Slavery and Its Legacy: Facing Our Unhealed Past

Slavery and Its Legacy:

FACING OUR UNHEALED PAST
WITH HOPE

FOR

TRANSFORMATION, JUSTICE, AND RECONCILIATION

COMMENTS

We hope you will share your reactions to our statement.

Here are some comments we've received from readers:

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1/09

I was sent an email yesterday about Massachusetts Apology for Slavery from someone I met at the Coming to the Table...workshop...last year. The place where descendants of slaveowners and enslaves get together to discuss the legacy of slavery...

I'm an African American Catholic male doing anti-racism work for the Catholic Peace Movement (www.paxchristiusa.org) and definitely will review and reflect on...this important endeavor that you have started. It's to me being inline with some practical action steps that are relevant to HR 194 (Apology for Slavery & Jim Crow)...

[I am hopeful] this...will reap some benefit for dealing with the legacy of slavery and its aftermath effect on humanity in the United States toward the "Beloved Community" that Dr. King spoke about.

...Your website [is]...something of important at this moment in history.

Peace, R.G.

1/09

I just wanted to say that what you are doing is great. This is needed and a very important document that you have created. I hope it goes far, reaching many consciousnesses. As a white person it meant a lot to me to read it. This apology is long overdue and I'm so glad you have taken the initiative to create this. thank you. thank you. thank you. This is beautiful and moving. Thank you, please add my name.

C.P.

1/09

Thanks for your work... That's an impressive web site. I do keep hoping, however, that we can add Indigenous descendents to those deserving reparations, acknowledging the continuing effects of the genocidal policies - first overtly physical, then cultural - pursued by our national government. The opportunity to run gambling casinos may be profitable for those reservations near metro areas, but it doesn't address that history realistically, and still leaves most "Indians" in poverty, while Federal standards keep denying tribal membership to more and more Indigenous descendents.

L.S., MN

1/09

What you are doing is sacred, holy, fantastic, beautiful, needed, precious, stupendous, phenomenally significant, and I could go on. I am one of the cousins in the documentary "Traces of the Trade" so this speaks to me BIG TIME.

...Thank you many times over.

H.F.

1/09

Thank you for creating this beautiful, thoughtful, provocative document. I am proud to be a signer.

L.F.

1/09

Many thanks for this wonderful document and the opportunity to sign it.

Please do add my name to it. I am forwarding this to several other people including my family and friends of color. I noticed you are interested in feedback, including GA Williams the first African American President of the Western, MA. Veteran's for Peace organization and Karen Hurd who was on the commission in Florence, MA. who created and chose the sculpture who created the Sojourner Truth statue in Florence, MA…

1/09

I am delighted to have the opportunity to sign this petition. Thank you for your commitment to this project to heal America.

J.P.M.

1/09

Although I don't live in Western Massachusetts, if possible, I'd like to sign this statement. I have been on a journey of racial reconciliation for the past three years after I recovered by accident that I descend from Rhode Island and Massachusetts slave holders and one Rhode Island slave trader. Incidently, one of my ancestors lit the torch that burned the Pequot village to the ground in Mystic, CT in the 1637. The few surviving Pequot men and boys were rounded up and sent off the West Indies and sold for enslaved Africans, who were put on the ship Desire, representing the first slaves in New England, arriving back in 1638… the current issue of New England Ancestors (published by the New England Historic Genealogical Society) has an article how I was able to locate and meet a living descendant of a man that had been enslaved by my family...

D.P.

2/09

I was thrilled to hear of your project, read the booklet, see the site, etc. This is very moving stuff. Hard work, and so essential!...

Warm regards, and much appreciation,
J.W.

2/09

This is the most touching message I have ever read on the internet...As a proud black person who...has studied slavery and the impact on blacks and whites, I know the majority of Black and White Americans do want to improve race relations. As we realize there is a great need for an apology for past crimes, we recognize it is even more important to consider reparations for those trying times. Reparations is the best way to facilitate racial healing.

The all mighty question of what fair and reasonable reparations are will arise. and I must admit the answer was revealed to me by a proud white man who I know is my friend. He is dedicated to easing racial tensions just like the people who wrote this message and myself...I find it my duty to offer his remedy as a solution to solve our historical problem of lingering affects of slavery and racism. He explained it as the United States of America Truth and Reconciliation Process. I will forever be grateful to him for this and consider him my soul mate in searching for racial healing between our people.

