pasted below an article from the Guardian;
very interesting in itself and interesting to note the apology wasn't
mentioned in any other medium to my knowledge
Max
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After 400 years, Virginia issues official apology for slavery
· Resolution passed in former confederate capital
· 'Profound regret' for enslavement of millions
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Monday February 26, 2007
The Guardian
The state of Virginia, the heart of the confederacy during the civil war,
has issued the first official apology for slavery and the exploitation of
native Americans by the country's white settlers.
In a resolution that passed unanimously in both chambers of the state
general assembly in Richmond, legislators offered their "profound regret"
for the enslavement of millions of Americans.
"The moral standards of liberty and equality have been transgressed during
much of Virginia's and America's history," the resolution says. It calls the
enslavement of millions of Africans and the exploitation of native Americans
"the most horrendous of all depredations of human rights and violations of
our founding ideals in our nation's history".
Article continues
The collective expression of remorse is believed to be the first of its kind
to recognise that the foundations of America were built on exploitation. Its
symbolism was underlined by its delivery from Richmond, the former capital
of the confederacy and home at the outset of the civil war in 1861 to half a
million of the four million African-Americans living in slavery.
The display of contrition was timed to mark the 400th anniversary of the
establishment of the English settlement of Jamestown in 1607. The first
recorded instance of slavery in the New World was at Jamestown 12 years
later with the landing of a Dutch ship at the colonial outpost bearing 20
Africans in chains who were to be sold as indentured servants.
By the early 18th century, such enslavement was enshrined in Virginia's
legal code, and slaves became crucial to an economy built on the cultivation
of tobacco and cotton. The general assembly passed laws sparing white
plantation owners from prosecution should a slave die in their custody, and
allowed runaway slaves to be hunted down and killed.
The injustice was not entirely righted with Abraham Lincoln's proclamation
of emancipation in 1865, the resolution acknowledges. "The abolition of
slavery was followed by systematic discrimination, enforced segregation, and
other insidious institutions and practices toward Americans of African
descent that were rooted in racism, racial bias, and racial misunderstanding."
Virginia's apology is the most recent attempt by a southern state to put the
past to rights. Maryland and Missouri are considering similar measures, and
other states have begun to compensate African-Americans for the wrongs of
the past.
Florida has paid compensation to the descendants of an all-black town that
was destroyed by a white lynch mob in 1923.
"This session will be remembered for a lot of things, but 20 years hence I
suspect one of those things will be the fact that we came together and
passed this resolution," said Donald McEachin, a Democratic sponsor of the
bill, who is a descendant of slaves.
However, the apology was not without controversy. Earlier this year, another
member of the house, Frank Hargrove, said African-Americans should "get
over" slavery, claiming he should not have to apologise for something that
happened before he was born.
Strange relations
Genealogists hired by a New York newspaper to trace the ancestry of the
civil rights activist Al Sharpton said yesterday his forebears were slaves
owned by the family of a southern white senator who was an icon of
segregation. The bizarre connection between Mr Sharpton and the late South
Carolina senator Strom Thurmond was established after two weeks of research,
the Daily News reported.
Thurmond was among the most fervent defenders of segregation, speaking
non-stop for 24 hours on in the US Senate to block civil rights legislation.
After his death in 2003, it was found that he had fathered a child by a
teenage black maid.
Mr Sharpton was stunned by the findings. "I always wondered what was the
background of my family," he told the newspaper. "But nothing could prepare
me for this." The genealogists found documents in a Florida court showing
that Mr Sharpton's great grandfather, his wife and two children, had been
given as a gift to a Julia Thurmond in the state.
