Community Activists Call Attention to Government’s Apology for Slavery and Jim Crowism

In an effort to promote racial healing, talk radio hosts nationwide are teaming with community and civil rights activists on Monday, April 3, 2017 to begin a campaign aimed at drawing attention to the federal government’s recent but largely forgotten acknowledgement of and apology for slavery and subsequent discriminatory policies.

“In 2008, Congress made history by officially apologizing for chattel slavery in the United States and the subsequent Jim Crowism that plagued black people after emancipation. Everyone knew about the poor treatment, but few know about the rare act of contrition by our government and its intention to heal our nation,” said community activist Ted Hayes, a key organizer of the Day of Love and Reconciliation for Healing. “In my own experience, people knowing that this apology happened goes a long way in changing the minds of people holding negative opinions about America because of its treatment of the black community.”

This year-long effort begins with the April 3 Day of Love and Reconciliation For Healing. Hayes and others will work with talk radio hosts of all political leanings to draw attention to H.R. 194, a resolution passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on July 29, 2008 that “apologize[d] 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 “expresse[d] 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” A similar resolution was passed by the U.S. Senate almost a year later.

You can check those out here and here. 

This congressional apology for slavery and Jim Crowism constitutes one of only a handful of times the U.S. government formally apologized for past actions. In doing so, Congress finally and formally acknowledged (describing devastating effects of what happened), apologized for and sought to improve upon that state of black American in the wake of chattel slavery and generations of discriminatory Jim Crow laws.

This national acknowledgement of the apology was initiated by Hayes, a community activist, and talk-radio show hosts Mike Seigel and C.L. Bryant. They are joined by civil rights activist Reverend Dr. Alveda King, the niece of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

April 3 is the day before the anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination in Memphis in 1968, and this campaign to promote awareness of the congressional apology aims to inform as many Americans as possible in the year before the 50th-anniversary observance of Dr. King’s death.

It is the hopes of the organizers that talk-radio hosts and their audiences will read and discuss the content and the meaning of the congressional apology for slavery.

Organizers note this official act, made just prior to the election of the nation’s first black president, has been mistakenly overlooked. Increased knowledge of it, they point out, can significantly change the dynamics in the national narrative of race relations.

Hayes said: “We are hoping that this year-long campaign that begins on April 3 and culminates on the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s departure from our earthly plane will provide us the opportunity to finally address the race matters in a more balanced, hopeful way. When I have personally enlightened people about the fact that the government has apologized and committed itself to working with the descendants of those who were once enslaved, it changes their perspective and helps our society heal.” {eoa}