Please read his solution...at my Black History website at www.rula1.com in the How to Win Reparations section...

In the Spirit of Racial Healing.

B.P.

2/09

Thank you for sending a copy of your work. I was very moved by it and by your efforts over many years...

I continue to hope and believe that our many small and big actions bring healing and progress.

G.L.

3/09

I think you are on the right track, and education is so important. People learn more when there is a specific action to go along with a signature, especially when everyone is working together. Keep up the good work.

Peace to you,

N.S.

4/09

From my barely educated-on-this-issue perspective, the statement is really well-done. Since you are happy to receive feedback, I have...possible notes to consider...

...How can we fully express how slave trading, as it developed into the triangle trade in the Atlantic and elsewhere, was the most resource-intense human purpose for 3 Centuries. Even if you count wars...for 3 full centuries...the exploitation of people and their native resources was the main focus of organized human attention. I don't think this can be overstated. We really need to get what it is we are recovering from. It relates to our future, not only as human beings with one another, but as humans responsible for the continuing devastation of our planet.

Again, thanks for your good work, and for inviting feedback. I think your statement is great and so worthwhile. I am sure I am not alone in having our own thoughts about it; that's the point really; your statement is stimulating...

P.McD.

5/09

Yes I thought that apology were quite interesting, But America will never pay reparations to Black American. We are not Jews, there is no sympathies for Black are Africans. Europeans believe that black were not human being Cure by the god of their bibles "NOAH HAM." IT'S A LIE, But that is what they believe...

J.G.

7/09

I'm so very proud of what you are doing. I am the widow of a black man...I am very much in favor of "cleaning" this horrible blot on the USA and its white citizens. It is way overdue. However, as I continued to read to the end it came to my attention that at the beginning you, rightly so, you included the native people but completely left them out at the end. One wrong is not any less than another wrong. Both of these peoples have been treated and used wretchedly, for which we must reparation. With the help of God it can be done. Thank you for the opportunity to speak out.

With great expectations,

U.M.

8/09

Thank you, Three Sisters! I would like to hear such apologies ... I could at least feel some modicum of respect for the U.S. Government if such an apology was given to African Americans and also to people indigenous to Turtle Island.

I am so glad that you are doing this ...

...By the way, I am Mohawk/Blackfoot/Seneca Indian...the U.S. Government owes US a big apology for the over five centuries of genocide that are still continuing. But an apology is not sufficient...just more words without substance unless they are backed up with real willingness to transform our Turtle Island into a truly civilized place to live on.

But I would like to hear these apologies as at least a beginning.

S.D.C.

8/09

Please add my name to the signature list...I sign with the meditative blessings of my nearest ancestors over the past three generations (beyond that I am still learning how to communicate, I am praying they are willing as well to add to the energy of intent to heal the wrongs done, the actions taken out of fear/ignorance/arrogance)

In deepest gratitude for your work over the past 11 years and the years to come,

A.E.N.

8/09

Dear ones,

Deep appreciation for all your work to create this statement of apology.

With love and gratitude, in solidarity,

Y.N.

8/09

Please add our names to the beautiful, balanced apology you have written to Americans of African descent -- and so educational to Americans of white descent.

J. & S. V.R.

8/09

Congratulations and thank you. you are a rare and committed human being. I am very, very proud of you and the work of your partners. you inspire me. …You are doing such important work. Please know that your long hours of thought, travel, discussions, meetings, writing, editing etc. will change our world.

R.W.

11/09

I so deeply appreciate your efforts to help "whites" primarily of European descent, to take responsibility for the effects of slavery past and present. I wonder if you have asked descendents of former slaves to read this document to learn if it addresses issues that are truly important to themselves.

W.R.

4/10

Before I travel, I look up my destination's demographics and history with regards to slavery. Mostly out of curiousity but also because I feel it's important to get an idea of the possible attitudes I may face as a person of African descent.

I'm having a hard time articulating how electrifying I found the apology on your site. It was all well written, comprehensive, profound and most of all unexpected.

Thank you for showing a hidden consideration and thoughtfullness that the oppressing class usually does not bother exersizing let alone expounding on in a public forum.

A New Yorker by birth, now a Mass convert.

N.A.

7/21/11

Thanks for understanding and speaking out about white privilege and the effects it has on people of color. I appreciate your voice.

B.D.R.

9/24/11

I don't often get to meet people who have subjected themselves to such rigorous introspection. Thank you!

W.S.

We welcome your feedback!