Vote on Slavery Apology Continues to Attract Attention; Senate Action Possible?

Will the U.S. Senate follow up Tuesday’s action by the House of Representatives
and consider its own resolution apologizing for slavery and the Jim Crow
segregationist past? The Washington Post cites 9th District
congressman Steve Cohen, author of the House resolution, as saying that Iowa
senator Tom Harkin is the likely sponsor of a companion resolution.

Since the passage of the
House resolution by acclamation on Tuesday, the apology-for-slavery issue has
attracted considerable attention, both nationally and internationally. The
Post article, titled “House Issues Apology for Slavery,” was one of 333
articles listed by Google, as of midnight Wednesday, that pertain directly to
this week’s action on the resolution.

As the
Post noted, the House vote was but the latest in a series of such remedial
actions adopted by Congress. “In February, the Senate apologized for atrocities
committed against Native Americans, and the body apologized in 2005 for standing
by during a lynching campaign against African Americans throughout much of the
past century. Twenty years ago, Congress apologized for interning Japanese
Americans in concentration camps during World War II.”

The
resolution had 120 co-sponsors in the House, including Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y..)
and Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (D-Ohio), the only two members of the Congressional
Black Caucus who have lent their names to the campaign of Cohen’s Democratic primary opponent, Nikki
Tinker. House Judiciary chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), and civil rights
legend. John Lewis (D-Ga.), both of whom have endorsed Cohen for reelection,
were among the original co-sponsors of the House resolution.

Typical of responses to the resolution was this one from the Rev. Jim Wallis of the Sojourners movement:

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Slavery Apology–One Step Forward (by Jim Wallis)

I’m still “down under” — wrapping up my book tour in Australia. The news
from the U.S. reminds me of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s first act on the day
after his swearing in as prime minister. In a moving speech,

he delivered a speech of apology to the aboriginal people.

Tuesday,
for the first time, the U.S. House of Representatives

passed an official apology for slavery and segregation. Over the past
few years, five southern states have apologized, but efforts in Congress had
failed.

Congress has issued apologies before, to Japanese-Americans for their
internment during World War II and to native Hawaiians for the overthrow of
the Hawaiian kingdom in 1893. In 2005, the Senate apologized for failing to
pass anti-lynching laws. But never for slavery.

It is appropriate, because ultimately it was government policies that
were both complicit in and directly responsible for this great inhumanity
and injustice. Nobody alive in America today participated in slavery, many
have no ancestors who did, and large numbers of families came to this land
only after slavery was officially abolished — but all white Americans have
benefited from the poisonous legacy of slavery and discrimination.

The language of the resolution is clear on the importance of apologizing
as a step forward. After recounting the evil of slavery, it concludes:

Whereas a genuine apology is an important and necessary first step in
the process of racial reconciliation;

Whereas an apology for centuries of brutal dehumanization and
injustices cannot erase the past, but confession of the wrongs committed
can speed racial healing and reconciliation and help Americans confront
the ghosts of their past;

Whereas it is important for this country, which legally recognized
slavery through its Constitution and its laws, to make a formal apology
for slavery and for its successor, Jim Crow, so that it can move forward
and seek reconciliation, justice, and harmony for all of its citizens:
Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

(1) acknowledges that slavery is incompatible with the basic founding
principles recognized in the Declaration of Independence that all men
are created equal;

(2) acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and
inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow;

(3) apologizes to African Americans on behalf of the people of the
United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors
who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow; and

(4) expresses its commitment to rectify the lingering consequences of
the misdeeds committed against African Americans under slavery and Jim
Crow and to stop the occurrence of human rights violations in the
future.

I hope the Senate will quickly pass a parallel resolution and that
President Bush will publicly endorse it. It would be an important day in
U.S. history.