The mission of the Philadelphia Reparations Coalition for American Freedmen (PRC‑AF) is to reinstate the full civil estate assigned to American Freedmen by the 39th Congress, including the rights, protections, fiduciary entitlements, and constitutional status that were intended to accompany emancipation.
This civil estate — defined through the Freedmen’s Bureau Acts, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the Freedmen’s Bank charter, and the enforcement clause of the Thirteenth Amendment — established American Freedmen as a distinct constitutional class with abolition‑based rights and federal protections. Over time, however, courts and institutions misinterpreted, collapsed, or ignored these assignments, causing the Freedmen class to disappear from constitutional analysis and erasing the slave lineage‑specific community the Reconstruction Congress sought to protect.
PRC‑AF exists to correct this historical and constitutional failure.
This civil estate — defined through the Freedmen’s Bureau Acts, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the Freedmen’s Bank charter, and the enforcement clause of the Thirteenth Amendment — established American Freedmen as a distinct constitutional class with abolition‑based rights and federal protections. Over time, however, courts and institutions misinterpreted, collapsed, or ignored these assignments, causing the Freedmen class to disappear from constitutional analysis and erasing the slave lineage‑specific community the Reconstruction Congress sought to protect.
PRC‑AF exists to correct this historical and constitutional failure.