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S4459
SENATE, No. 4459
STATE OF NEW JERSEY
222nd LEGISLATURE
�
INTRODUCED JUNE 15, 2026
Sponsored by:
Senator� ANGELA V. MCKNIGHT
District 31 (Hudson)
SYNOPSIS
���� Establishes �The Truth, Reconciliation, and Repair
Act of New Jersey.�
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
���� As introduced.
��
An Act
establishing �The Truth, Reconciliation, and
Repair Act of New Jersey� concerning acknowledgment, responsibility, and
accountability for the effects of human rights violations against Black people
in this State from slavery and systemic racial discrimination.
����
Be It
Enacted
by the Senate and General Assembly of
the State of New Jersey:
���� 1.� The Legislature finds and
declares that:
���� a.� In 2008, the 212th
Legislature of the State of New Jersey became the fifth state to pass a
resolution when it adopted Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 270 expressing
�profound regret� for the State�s role in slavery, but, in the resolution,
affirmatively rejected a commitment to repair the harms and aftermath wrought
by slavery in the State.
���� b.� Eighteen years later, the
Legislature confronts the truth: that the 2008 apology was insufficient, as it
lacked, and in fact, affirmatively rejected, the necessary corresponding
accountability.
���� c.� Although slavery
profoundly shaped New Jersey, more than half of New Jerseyans do not know it
happened here.
���� d.� Exposing the truth is New
Jersey�s great opportunity, particularly in this difficult moment where efforts
are underway nationally to defund programs that teach about truth, history, and
systemic racism, including attempts to censor and threats to cut funding to the
Smithsonian�s National Museum of African American History and Culture in
Washington D.C., a sacred space of memory and meaning.
���� e.� These efforts are not
simply attempts to bury the truth; they are aimed at erasing history and
undermining the United States� democracy.
���� f.� The recent report of the
New Jersey Reparations Council tells the often overlooked and largely unknown
story of slavery in New Jersey and outlines a clear, compelling, and courageous
path forward: the development of meaningful policies that address the racial
wealth gap; investment in Black communities; and confrontation of the systemic
inequities that still exist in this State.
���� g.� Perhaps for the first time
in its State�s history, New Jersey has an authoritative document that speaks
the full truth about its deep participation in slavery and the ways in which
its harms have not ended but evolved into mass incarceration, the racial wealth
gap, segregated schools, and concentrated poverty that continue to disfigure
democracy today.
���� h.� New Jersey has the chance
to lead, not just symbolically, but substantively.
���� i.� New Jersey can resist
actions to erase history by confronting its enduring legacy of slavery, taking
responsibility for it, and together, with one of the United States� most
diverse populations, building a new State of New Jersey where Black people and
all people can flourish.
���� j.� Doing so will not just
make New Jersey a national leader, it will make residents of the Garden State
better neighbors to each other and more engaged community members in a more
just democracy.
���� k.� Racial justice begins with
truth. �Justice cannot be obtained without history.
���� l.� New Jersey�s 2008 symbolic
apology was an important start.
���� m.� New Jersey now moves from
symbolism to an apology that leads to accountability. �From history to repair.
���� n.� But first we must know and
tell the truth.
���� o.� On May 3, 1802, an
enslaver offered a $20 reward for the capture and return of �Bill� and his wife
�Hannah,� who fled captivity in Newark, New Jersey.
���� p.� For over two centuries,
from 1630 to 1866, New Jersey authorized the enslavement of more than 12,000
Black people.
���� q.� Although slavery has
shaped almost every aspect of New Jersey from its founding through today, the
majority of people in New Jersey do not know it happened here.
���� r.� With sober minds and heavy
hearts, New Jersey honors the more than 12 million African people who, after
being stolen from their homes, chained and tightly packed in dark, filthy, sweltering
ships for tortuous trips across the Atlantic Ocean, died during the journey
through the Middle Passage from abuse, disease and heartbreak.
���� s.� We also honor the millions
of African people who fought to survive those monthslong trips, only to be sold
into a system of slavery in New Jersey that lasted for more than 200 years.
���� t.� From the beginning of
slavery in New Jersey, Black people fiercely resisted, escaped, and fought to
liberate themselves. �Yet for generations, the brutal system of slavery
extracted uncompensated Black labor to build New Jersey into one of the
wealthiest states in the country.
���� u.� New Jersey�s deep and
persistent commitment to slavery made it the �slave state of the North.�
���� v.� This goes back to the
colony�s founding in 1664, when each white family settling in the territory was
given 150 acres of land, plus additional acreage for each enslaved person they
brought with them.
���� w.� New Jersey was one of the
first northern states to codify white supremacy in its laws when it restricted
the vote to white men in 1807, and, in 1821, established a legal presumption
that Black residents were enslaved until proven otherwise.
