Submitted
WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Movement for Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (USTRHT) Movement Leadership Group applauds Sen. Cory Booker and 11 Senate Co-sponsors for yesterday introducing a groundbreaking resolution calling for the establishment of the first-ever U.S. Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Commission.
Sen, Booker’s effort complements the ongoing momentum in the House of Representatives through H. Con. Resolution 100 introduced by Congresswoman Barbara Lee in June 2020, which has 169 additional cosponsors. The bicameral resolutions state that the historical justification for the Commission: “it is in our collective national interest to urgently address the unhealed, entrenched divisions.”
Last month, civic groups, faith leaders, academics, artists, and celebrities formed the USTRHT Leadership Movement Group to align their racial equity advocacy. Among the coalition’s top national legislative priorities is supporting Rep. Lee’s TRHT resolution. The TRHT aims to properly acknowledge, memorialize and be a catalyst for progress toward jettisoning the belief in a hierarchy of human value, embracing our common humanity and permanently eliminating persistent racial inequities.
“For more than four hundred years, four thousand months, and two hundred million minutes, the United States of America has been living with and in the sin of slavery,” said Dr. Marcus Hunter, Chair of the USTRHT Leadership Movement Group. “Now is time for the truth, racial healing, transformation. We must repair and heal what has been broken and violated in order to achieve the more perfect nation we seek and deserve.”
The USTRHT Leadership Group is led by Dr. Hunter, who is a Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at UCLA, and co-chairs – Dr. Charles L. Chavis Jr., Professor of Conflict Resolution and History and Director of the John Mitchell, Jr. Program for History, Justice, and Race at George Mason University’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution; Dr. Gail C. Christopher, the Executive Director of the National The National Collaborative for Health Equity; and Antti Pentikäinen, Director of the Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation at George Mason University, who serves as the group’s secretary.
“Healing is about utilizing the authentic stories of individuals to help understand and embrace our common humanity, to remind each of us of our own humanity and the power we have to generate change, and to welcome our role in going beyond winning individual struggles for change to changing the structures, systems, policies, and practices that divide us,” said Dr. Christopher.
Dr. Chavis said, “Systemic inequity persists in the United States in part, due to the suppression of narratives and the establishment of a U.S. Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) commission is an important step in the journey toward narrative change, racial healing and social transformation.”
The USTRHT Leadership Group has built a collaborative team of founding partners to support this transformative work, including Senior Advisors Dr. Paul Zeitz (#breathwithme) Revolution, Shelly Marc, Michael Wenger, Colette Rausch, Eduardo Gonzalez, Dr. Corey Henderson, Dr. Ida E. Jones (Morgan State University), and Dr. Lopez D. Matthews Jr. (Howard University).
This significant step towards supporting truth and transformation commissions and processes in the United States aims for historical truth, comprehensive justice, recognition of historical and present trauma, identification of ways to repair harm and advancement of individual and collective healing and transformation.
Be a part of the movement by joining our list of partners, supporters, and advocates.
For more information on the US Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Movement, visit https://ustrht.org
