Member Spotlight: U.S. Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Commission
This week, we're spotlighting the U.S. Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Commission (H.Con.Res.100) - a resolution drafted and written by SSN member Marcus Anthony Hunter. The Commission, which would "properly acknowledge, memorialize, and be a catalyst for progress, including toward permanently eliminating persistent racial inequities" garnered 170 cosponsors in the House as of December 2020.
Alongside this effort, Senator Cory Booker has also introduced companion legislation which would establish a national Archive of Racial and Cultural Healing to provide scholarships, training, and student loan relief for students as well as residencies, exhibits, and trainings for and by Black cultural workers, entrepreneurs, scholars, and artists. As an accessible, digital “repository of accountability” for restorative justice, the ARCH is designed to create and maintain an accurate national history of 400+ years of racial injustice.
So far, the US National TRHT Coalition has gained the support of major civic groups, civil rights advocates, the philanthropic community, faith leaders, schools, scholars, artists, celebrities, and others. Representatives have also met with the Biden-Harris administration to discuss furthering this work through executive action. Bravo to Marcus for his instrumental role in this bipartisan effort!
Hunter is generally interested in urban race relations, sexuality, politics, gender, history and change with an especial focus on urban black Americans. His book, Black Citymakers: How the Philadelphia Negro Changed Urban America (Oxford University Press) revisits the Black Seventh Ward neighborhood immortalized in W.E.B. DuBois’s The Philadelphia Negro. Through the dual lens of political agency and critical historical events, Black Citymakers follows the transformation of the neighborhood from predominantly black at the beginning of the 20th century into a largely white upper middle class and commercial neighborhood by the century’s conclusion. His research has benefited from grants from the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. In addition, Hunter’s research and commentary on urban black life and inequality has been featured in the journals the Du Bois Review, City & Community, Sexuality Research & Social Policy and the Washington Post, Talking Points Memo, and the New York Times.