H.Res. 173 — Restoring the promise of freedom: honoring, preserving, and investing in Freedmen's Settlements.

This section affirms that on Juneteenth 2024, 158 years after 250,000 enslaved people in Galveston Bay, Texas, received news of their freedom from Union troops on June 19, 1865, following 250 years of United States slavery, efforts for racial justice did not end; acknowledges that many African Americans thereafter faced terror and repression that suppressed stable community formation; honors the history of emancipated African Americans who built freedmen’s settlements; supports preserving those settlements through documentation using oral histories and records as well as physical commemoration; encourages investment in historic preservation and economic justice initiatives for descendants and remaining residents; recognizes the need for coordination among the Federal Government, State governments, agencies, and nonprofit organizations, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, food assistance programs, historic land preservation, and clean water foundations; expresses commitment to identifying freedmen’s settlements and protecting them from development, gentrification, and environmental hazards through strategic investment, external development regulation, and community-led economic development; urges the Federal Government, States, localities, nonprofit organizations, schools, and community organizations to provide ongoing support to residents and descendants; affirms that freedmen’s settlements should have fair standards of living, including sewage, roads, emergency services, and climate-resilient infrastructure; and honors the legacies of freedom, ingenuity, resilience, and community care created by these communities.