Illinois 2023-2024 Regular Session

Illinois Senate Bill SR0590 Compare Versions

Only one version of the bill is available at this time.

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3	3	1 SENATE RESOLUTION
4	4	2 WHEREAS, Slavery provided much of the revenue for the
5	5	3 young State of Illinois and severed ties between enslaved
6	6	4 people and their ancestors, resulting in the erasure of family
7	7	5 histories for both enslaved people and their descendants; and
8	8	6 WHEREAS, The U.S. has a social responsibility and duty
9	9	7 towards African American descendants of enslaved individuals
10	10	8 to provide the public service of assisting Black citizens in
11	11	9 reconnecting with their ancestral history; the State of
12	12	10 Illinois has an equal responsibility to Black Illinoisans; and
13	13	11 WHEREAS, Although Illinois is a northern state, slavery
14	14	12 was prevalent within its boundaries before the Northwest
15	15	13 Ordinance of 1787, and enslaved individuals still worked the
16	16	14 salt springs of the Illinois Salines until 1825; slavery in
17	17	15 the Illinois Salines was permitted because it provided as much
18	18	16 as a third of the yearly revenue for the young State;
19	19	17 indentured servitude at the salt springs continued until 1870;
20	20	18 this history of slavery in Illinois deepens the responsibility
21	21	19 of the State to assist African American citizens in recovering
22	22	20 their lost history; and
23	23	21 WHEREAS, Since the first direct-to-consumer genetic
24	24	22 ancestry test was pioneered in 2000, technological
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33	33	1 capabilities have vastly improved, enabling refined genetic
34	34	2 genealogy that can trace ancestral connections over the past
35	35	3 500 years; given this advancement in technology, the U.S.,
36	36	4 honoring its moral obligation to descendants of enslaved
37	37	5 Africans, is now exceptionally positioned to facilitate this
38	38	6 reconnection through a genealogy-based pilot program; and
39	39	7 WHEREAS, In addition to restoring a sense of personal
40	40	8 belonging and ethnic identity, both being critical for
41	41	9 psychological well-being, genetic genealogical evidence
42	42	10 provides descendants of enslaved African Americans with robust
43	43	11 genetic evidentiary support of their African family origins;
44	44	12 several African countries, including Ghana, Sierra Leone,
45	45	13 Gabon, and Eritrea have begun offering citizenship to
46	46	14 individuals who can trace their ancestry back to their
47	47	15 respective country, including ancestry traced through genetic
48	48	16 genealogy; improvements in genetic genealogical technology
49	49	17 provide new found support for the desire expressed by
50	50	18 president Abraham Lincoln in the Emancipation Proclamation to
51	51	19 establish a voluntary repatriation program for African
52	52	20 descendants to return to their African ancestral homelands;
53	53	21 and
54	54	22 WHEREAS, Nearly all Black Americans can successfully trace
55	55	23 their genetic ancestry to one or more African countries;
56	56	24 today, there are currently 42 million African American
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67	67	1 descendants of those enslaved in the U.S.; the genetic
68	68	2 analyses completed in the Genetic Consequences of the
69	69	3 Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Americas study by Steven
70	70	4 Micheletti and colleagues found that African Americans tend to
71	71	5 have ancestry from four main regions in Atlantic Africa,
72	72	6 including Nigeria, Senegambia (Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau,
73	73	7 and Senegal), Coastal West Africa (Sierra Leone, Ghana, Cte
74	74	8 d'Ivoire, and Liberia), and the Congo region, which includes
75	75	9 Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; approximately
76	76	10 71% of African American 23andMe research participants had
77	77	11 detectable segments of DNA that are identical with current
78	78	12 ethnolinguistic groups from all four Atlantic African regions
79	79	13 stemming from a common ancestor; as documented by Jazlyn
80	80	14 Mooney and her colleagues in their study On the Number of
81	81	15 Genealogical Ancestors Tracing to the Source Groups of an
82	82	16 Admixed Population, there is a high probability, over 97.5%,
83	83	17 that an average African American can trace their ancestry back
84	84	18 to at least one African ancestor from each of eight to 12
85	85	19 generations ago culminating in an approximate total of 269
86	86	20 African ancestors within this timeframe; and
87	87	21 WHEREAS, Approximately 15% of Black adults in the U.S.
88	88	22 have taken consumer genetic genealogy tests; African Americans
89	89	23 should not be economically burdened to obtain information
90	90	24 regarding their ancestral history, which was forcibly taken
91	91	25 from them through practices of slavery that economically
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102	102	1 benefited the growing United States; and
103	103	2 WHEREAS, Reparations have been granted to other groups
104	104	3 residing in the U.S., yet African Americans have never been
105	105	4 compensated to redress the racial harms enacted upon their
106	106	5 person during times of slavery; while white slave owners were
107	107	6 compensated for the emancipation of their slaves, enslaved
108	108	7 individuals only had access to social support via the
109	109	8 Freedmen's Bureau Act of 1865 and 1866, which provided basic
110	110	9 needs including food, clothing, and shelter, due to the
111	111	10 displacement of southerners after the Civil War; while the
112	112	11 Evacuation Claims Act of 1948 and the Civil Liberties Act of
113	113	12 1988 paid reparations to Japanese Americans, up to $20,000 per
114	114	13 survivor, and the Indian Claims Commission allocates
115	115	14 approximately $1,000 per person, enslaved persons of African
116	116	15 descent and their descendants have never received monetary
117	117	16 compensation for the atrocities committed against them prior
118	118	17 to the abolishment of slavery; this is despite there having
