Nation’s First-ever U.S. Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Commission

National Leadership Group Salutes the Leadership of Senator Cory Booker for Introducing Legislation today to Establish the Nation’s First-ever U.S. Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Commission

Washington, DC (December 3, 2020) — Earlier today, Senator Cory Booker (along with 11 Senate Co-sponsors) introduced groundbreaking legislation United States Commission on Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation resolution to the U.S. Senate calling for the establishment of the first-ever U.S. Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Commission. Senator 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.”

On November 3rd, 2020, the U.S. Movement for Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (USTRHT) Leadership Group formed to connect civic groups, faith leaders, academics, artists, and celebrities in aligned advocacy action. Among the coalition’s top national legislative priorities is supporting the efforts of Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) and H.Con.Resolution 100 calling for creating a U.S. Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) commission. One hundred seventy (170) members of Congress currently endorse this 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.

Expressing the importance of supporting truth and racial healing, Dr. Marcus Hunter stated, “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. 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.”

“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. Gail Christopher, Co-Chair of US TRHT Movement Leadership Group.

Dr. Chavis, Co-Chair of the National Movement alongside Dr. Christopher, also currently serves as the Vice-Chair of the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the nation’s first state Commission dedicated to investigating racial terror lynching knows the importance of such a work.

Dr. Chavis noted, “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 is led by Dr. Marcus Hunter, Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at UCLA, and 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. They both serve as Co-Chairs alongside Dr. Christopher. Antti Pentikäinen, Director of the Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation at George Mason University, serves as the group’s secretary.

The USTRHT Leadership Group has built a collaborative team of founding partners to support this transformative work, including the following, 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 ustrht.org