the research. And back in 1864, that third grandfather served in the Civil War. Here's the document. He was hospitalized. Then his father -- I mean his son, they had a property in North Carolina, Warren, North Carolina. That father deeded the property to his son, which is my grandfather. He was chased out of his property. He was beaten, he was humiliated. He then produced my grandfather, and they had a pact that one day they would get back their land. My grandfather and my grandmother lived on opposite sides of Warren County, on farms, plantations as slaves, even though their grandfather was in the Civil War and fought for their freedom. My grandfather paid for his freedom. Now, even though he wasn't considered slaves, we had indentured -- we had a different type of slavery, so he paid at that time for his freedom. But he had children from his wife on the other plantation. He moved his first son and him to Philadelphia, South Philly, and they worked on the ship, on the docks. My grandfather had tools in which he took tires and he made, fixed, repaired shoes in addition to working on the docks so he could pay the money to get his wife and his other children from Down South, up North. It's crazy that these freed men and freed women were still struggling in the 18 -- my grandfather was born -- have to look it up here, but it's 1888, somewhere like that. He died at 90 years old. I knew my grandfather as a sad man, a sad, broken man. And all he would do was smoke his pipe and sit still and just stare at us and stare out the window. This man, he was broken because they broke him Down South. After he finally got his family out from Down South to up North, they beat him and he had multiple injuries, and he suffered from pain all his life, but he got his family out. This is why I'm here today. My siblings are here today. We have family members who serve in Cuba with Castro. We have family members who are judges. We have family members who prospered because those men, those family members were able to prosper and able to survive and able to produce the next offspring, the next generation. And for us here today to even have a question as to whether or not we should create or recreate an establishment that was sent here to protect and assure our liberties doesn't really make any sense. It should be a no-brainer. This plantation here is where my great-great-grandfather -- this right here, if you have some more documents -- I'm sorry. I tried to get time to print it, but I didn't. I ran out of time. But this plantation is where it's still here. It still looks really good, doesn't it? It holds memories of misery, but also of resilience of how we can still overcome. And we need this bureau to make sure that the voices of not just my great- great-grandfather, great- grandfather, my father, grandfather and my father who are now dead and buried, that their voices are alive in our actions today, that we bring them back and say, job well done. You did it, because it's not just my ancestors. It's your ancestors, and your ancestors and our ancestors collectively that made it so that we can sit here in this location that was not meant for us to sit. So we can sit here and make decisions and create policies that will impact and change and not just the past, but create a better future. We have a fight right now. We are in a battle. And this battle has not -- it's not the first time we had this battle. We had this battle to -- these three generations have been in this battle as well during the Reconstruction period, right. We had it during the Renaissance period. Every time we get -- like someone mentioned earlier, we get five steps ahead and someone pushes us back minus three.
So this is not the first time. It won't be the last time. As long as we're in American territory, we will fight this battle. But if we create this bureau, if we create the bureau, we will be like this desk right here, solid ground. This desk has been around since before any of it, probably during the time my great-grandfather was here, right. So we know that we have no other option. There is no other option but to provide the next generations with a plus 100 step, not a negative 0 step. So this is our duty. It is our responsibility and it's our pledge. We have to pledge to make sure that we create the space where our next generations will not have to duplicate something that happened three generations ago. And that's my speech. Thank you so much. )
Thank you. Thank you so much for your contribution and your great- grandfather's contribution. Ms. Stack, who is our --
Mama Gail, come on down. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
I call on our ancestors. I'm coming. I'm calling on our ancestors. They have been here waiting for us to take our place in this place. This was built for us. It was built for us for this time. Take your place. Are we timed?
State your name for the record and begin your testimony.
I thank the Almighty Creator of all things as I stand before you. I went into the Caucus room, and I was reminded of the day I took my daughter in there. I said to Leah, this is the wheel God showed me. He gave me a diagram of a wheel. And when I went in the Caucus room, I said this is that wheel. I was told that the healing wheel. It is our time for healing. All that was is no more. One of my godchildren called a couple of days ago, and her daughter's name is Freedom. And Freedom told her, when we die, we wake up. I thought that's wild, that's deep. Because when my husband retired at 40 years old 30 years ago, we moved Down South. And I thought I was going to watch him cut the grass and it grow and him cut it some more. And I went to sleep one afternoon. We went to bed early, and God took me home, took me to the heavenly realm. And he looked at me and said, You have to go back. And I said, South Carolina, Philadelphia? He said, Philadelphia. I didn't know for almost 11 years -- I was with Johnny Sample Sports Club when I left, and I was reminded when I came in and I was standing there, how Kentu brought me here the first time. So I'm thinking in terms of all the ancestors that I saw here, all the ancestors that I know that are here, all the ancestors that are with us at this moment of change. I reminded my daughter a few minutes ago about us being in a historical moment in Harrisburg. We were there with State Rep Lowrey at the time, Vanessa Lowrey when she was gone for (inaudible) Juneteenth as a holiday. The following year we went back and it was being signed as a holiday for the state. And right after that, the President signed it as a holiday for the country. So I'm reminded of the historical things. But I wanted to say, as I was going out to greet and say goodbye to a godson of mine that I thought was just stepping out, and I went out and that's when God revealed some things to me. And so, he wants me to let you know what he told me is that it's time for us to re-remember. We remembered before. When the young ladies talked about us waking up when we die, you're woke. You are woke. It's no going back now. Things have moved forward in such a way you can never go back. It's time for you to take your place. So God told me to let you know what he told me, and that's it's time to re-remember, that it's time to reconnect, recommit and reclaim. And I told the school district when Dr. Hite was here, God showed me the storm that will hit Philadelphia unlike anything ever before if we don't do right by these children. I was told these are some of the most special beings that have ever graced this earth, this plane. And so, one of the things I know, if I don't know anything else, is that we must reclaim our children. No ifs, ands or buts. It's no getting away from it. You've been given marching orders whether you want to talk about it or not. Each and every one of us came here knowing what we were supposed to do this time. For me, God showed me many lifetimes that I've lived. I'm here in this moment to tell you what I'm telling you. I don't have a long or a lot to tell you because most of what I would tell you already know. It's inside of you. I'm saying, take your place. Each and every one, take your place. This is about the God in you fulfilling whatever mission you said. And you don't have to believe nothing I'm telling you. But what if you made an agreement to God before you were born this time, that when you let me come back this time, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to say to you all, do it, do it, do it, do it. I was told that there is no force that can stop this. People talk about fighting. I've never struggled in my life. I don't battle. I don't fight. I say what I say. I was told the fighting is going on the spiritual plane. You know the work that you're here to do. Just do it. I tried to figure out being in a slave house, Goree Island. We were guests. The group of us were guests of the President of Senegal.
And so, we went over to Goree. I wasn't going to say this, but I'm going to say it. I was with Queen Mother Dr. Dolores Blakely who is an Ambassador of Goodwill to Africa, been there for over 50 years. She comes behind Queen Mother, Queen Mother, Queen Mother, Queen Mother. She comes behind Queen Mother. She is and had been -- God, oh God, oh God. She had been at the UN for 50, over 50 years. She was almost 100 years old when she died. And I want to say some things, and I'm being blocked for a reason right now, but I want to say to you when I was in the boat going over the waters to go to Goree to the slave house, our ancestor was trying to come to me. And Queen Mother called out. Queen Mother said, Mama. I went up. I went up to the captain's loft, and I cried and I cried or sobbed and sobbed and sobbed like I had never done before. And the captain came in from a different door. And he looked at me. And I saw my father. And I said to him, You look like my father. And he took me in his arms and he held me, and I felt he held me like a father. I held him like his daughter. He held me like my uncle. I held him like his niece. And he said, Take the wheel. And I went over and I sat down. We had people traveling who were there for this vestment, 2010. And I took the wheel and I had some really cute clothes on. And I thought he meant take the wheel for photographs, because we had videographers and photographers from around the world who were following us to document this journey. And I sat down, and the boat started to rock. So I knew it was for real. I wasn't just trying to be cute. So I said, Queen Mother, Come take the wheel. She sat down. She not only took the wheel and we crossed that water, but she parked the boat. And that was an example to me, to we, that we are in charge. Ain't nobody taking us nowhere ever again. It is us steering the boat. Please understand that when Queen Mother Moore sat at the UN for over 50 years for us for reparations, I was told that's the one thing she sat there for, reparations for us. She meant it. When I went up in the mountains with Queen Mother Blakely and we sat down, and the brother prayed for us. And he said, years 16 ago Queen Mother Moore was sitting 17 in the seat where Queen Mother 18 Blakely is sitting. She was not 19 Queen Mother Blakely at the time. 20 He said to me, You are sitting in the seat that Queen Mother Blakely was sitting in 20 years ago. When we sat in our seats that were sort of like this, it was like being at the United Nations where we had been, and I had been with Queen Mother and had been before COVID almost years or maybe 10 years 5 before COVID, sitting at the UN, 6 that's what it was like. 7 I'm telling you -- I'm 8 not going to keep talking, but I'm 9 telling you one last time, take 10 your place. When you're giving instructions and you don't do it, that's the most uncomfortable thing ever. You ain't seen the kind of sickness that can come on you. You don't know the kind of pain and suffering that can come on you when you don't do what you're supposed to do. And that's where free will comes in. Ain't nothing complicated about it. Don't make it complicated. Know that you know, that you know, that you know. And keep walking and keep walking when there is nothing ahead of you. The ground will grow for you. I'm saying to each and every one of you, peace and love, joy, happiness, integrity. Because when I asked God for words to describe all those years, I sat at the school district now 40 years this year. Even when I wasn't living here, I was coming back and forth teaching people how to get parents involved. To be here in this moment is so historical. To be here in this moment is so historical. And all I can say is what I'm hearing to tell you, they've been waiting for this day. Brother Ogbonna, where you at. Each one of us has been given something to do.
