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Virginia expresses 'profound regret' for slavery
Virginia legislators vote unanimously to officially voice state's remorse for role in enslaving Africans in America.
By Bob Deans
WASHINGTON BUREAU
Sunday, February 25, 2007
WASHINGTON — The Virginia General Assembly voted unanimously to express "profound regret" Saturday for slavery and the exploitation of Native Americans, four centuries after the state gave birth to both ills in America.
The House approved the measure on a 97-0 roll-call vote Saturday in Richmond, and the Senate followed suit with a voice vote.
The expression of remorse, said by Virginia legislators to be the first of its kind in the country, comes ahead of commemorations in May of the 400th anniversary of the first permanent English settlement in America, at Jamestown in 1607.
"The General Assembly hereby acknowledge with profound regret the involuntary servitude of Africans and the exploitation of Native Americans and call for reconciliation among all Virginians," the resolution states. "The moral standards of liberty and equality have been transgressed during much of Virginia's and America's history."
The resolution calls slavery "the most horrendous of all depredations of human rights and violations of our founding ideals in our nation's history."
The resolution concedes that "the most abject apology for past wrongs cannot right them; yet the spirit of true repentance on behalf of a government, and, through it, a people, can promote reconciliation and healing."
The bill's chief patron in the House, A. Donald McEachin, 45, is the great-grandson of a North Carolina slave who moved to Virginia after the Civil War.
McEachin, a Democrat, said his office has been contacted by aides from legislatures in Mississippi, Maryland and Missouri — states that also had slavery — and the National Conference of State Legislatures, all expressing interest in passing similar resolutions.
>snip<
The first Africans arrived near Jamestown in chains in 1619 when a Dutch ship sold the Virginia colonists 20 people stolen from their homes near present-day Angola.
By the Civil War, there were 4 million slaves in the United States, and half a million of them were in Virginia. Decades after slaves were free, Virginia remained ardently segregationist, responding to a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court desegregation ruling with massive resistance and even closing public schools.
"It may have been the cradle of democracy, but it was also the cradle of slavery," said Roger Wilkins, professor of history and American culture at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. "It's a state that's standing on that mixed history and making apologies for its past. That's a good thing for it to do."
Virginia legislators struggled for weeks over the resolution's precise wording, rejecting a formal apology and turning back efforts to include words such as "atonement" or "contrition," because some lawmakers sought to avoid any sentiment that might open the door to reparations."
link
What say you?
:shrug:
Virginia legislators vote unanimously to officially voice state's remorse for role in enslaving Africans in America.
By Bob Deans
WASHINGTON BUREAU
Sunday, February 25, 2007
WASHINGTON — The Virginia General Assembly voted unanimously to express "profound regret" Saturday for slavery and the exploitation of Native Americans, four centuries after the state gave birth to both ills in America.
The House approved the measure on a 97-0 roll-call vote Saturday in Richmond, and the Senate followed suit with a voice vote.
The expression of remorse, said by Virginia legislators to be the first of its kind in the country, comes ahead of commemorations in May of the 400th anniversary of the first permanent English settlement in America, at Jamestown in 1607.
"The General Assembly hereby acknowledge with profound regret the involuntary servitude of Africans and the exploitation of Native Americans and call for reconciliation among all Virginians," the resolution states. "The moral standards of liberty and equality have been transgressed during much of Virginia's and America's history."
The resolution calls slavery "the most horrendous of all depredations of human rights and violations of our founding ideals in our nation's history."
The resolution concedes that "the most abject apology for past wrongs cannot right them; yet the spirit of true repentance on behalf of a government, and, through it, a people, can promote reconciliation and healing."
The bill's chief patron in the House, A. Donald McEachin, 45, is the great-grandson of a North Carolina slave who moved to Virginia after the Civil War.
McEachin, a Democrat, said his office has been contacted by aides from legislatures in Mississippi, Maryland and Missouri — states that also had slavery — and the National Conference of State Legislatures, all expressing interest in passing similar resolutions.
>snip<
The first Africans arrived near Jamestown in chains in 1619 when a Dutch ship sold the Virginia colonists 20 people stolen from their homes near present-day Angola.
By the Civil War, there were 4 million slaves in the United States, and half a million of them were in Virginia. Decades after slaves were free, Virginia remained ardently segregationist, responding to a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court desegregation ruling with massive resistance and even closing public schools.
"It may have been the cradle of democracy, but it was also the cradle of slavery," said Roger Wilkins, professor of history and American culture at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. "It's a state that's standing on that mixed history and making apologies for its past. That's a good thing for it to do."
Virginia legislators struggled for weeks over the resolution's precise wording, rejecting a formal apology and turning back efforts to include words such as "atonement" or "contrition," because some lawmakers sought to avoid any sentiment that might open the door to reparations."
link
What say you?
:shrug:
