Apologize for the legacy slavery left behind...

On May 17th 2000, the mayor of the America's third largest city, Chicago, made a public apology to the Black Americans in his city for slavery.

After tiptoeing around the issue for weeks, Mayor Richard Daley on Wednesday came out squarely in favor of reparations for the descendants of African slaves and asserted it is only right for America to say it is sorry for what it did. "You apologize for a wrong," Daley declared. "Slavery was wrong. ... Slavery has had an enormous effect on generation after generation." The mayor's comments came as the City Council voted overwhelmingly to urge Congress to consider reparations. - Chicago Tribune, May 17, 2000, Chicago Illinois

Chicago is just the latest city in a growing list of cities across the nation that has joined the cry for Congress to address the issue of an apology and reparations (the question of reparations will be addressed next month in another article), for slavery. Most White Americans-and quite a few non-white American's, chief among them, Native Americans-have opposed the call for an apology, asserting that it was not they who were responsible for slavery. Or they assert their forefathers were immigrants, or migrant workers, or indentured servants, and therefore not responsible for slavery and all of it well documented ills.

Lets leave aside for a moment those individual arguments and address the larger issue: should the United States Government apology for slavery? I say no, not for slavery alone. It should instead apologize for the legacy that slavery left in its wake; a legacy I hasten to point out that the U.S. government helped endow, and fed through its own well documented institutionalized brand of discrimination, bigotry, and racism. It is the legacy of slavery that has haunted every Black American-man, woman, and child-for the last 135 years, and the haunting continues to this day!

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws-14th Amendment to The Constitution of the United States of America, ratified July 9th 1868.

Go To Page: 1 2 3