New Jersey repair bill would replace slavery apology

In New Jersey, Assemblywoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson’s bill would do more than restate regret. The proposal, called the Truth, Reconciliation, and Repair Act of New Jersey, would replace the state’s 2008 apology for slavery with language saying New Jersey apologizes, accepts responsibility for, and commits to active accountability for the harms of slavery and systemic racial discrimination against Black people.

The measure is built around a blunt correction: saying sorry was not the same as fixing anything. It says the earlier apology was insufficient because it rejected repair, and it ties that failure to harms the state still carries in wealth, education, health and public safety.

From regret to repair

The bill would also ask the state’s historical, educational and cultural institutions, along with schools, colleges, universities, businesses, religious groups and civic organizations, to acknowledge and teach the history of slavery, Jim Crow and systemic racism in New Jersey.

One specific instruction falls to the Amistad Commission. It would have to fold the New Jersey Reparations Council’s report into curriculum standards and guidance, with new materials going into instructional resources in the first full academic year after enactment.