Last week the U.S. Senate passed a resolution apologizing for slavery and its Jim Crow aftermath. For reasons best expressed in the below letter to President George W. Bush, I believe that last week's resolution was the wrong resolution, passed by the wrong political party, at the wrong point in American history.
A simple resolution passed by a voice vote in a Democratically-controlled Congress does not have the same significance or moral force as a joint resolution passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President in a Rose Garden Ceremony.
In honor of the firestorm unleashed, when the Washington Post quoted me accurately as stating that the Republican Party needed to initiate the apology because it "would have [helped] shed that racist scab on the party," I have decided to release a letter I sent to President Bush early last spring...
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20502
Dear President Bush:
I am writing to thank you for appointing me to serve on the National Endowment for the Humanities Council and the Tennessee Advisory Committee for the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. It is an honor and a privilege to be a member of your administration and to share membership with you in the body of Christ.
I am the black woman in red who stood behind you last month when you held a press conference urging confirmation of your stalled nominees. Like you, I am a born again Christian.
For the past four years I have been convinced that you are the president who should take the lead in urging Congress to pass a joint resolution apologizing for slavery and its Jim Crow aftermath. Racial healing and racial reconciliation were meant to be important elements of your legacy to our nation. Somehow they have gotten lost over the past eight years.
I have a vision of how the apology should be offered, the form it would take, and what it would mean for the health of our nation. What I envision is a joint resolution passed by both houses of Congress and signed by you in a Rose Garden Ceremony televised around the world -- a ceremony in which the apology would be read and accepted by individuals chosen to represent each of America's major racial and ethnic groups. As part of the ceremony, members of the respective groups representing all Americans would pledge to work together to address societal problems as one nation under God. This ceremony would bring a measure of closure to the nation's racial wounds and would promote the racial healing and reconciliation which this nation needs.
The apology can be written in such a manner that it does not impute guilt to individual white Americans. Instead, it would be an official acknowledgment that the United States government should have acted sooner to end the "peculiar institution" and Jim Crow segregation that followed. Our history shows that blacks and Cherokee Indians were also guilty; they too held slaves.
Consider that several states have taken the initiative on the matter. Since February 24, 2007, when Virginia became the first state to address the matter, Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina, and New Jersey have passed apologies or expressions of regret. Indeed, around the world, nations and leaders have apologized for atrocities and suffering caused by governmental actions.
Although some may argue that an apology for slavery would open the door to racial reparations, the likelihood of that happening is remote. As your legal advisers can confirm, the legality of slavery before the passage of the 13th Amendment would make a claim in tort proceedings highly dubious. The statute of limitations has long since expired, and there is no living wrong-doer or victim with constitutional standing to bring a legal claim. Legal precedent demonstrates that an apology for slavery would not trigger legal liability.
We as a nation would reap enormous national and international rewards from such a goodwill gesture -- spear-headed by you in the sunset of your administration. Your leadership on this matter would become an integral part of your legacy as an openly Christian president. It would help the Republican Party reclaim the mantle of the party of Lincoln. Indeed, it would be a win-win for the Republican Party. Democrats in Congress would have difficulty opposing it, given the current social and political dynamics.
In conclusion, I would like to thank you once again for selecting me to become a member of your administration. A national apology for slavery and a Ceremony of Forgiveness in the White House Rose Garden would be remembered for a long time. They would give public shape to what I believe you have privately desired. And they would demonstrate to the world that racial reconciliation was an important part of the Bush legacy. Please let me work with your staff to draft a bill that you can support, and one that would make the national apology for slavery and its aftermath a reality in 2008.
Respectfully yours,
Carol M. Swain
Professor of Political Science and Law
Vanderbilt University
Alas, I never received an acknowledgment from the Bush White House.
A national apology for slavery and its aftermath is a matter dear to my heart. My support for this action has been published in several forums. See "An Apology for Slavery," The Washington Post, July, 16, 2005; "Does White America Owe Black America An Apology?" USA Today Magazine, January 2004; and, a February 5, 2005 interview with Marvin Olasky of World Magazine "Saying Sorry". For reasons contained elsewhere, I am not a supporter of slave reparations, but I certainly see value in an apology properly done.