Recognizing the difficult challenges Black veterans faced when returning home after serving in the Armed Forces, their heroic military sacrifices, and their patriotism in fighting for equal rights and for the dignity of a people and a Nation.

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Con. Res. 59 Introduced in House (IH)]

<DOC>

119th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. CON. RES. 59

    Recognizing the difficult challenges Black veterans faced when
returning home after serving in the Armed Forces, their heroic military
 sacrifices, and their patriotism in fighting for equal rights and for
                 the dignity of a people and a Nation.

_______________________________________________________________________

                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            November 7, 2025

 Mrs. Beatty (for herself, Mr. McGarvey, Mr. Horsford, Mr. Fields, Ms.
 Kamlager-Dove, Mr. Cohen, Mr. Green of Texas, Mr. Bell, Mrs. McIver,
    and Mr. Jackson of Illinois) submitted the following concurrent
  resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                         CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

    Recognizing the difficult challenges Black veterans faced when
returning home after serving in the Armed Forces, their heroic military
 sacrifices, and their patriotism in fighting for equal rights and for
                 the dignity of a people and a Nation.

Whereas there has been no war fought by or within the United States in which
        Blacks did not participate, including the Revolutionary War, the Civil
        War, the War of 1812, the Spanish American War, World Wars I and II, the
        Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, Operation Enduring Freedom,
        and Operation Iraqi Freedom;
Whereas Frederick Douglass voiced his opinion on the civic value of military
        service in one of his autobiographies, ``Life and Times of Frederick
        Douglass,'' writing, ``I . . . urged every man who could, to enlist; to
        get an eagle on his button, a musket on his shoulder, the star-spangled
        banner over his head,'' and later remarking that ``there is no power on
        Earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship in the
        United States'';
Whereas, during the Civil War, Black soldiers, commonly referred to as the
        United States Colored Troops, fought with honor and distinction despite
        being treated as second-class citizens;
Whereas the health care and hospitals available to Black soldiers during the
        Civil War were substandard, and Black soldiers often died from the
        withholding of services that were supposed to be administered by medical
        personnel;
Whereas Dr. W.E.B. DuBois and William Monroe Trotter, members of the ``first
        generation of freedom's children,'' founded the Niagara Movement in 1905
        and fought for desegregation in the Armed Forces in World War I;
Whereas, in his book, ``Black Reconstruction in America,'' published in 1935,
        DuBois recognized the importance of equity in military service writing
        that ``Nothing else made Negro citizenship conceivable, but the record
        of the Negro soldier as a fighter.'';
Whereas the 369th Infantry, known as the Harlem Hell-fighters, continued the
        history of distinguished military service despite treatment as second-
        class citizens, fighting the Germans during World War I as part of the
        French Army and serving the longest stretch in combat, 191 days without
        replacement and without losing a foot of ground or a man as prisoner;
Whereas, at the end of the service of the 369th Infantry, the entire regiment
        received the Croix de Guerre, which was France's highest military honor,
        from a grateful French nation;
Whereas, in 1917, Charles Hamilton Houston encountered racism after entering
        World War I as a commissioned first lieutenant in the segregated 17th
        Provisional Training Regiment, later writing that ``I made up my mind
        that if I got through this war I would study law and use my time
        fighting for men who could not strike back.'';
Whereas Alain Locke, the first Black Rhodes Scholar, wrote in 1925 about a ``New
        Negro'' who had returned from battle with a bold new spirit that helped
        spark a new mood in the Black community;
Whereas, at the start of the United States involvement in World War II, Dorie
        Miller, a messman attendant in the Navy, was catapulted to national hero
        status and an icon to generations, after displaying heroism on board the
        USS West Virginia during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December
        7, 1941;
Whereas the famed Tuskegee Airmen, a group of Black pilots, flew with
        distinction during World War II under the command of Captain Benjamin O.
        Davis, Jr., the highly decorated officer who served for more than 35
        years and became the first Black general in the Air Force;
Whereas, during World War II, the 6888 (known as the ``Six Triple Eights''), the
        first postal battalion comprised exclusively of Black women, who served
        in England and then France, was given the daunting task of clearing out
        a 2-year backlog of more than 90,000 pieces of mail, completed the
        mission in 3 months, and went on to make a positive impact on racial
        integration in the Armed Forces;
Whereas, before becoming a famous baseball player, Jackie Robinson was court-
        martialed in the Army in 1944 for refusing to sit in the back of the
        bus, and when he was later acquitted, he wrote that ``[i]t was a small
        victory, for I had learned that I was in two wars, one against the
        foreign enemy, the other against prejudice at home'';
Whereas, during World War II, the Army's 92nd Infantry Division, better known as
        the ``Buffalo Soldiers,'' which traces its direct lineage back to the
        9th and 10th Cavalry units from 1866 to the early 1890s, was the only
        Black segregated unit to experience combat during the Italian campaigns
        of 1944 and 1945, with several members of the unit later earning Medals
        of Honor for bravery;
Whereas Reverend Benjamin Hooks, who served in the 92nd Infantry Division, found
        himself in the humiliating position of guarding Italian prisoners of war
        who were allowed to eat in restaurants that were off-limits to him;
Whereas, even after President Truman issued Executive Order 9981, desegregating
        the military on July 26, 1948, discrimination continued;
Whereas Oliver L. Brown, a World War II Army veteran from Kansas, and Harry
        Briggs, a World War II sailor from South Carolina, were the fathers of 2
        of the 5 named plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347
        U.S. 483 (1952) and Briggs v. Elliott, 342 U.S. 350 (1952), the historic
        school-desegregation cases of 1952;
Whereas the Black heroes and heroines of World War II and the Korean War, and
        their offspring such as Private Sarah Keys and Women's Army Corps
        officer Dovey Roundtree, won significant victories against
        discrimination in interstate transportation in landmark civil rights
        cases, including Keys v. Carolina Coach Company, 64 MCC 769 (1955),
        which was decided 6 days before Rosa Parks' historic protest of
        Alabama's Jim Crow laws in Montgomery;
Whereas, after serving overseas in the Army, Charles and Medgar Evers returned
        home to Mississippi, where in 1946, they tried to register to vote but
        were turned away at the polling stations;
Whereas, in 1952, Charles and Medgar Evers began to organize voter registration
        drives for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
        People (NAACP);
Whereas, in his address at Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther
        King, Jr., commented on the irony of Blacks fighting in Vietnam to
        guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia while not enjoying the same rights
        at home;
Whereas Black veterans who were in the forefront of the leadership of the civil
        rights movement, with their strong resolve to address the paradox of
        military service abroad and the denial of basic rights at home, brought
        deeper meaning to the word ``democracy,'' and through their example,
        transformed the face of the United States;
Whereas Black veterans of the Nation's wars sowed the seeds for today's
        bountiful harvest that includes the Niagara Movement, the NAACP, and the
        modern-day civil rights movement, all of which share a common ancestry
        in the Civil War, without which there would be no civil rights movement
        and no equal rights for all Americans; and
Whereas Black veterans suffer at a disproportionate rate from chronic illnesses
        and homelessness and are plagued by health disparities: Now, therefore,
        be it
    Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring),
That Congress recognizes--
            (1) the difficult challenges Black veterans faced when
        returning home after serving in the Armed Forces, their heroic
        military sacrifices, and their patriotism in fighting for equal
        rights and for the dignity of a people and a Nation; and
            (2) the need for the Department of Veterans Affairs to
        continue to work to eliminate any health and benefit
        disparities for minority veterans in the United States.
                                 <all>