Senate to consider apology for slavery
Posted June 14th, 2009 by James DeWolf PerrySen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has introduced a resolution into the U.S. Senate under which Congress would apologize for the nation’s history of slavery and racial discrimination.
The resolution acknowledges the nation’s long and brutal history of slavery and racial discrimination and apologizes to black Americans “on behalf of the people of the United States.”
The text of the resolution outlines the history of slavery and Jim Crow discrimination, noting that blacks continue to suffer from the “consequences” of this history, in ways both tangible and intangible, to this day.
S. Con. Res. 26, “A concurrent resolution apologizing for the enslavement and racial segregation of African Americans,” currently has eight co-sponsors: Sen. Christopher Bond (R-Mo.), Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kans.), Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.).