And when I was shown and taught people that we're all pieces of a puzzle, the problem comes when you know that piece that you knew didn't belong there but you took your fist and you banged and tried to make it fit because you didn't feel like looking for the piece that really fit there, I was told the problem comes when you try to get in a spot that's not yours. )
-- and you followed the pattern that had already been set, already had been written for you to take that walk. And so, I say thank you with all my heart, because all of us are a part of something so great that we won't even be able to fathom how great it is at this time. But the generations coming behind us will know. If we let them see us the way they should see us, we're not being seen right now by them. But if we let them know how much we love them -- see, we've given them to people that held us. How do you give over the loves of your life to people that don't love you and can't love them. How do you do that? And then you wonder why what we're seeing is happening. So that's why it's really important for all of we to reclaim our babies. They need to know and we have enough time to show them that we love them, that we care for them. And by giving them over to this system we call education, we messed up. But here's an opportunity to fix it. You have the opportunity to say no to the plan and help us recreate a plan that works for we. One of the things I love to say is that when we benefit, everybody benefits. Let's benefit y'all because it's our time. God bless you. I ask that the Creator bless your mind, your bodies, your spirits, any blockages that you have be removed. When God showed me, when I started to say a few minutes ago what we were experiencing, it's this. And I'm going to go back to the prayer for you. But I have to say this. I asked God years ago, show me, tell me. I need to be able to explain what I see, what I feel, what I know. He gave me these words. I was experiencing these things, gatekeepers, roadblockers, opportunists, neutralizers and I added just plain liars. That's what we were experiencing. You have the ability to see through that. I'm charging you all to see through the gatekeepers, the roadblockers, the opportunists, the neutralizers and the just plain liars with the integrity that I know each one of you have, I know that you were born with it. I'm saying God bless them. And I call on the ascendant masters who walk this plane as human beings, as spirits having a human experience, but looked as human beings but were more spiritual than anybody ever knew. I'm asking you, ascended masters, to bless everybody in this room. I'm asking you to give us the courage, the faith, the patience, the integrity, the courage to do what it is we came here to do. And I call on the angels of mercy and grace. And I'm saying to you, thank you to our ancestors that have been with us through God's loving light, to the Christ consciousness. If you say Allah, I say Allah Akbar. God bless you, God bless you, God Bless you. Bless your minds, your bodies, your spirits, your neighbors, your families, your friends, those that influence your thinking. I ask God to bless them even more, those that influence your thinking. God bless you. May you do what is right because it's the right thing to do. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your love. Thank you for your love. Thank you for your love. And I'm asking God to go beyond blessings with you and give you bliss. Peace. (Applause.)
Thank you, Mama Gail. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Mr. President?
Ms. Stack, is there anyone else to testify? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Mr. President, I wasn't on the list. I didn't know it was a list, but I'm going to give you something that's less than one minute. I want to thank every last one of y'all up here for sitting there.
Can you state your name please? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: My name is Brother Phil. And I can't believe the integrity that I'm watching. It's hard sitting here for hours listening. The stenographer is tired, but I just want to say again thank you all for having this meeting and giving us a chance to voice our opinion. And lastly, President Clinton acknowledged slavery and now it's time to take responsibility to make it right. And I thank you. (Applause.)
Thank you. I just want to close with any comments from the committee. But my personal comments are thank you, Brother Hagins. Thank you for your persistence, your patience with us. Thank you for moving the needle forward. What we intend to do is take this report, give it to the members of the Committee as a Whole so that we can introduce legislation to create the Freedmen's Bureau. (Applause.)
This concludes the Committee on Public Safety, and thank you all for your patience and your participation. Thank you. (Committee on Public Safety concluded at 1:11 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. ______________________________ TANEHA CARROLL