Legislative · Federal · DC
House bill introduced to posthumously award Congressional Gold Medal to enslaved Africans and their descendants (1619–1865)
- Direction
- +1 — benefit to freedmen
- Force
- 0.10 — introduced or referred
- Status
- Developing
- Date
- 2025-08-05
Why this rating
A symbolic commemorative award (a Congressional Gold Medal) with no funding or force-of-law material benefit. The stated recipient class — "Africans and their descendants enslaved from 1619 to 1865" — is broader than the lineage-based freedmen definition (descent traceable to the 1870 census), and the bill contains no lineage-specific benefit mechanism, so the effect is general and symbolic. Rated +1 as a symbolic act reflecting growing public recognition of freedmen and the lineage, capped there because symbolic measures without funding do not exceed +1. Introduced; not enacted.
Summary
On August 5, 2025, Rep. Al Green (D-TX) introduced H.R. 4885 in the U.S. House, with Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) as a cosponsor. The bill would posthumously award a single, collective Congressional Gold Medal to 'Africans and their descendants enslaved within our country from August 20, 1619, to December 6, 1865.'
The bill was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services, and additionally to the Committees on House Administration and the Budget, for consideration of provisions within each committee's jurisdiction. No further action is recorded in the provided material.
The measure is a commemorative award; the source material contains no provision for direct payments, trust funds, or other material benefits tied to the medal, nor any lineage-verification or eligibility mechanism beyond the historical description of those enslaved during the stated period.
Sources
- The original legislation awarding a historic Congressional Gold Medal, collectively, to Africans and their descendants enslaved within our country from August 20, 1619, to December 6, 1865 — bill text · primary · legiscan
Rated under the published impact rubric. Direction records what a measure would do if fully effective; force records how far it has actually travelled. Neither is inferred — both trace to the sources above. Think something here is wrong? Tell us and we will log the correction.