���� x.� By 1830, over two-thirds
of all people enslaved in the north were held in New Jersey.
���� y.� Although New Jersey
outlawed the importation of enslaved Africans in 1786 and enacted the �Gradual
Abolition Act of 1804� to abolish slavery gradually, the State, instead of
paying reparations to enslaved people, provided approximately $1 million in current
dollars in reparations to compensate enslavers from 1806 to 1811 � until this
nearly led the State into bankruptcy.
���� z.� Under the Gradual
Abolition Act, New Jersey�s payments to enslavers accounted for nearly 30
percent of the State�s budget in one year.
���� aa.� New Jersey also opposed
the Emancipation Proclamation and at the end of the Civil War in 1865, despite
being part of the victorious Union, initially refused to ratify the Thirteenth
Amendment to abolish slavery.
���� bb.� It wasn�t until a State
constitutional amendment in 1866 that slavery finally ended in the State, the
same day that New Jersey became the last northern state to finally ratify the
Thirteenth Amendment.
���� cc.� Even after slavery
finally ended, the oppression of Black people in New Jersey continued through
the cottager system, a form of sharecropping, and then into the 20th century
through the State�s own Jim Crow segregation, including the widespread use of
racially restrictive covenants, redlining, the denial of GI Bill homeownership
opportunities for Black World War II veterans, exclusionary zoning, and
discriminatory lending practices.
���� dd.� From the 1870s to the
1940s, public and private facilities and establishments in New Jersey,
including restaurants, taverns, and pools were segregated by race, and it was
not until the State Legislature passed the Freeman Bill in 1949 that New Jersey
law guaranteed equal access to schools, restaurants, stores, public
transportation, theaters, and beaches.
���� ee.� An overwhelming body of
historical, legal, political, economic, sociological, and cultural scholarship,
as well as community evidentiary documentation and the modern-day lived
experiences of Black people in New Jersey, attest to the ongoing effects of the
institution of slavery and the persistent harms of systemic discrimination.�
���� ff.� The enduring harm of
slavery and its aftermath, and the lack of public awareness in New Jersey,
require acknowledgment, apology, and repair by the State in the areas of
economics, public education, and health, as well as in other institutions and
contexts.
���� gg.� New Jersey's deep roots
in American slavery and its vestiges have endured to the present day, with
Black people in New Jersey, who comprise more than 15 percent of the State�s
population, exceeding one million people, facing some of the worst racial
inequalities in the nation in health, education, incarceration, exposure to
environmental toxins including lead in water and homes, school segregation, and
wealth, with a staggering median wealth gap between Black and white families of
over $600,000.
���� hh.� To address and educate
about these systemic challenges in New Jersey, the New Jersey Reparations
Council researched, wrote, and, in 2025 published a report, �For Such a Time as
This: The Nowness of Reparations for Black People in New Jersey,� that examines
the institution of slavery in New Jersey as well as the extent to which the
State of New Jersey perpetuated systemic racism and prevented, opposed, or
restricted efforts of Black people to thrive upon the ending of slavery, and
outlines policy recommendations that seek to repair the harm that has resulted
from the country's original sin in the Garden State. �
���� ii.� In 2008, the 212th
Legislature of the State of New Jersey adopted Assembly Concurrent Resolution
No. 270, apologizing for slavery in the United States but, in the resolution,
affirmatively rejected a commitment to repair the harms and aftermath wrought
by slavery in the State.
���� jj.� The New Jersey
Legislature, Black communities, and advocates around New Jersey believe that in
order for New Jersey to fully live up to its potential to be a model
multiracial democracy, it is necessary to honestly acknowledge and actively
repair our past and present.
���� kk.� According to the United
Nations Principles on Reparation, an apology, when combined with material forms
of reparative policies and practices as part of a larger, targeted but
transformative process of reparations, including ending the ongoing harms and creating
new systems and structures, provides an opportunity for communal reckoning with
the past, and repair for moral, physical, and dignitary harms.
���� 2.� There is hereby
established by the Legislature of the State of New Jersey that the following
apology supersedes and replaces Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 270 of the
212th Legislature.�
���� a.���� The State of New
Jersey, on behalf of the people of New Jersey, apologizes, accepts
responsibility for, and commits to taking active accountability for the State�s
role in slavery and its aftermath, which continues today.
���� b.��� The State of New Jersey
recognizes and accepts responsibility for the harms and atrocities committed by
the State, its representatives, and entities under its jurisdiction who
promoted, facilitated, enforced, and permitted the institution of slavery and
the enduring harms of ongoing badges and incidents from which the systemic
structures of discrimination have come to exist and continue to exist.