119	119	18 been over 10 million African Americans human trafficked from
120	120	19 their families and homeland only to be forced to build the
121	121	20 infrastructure of America and generate wealth for early white
122	122	21 Americans; in 1989, H.R. 40 was introduced to establish a
123	123	22 commission to investigate the impacts of enslavement and to
124	124	23 evaluate proposals for reparation; though this resolution has
125	125	24 been introduced for decades, it has not been passed; and
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136	136	1 WHEREAS, It is technologically straightforward and a moral
137	137	2 imperative to rectify the erasure of family histories
138	138	3 resulting from slavery; it is now possible to establish a
139	139	4 family roots genealogy pilot program that can equip
140	140	5 descendants of enslaved African Americans with robust genetic
141	141	6 evidentiary support of their African family origins; Dr.
142	142	7 LaKisha David, an assistant professor at the University of
143	143	8 Illinois (U of I) Urbana-Champaign in the Department of
144	144	9 Anthropology, is a distinguished expert on reuniting African
145	145	10 Americans with long lost kin in Africa through autosomal DNA
146	146	11 genetic testing; she is a former postdoctoral fellow of
147	147	12 Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of Genetics and
148	148	13 Genomics at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School
149	149	14 of Medicine; she will be the principal investigator in
150	150	15 establishing this genealogy-based family roots program; U of
151	151	16 I's Department of Anthropology has expressed their commitment
152	152	17 to these efforts and interest in ways they can continue to
153	153	18 serve both reparative and decolonizing efforts of the State
154	154	19 more generally; and
155	155	20 WHEREAS, The procedure will begin with the collection of
156	156	21 saliva samples that will be processed at The Illinois Roy J.
157	157	22 Carver Biotechnology Center, situated in Urbana, pending
158	158	23 appropriation funding; once the processing is completed, the
159	159	24 saliva samples will be securely destroyed; the resulting data
160	160	25 will then be transferred to Nightingale, a high-performance
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171	171	1 computer cluster designed for sensitive data that is housed in
172	172	2 the National Center for Supercomputing (NCSA) at the U of I at
173	173	3 Urbana Champaign; using Nightingale ensures secure storage and
174	174	4 provides powerful computation while adhering to the Health
175	175	5 Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)
176	176	6 regulations; the sample will be accompanied by a unique
177	177	7 identifying code rather than participants' personal
178	178	8 information; nongenetic data for this project will be stored
179	179	9 in the U of I at Urbana-Champaign Research Electronic Data
180	180	10 Capture (REDCap), a highly secure and robust web-based
181	181	11 research data collection and management system; Illinois
182	182	12 REDCap is among the systems and services that meet
183	183	13 requirements established by HIPAA; participants logging in
184	184	14 will receive results that are hosted on a HIPAA-compliant
185	185	15 platform; for the protection of all participants, DNA samples
186	186	16 collected may not be subjected for subpoenas or accessed for
187	187	17 any other purposes; and
188	188	18 WHEREAS, Researchers cannot release or use information,
189	189	19 documents, or samples that may identify participants in any
190	190	20 action or suit unless the participant consents; researchers
191	191	21 also cannot provide data as evidence unless participants have
192	192	22 agreed; this protection includes federal, state, local, civil,
193	193	23 criminal, administrative, legislative, or other proceedings;
194	194	24 this does not stop participants from willingly releasing
195	195	25 information about their involvement in this research and does
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206	206	1 not prevent participants from having access to their own
207	207	2 information; and
208	208	3 WHEREAS, The U of I at Urbana-Champaign, established as a
209	209	4 land-grant institution through the Morrill Act of 1862, was
210	210	5 entrusted with a mission to democratize higher education and
211	211	6 serve the public interest across Illinois and beyond; despite
212	212	7 this intent, U of I's historical record is marked by periods of
213	213	8 exclusion and insufficient representation of African Americans
214	214	9 that cast a shadow over its commitment to true inclusivity;
215	215	10 these specialized centers, backed by the State of Illinois,
216	216	11 hold the potential to make amends and realign with the
217	217	12 original vision of the land-grant mission; the centers carry a
218	218	13 paramount duty to redress past neglect, actively engage with
219	219	14 the African American community, and to emphasize the profound
220	220	15 need to reconnect individuals to their ancestral roots;
221	221	16 through this initiative, the centers have an opportunity, and
222	222	17 indeed an obligation, to play a transformative role in
223	223	18 facilitating understanding, reconnection, and healing, and, in
224	224	19 doing so, work towards rectifying the U of I's historical
225	225	20 shortcomings in relation to a community with a deeply
226	226	21 impactful, yet often sidelined, history; therefore, be it
227	227	22 RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE ONE HUNDRED THIRD GENERAL
228	228	23 ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we urge support for the
229	229	24 Family Roots Genealogy Pilot Program as it provides African
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240	240	1 American descendants of enslaved individuals the opportunity
241	241	2 to trace their roots back to their ancestral homelands, to
242	242	3 reconnect with their ancestral heritage, and to promote their
243	243	4 well-being; and be it further
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