An apology for slavery, a step toward healing

So-called "militant Black Nationalists" have long maintained "slavery was a grave injustice that caused and continues to cause African Americans to suffer enormous damages and losses, both material and intangible, including the loss of human dignity and liberty ... denying (them) the fruits of their own labor, and was an immoral and inhumane deprivation of life, liberty, citizenship rights, and cultural heritage."

The American public may have even grown weary of hearing such pronouncements from Blacks, who are often dismissed as perpetual malcontents who are out of step with the society�s mainstream.

These truthful characterizations of slavery are not from a "Black militant," however, but from a member of Congress ... from a white member of Congress in fact. Rep. Tony Hall (D-Ohio), expressed these sentiments to reporters June 19, as he prepared to introduce a second resolution that offers an official U.S. government apology for the 300-year enslavement of millions of Black people.

The issue of slavery "is still with us. It will not go away," Mr. Hall said on behalf of a bi-partisan and bi-racial group of 15 additional original co-sponsors. America will continue to be haunted by slavery until the government makes amends, beginning with a formal apology, and eventually some form of "restitution," he said.

This resolution�which Mr. Hall thinks is not only the right thing, and the moral thing, but the "just" thing to do�recommends that the government appoint a commission to examine the legacy of slavery; issue a public school curriculum about slavery; consider setting up a scholarship fund; and build a national slavery museum.

"Our ancestors created material wealth for the slave-holders," said Dorothy Lewis, co-chair of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N�COBRA). "We have inherited the impoverishment that the theft of the wealth of our ancestors created," she said at a ceremony held on the U.S. Capitol grounds June 19.

Ms. Lewis and other N�COBRA members wore T-shirts bearing a reminder of the Reconstruction-era�s broken promise to the freed-slaves of "40 acres and a mule," and an endorsement of H.R. 40, a bill calling for a study of the potential impact of reparations introduced every year since 1989 by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.).

Both the location and date of Rep. Hall�s Capitol Hill announcement are important in American history. The U.S. Capitol, Mr. Hall pointed out, was built using slave labor. And the date, marked the 135th anniversary of "Juneteenth"�June 19, 1865, the day, two-years-and six-months after the Emancipation Proclamation, when slaves in Texas were finally freed by Union troops.

"As a country, we participated in slavery. We tore families apart," said Rep. Hall. "We separated husbands from wives, and wives from husbands, children from families. We tore them from their land. We, in many cases killed them, oftentimes tortured them, probably beat most of them, and kept them in bondage."

Both the U.S. Constitution, and laws passed by Congress contributed to the abuse, by counting slaves as only three-fifths of a person, and then by actually defining slaves not as people at all, but as property, as chattel, Mr. Hall continued.

"If there�s not the words saying �I�m sorry� and if there�s no forgiveness, there�s no healing. So an apology is a simple thing, but it�s also a difficult thing.

"But you know this is a big nation, a powerful nation. The most powerful nation in the world today. A big nation sometimes has to be humble, and I think a big nation stays big because they say �I�m sorry," said Mr. Hall.  We agree.