���� c.���� The State of New Jersey
apologizes for perpetuating the harms Black people faced by the State having
instituted racism through segregation, public and private discrimination,
unequal disbursement of State and federal funding, and various other State
sanctioned practices and patterns of racial discrimination and declares that
such actions shall not be repeated.
���� d.��� The State of New Jersey
expresses its deepest sympathies and solemn regrets to those Black people who
were enslaved and the descendants of those enslaved, and all Black people in
the State who were deprived of life, human dignity, and the constitutional
protections accorded through the United States Constitution and New Jersey�s
Constitution over the course of New Jersey�s past and present.
���� e.���� The State of New Jersey
affirms its role in protecting all Black people in New Jersey as well as their
civil, political, and sociocultural rights.
���� f.���� The State of New Jersey
humbly asks for forgiveness from those affected by past atrocities, both
deliberately and negligently, and acknowledges and affirms its responsibility
to end ongoing harm.
���� g.��� The State of New Jersey
commits to restoring and repairing affected peoples with actions beyond this
apology, including, but not limited to, rectifying the lingering consequences
of the misdeeds committed against Black people under slavery, Jim Crow, and
ongoing harms; stopping the occurrence of human rights violations in the
future; and building a new State of New Jersey where Black people can flourish.
���� h.��� The State of New Jersey
acknowledges the work of the New Jersey Reparations Council and its report,
�For Such a Time as This: The Nowness of Reparations for Black People in New
Jersey.�� The Council, convened by the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice,
details in its report the past and present harms faced by Black people in New
Jersey and provides numerous recommendations to repair those harms, including
this formal apology.
���� i.���� The State of New Jersey
acknowledges that the harms identified in this act, P.L.�� , c.�� (C.�� )
(pending before the Legislature as this bill), and the New Jersey Reparations
Council Report, �For Such a Time as This: The Nowness of Reparations for Black
People in New Jersey,� are ongoing and that the State bears a continuing
responsibility to address and prevent the recurrence of such harms through
lawful legislative, executive, and administrative action.
���� j.���� Through the State�s
historical societies and educational and cultural institutions, the Legislature
encourages all people in the State of New Jersey and the United States to
remember, learn, and teach their children, families, friends, co-workers, and
community members about the history of slavery, Jim Crow laws, and ongoing
systemic racism in New Jersey and the United States, to ensure that these
tragedies will neither be forgotten nor repeated.
���� k.��� The State of New Jersey
urges schools, colleges and universities, religious and civic institutions,
businesses, and professional associations to do all within their power to
acknowledge and teach the transgressions of New Jersey's journey from a colony
to a State and how the State�s institutions benefitted from and continue to
perpetuate these harms, as well as to learn the lessons of history in order to
avoid repeating mistakes of the past and to promote the repair of harms and
transgressions to build a new State of New Jersey where Black people and all
people in New Jersey can flourish.
���� l.���� Toward that end, the
Amistad Commission shall incorporate the findings of the New Jersey Reparations
Council Report, �For Such a Time as This: The Nowness of Reparations for Black
People in New Jersey,� into its curriculum standards and guidance, and shall
work in consultation with the Department of Education to ensure that such
materials are integrated into instructional resources beginning in the first
full academic year following enactment of this act.
���� 3.� Nothing in this act,
P.L.�� , c.�� (C.�� ) (pending before the Legislature as this bill), shall be
construed to limit, impair, or substitute for any rights, protections, or
remedies otherwise available under State or federal law.�
���� 4. �This act shall take effect
immediately and shall first apply to the first full school year following the
date of enactment.�
STATEMENT
���� This bill establishes �The
Truth, Reconciliation, and Repair Act of New Jersey.�� The purpose of this bill
is to acknowledge, take responsibility for, and take active accountability to
repair the effects of the gross human rights violations against Black people in
the State from slavery and the ongoing harms of systemic racial discrimination.
���� This bill, among other things,
requires the State to:
���� apologize for the institution
of slavery within the State of New Jersey;
���� apologize for the extent to
which the State of New Jersey and the federal government prevented, opposed, or
restricted efforts of Black people and their descendants to economically thrive
upon the ending of slavery;
���� apologize for the lingering
negative effects of slavery and its vestiges on the contemporary lives of Black
people in New Jersey and the United States; and
���� commit to restoring and
repairing affected peoples with actions beyond this apology, including, but not
limited to, implementing public education to raise awareness about New Jersey�s
history of slavery and its ongoing harms; rectifying the lingering consequences
of the wrongs committed against Black people under slavery and Jim Crow and
other ongoing harms; stopping the occurrence of human rights violations in the
future; and building a new State of New Jersey where Black people can flourish.