Whereas, Massachusetts was the first colony to legalize slavery in 1641; and
 
Whereas, more than 4,000,000 African Americans and their descendants were enslaved from 1619 to 1865; and
 
Whereas, the United States became one of the richest countries in the world as a result of such unpaid slave labor; and
 
Whereas, today the descendants of the enslaved have an average of less than one-sixteenth of the wealth of white families, a disparity that has worsened, not improved, over time; and
 
Whereas, the slavery system that flourished in the United States constituted an immoral and inhumane deprivation of African Americans’ life, liberty, citizenship rights, and cultural heritage, while denying them also the fruits of their own labor; and
 
Whereas, following slavery’s abolition, the Commonwealth failed to guarantee the rights of African Americans in the face of persisting de jure and de facto efforts to deprive them of those rights.
 
Now therefore be it resolved that the Massachusetts Democratic Party urges the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to offer a formal apology to all its citizens and residents of African-American descent for the ways the Commonwealth was complicit in the slavery system; and
 
Be it further resolved that the Massachusetts Democratic Party supports the Commonwealth making reparations to African Americans for the injuries they have sustained as a result of the slavery system and its long “afterlife”; and 
 
Be it further resolved that the Massachusetts Democratic Party supports bill S. 1053 as an important first step toward the acknowledgment, apology, and reparations called for above.