The Living Consequences

The Connecticut House of Representatives voted unanimously today in favor of a resolution declaring “profound contrition” for the state legislature’s historic role in slavery and racial discrimination.

Connecticut would become the second northern state, after New Jersey, and the first state in New England, to apologize for its role in slavery and discrimination.

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On Monday, the State of Connecticut will begin debating an apology for its role in slavery and and racial discrimination.

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The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to rule on the issue of whether apologies issued to Hawaii give native Hawaiians a legal claim to lands seized in the 19th century.

The Court will have to judge whether an apology was a mere statement of regret, or whether, even without additional language, the apology creates legal responsibilities.

The case has important implications for native Hawaiians and for other groups, such as native Americans, which may have historic claims to seized territory. It also bears directly on the politics and legal implications of the growing number of state and federal apologies for the nation’s history of slavery and discrimination.

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The Associated Press is reporting that the French Conseil d’État (Council of State) has formally acknowledged France’s role in deporting Jews to Nazi death camps during the Holocaust in World War II.

This is a case which is strongly reminiscent of how the U.S. continues to struggle with its own responsibility for American slavery and the slave trade.

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There’s a thoughtful review of Traces of the Trade up at the critical blog Harlem Writer.

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When I speak with audiences about the legacy of slavery in the U.S., one question that often comes up is how states can justify issuing apologies for slavery and racial discrimination when no one involved in those historic events is alive today.

I often answer that an apology may make sense if an institution, such as a state or its legislature, wants to apologize in its own name, rather than that of the people, for its complicity in slavery or in the century of brutal and legal discrimination which followed.

Another response, however, is that many people involved in those horrific times are still alive today, and are capable of apologizing (and seeking forgiveness) in their own right.

On Tuesday, Elwin Wilson apologized on national television to congressman and civil rights legend John Lewis (D-Ga.) for attacking Lewis, then a freedom rider for Martin Luther King, in the whites-only waiting room of a South Carolina bus station during the civil rights movement.

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Walter Olson, a conservative opponent of the U.S. legal system, has an opinion piece out today in the fall issue of City Journal, in which he argues that the slavery reparations movement has “completely disappeared from the national agenda.”

This is, of course, a puzzling argument on the surface, given that the last two years have seen an unprecedented outpouring of state and federal apologies for slavery, often seen as a precursor to reparations, and federal reparations legislation pending for twenty years finally advanced to the hearing stage during the current Congress.

Could Olson be right, though, or at least have an important argument to make about the reparations movement?

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The U.N. General Assembly, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, has approved a resolution calling for the erection of a permanent memorial in New York to commemorate the slave trade and its legacy.

The resolution stresses the importance of raising awareness of the history and “lasting consequences” of the slave trade, and calls on all member nations to develop school curricula and other educational programs to teach “the lessons, history and consequences of slavery and the slave trade.”

Representatives at the debate on the resolution also raised the issue of an apology, called for reparations for slavery and the slave trade, and stated explicitly that the foundation of much of the world’s wealth and poverty lies in the history of slavery.

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Politico.com is reporting this morning that the U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to consider an apology for slavery and discrimination next week.

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Since last year, there has been a series of legislative developments, at the state and national levels, related to the legacy of slavery and the slave trade. I’ve blogged about each of these efforts separately in the past, but in this entry, I want to offer a quick overview of the various legislative proposals and their current status.

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