Apologizing for Slavery

Assignment: Please read this article and then the editorial that was written in response to it.

Respond to the editorial by answering this question: Which of the reparations do you think might be most meaningful to descendents of slaves? Do you have any other ideas for the Governor of Florida?


LEGISLATURE
Florida offers formal slavery apology
Recounting the 'shameful' ills of Florida's slave past, the state Legislature apologized for slavery, but stopped short of calling for reparations.
Posted on Thu, Mar. 27, 2008

BY MARC CAPUTO



PHIL COAL/AP
Sen. Tony Hill of Jacksonville, rear, and Senate President Ken Pruitt embrace Wednesday in Tallahassee.
TALLAHASSEE -- The Legislature issued an apology Wednesday for the state's ''shameful'' history in enslaving black people and passing laws that called for savage lashings and even the nailing of their ears to posts for crimes like burglary.
''The Legislature expresses its profound regret for Florida's role in sanctioning and perpetuating involuntary servitude upon generations of African slaves,'' said the resolution, sponsored by black lawmakers.
Democratic Sens. Larcenia Bullard of Miami and Arthenia Joyner of Tampa sobbed during the reading of the resolution and the recounting of the slave codes passed by the Territorial Council in 1822 and struck down in 1868 -- three years after the Civil War ended.
''I knew the facts, but to hear it put in those terms, I just fell apart,'' Joyner said. Said Bullard: ``I felt a pain that wouldn't go away.''
After the measure passed on a voice vote without opposition in the Senate, where President Ken Pruitt wanted no discussion or recorded vote, the House did the same. House Speaker Marco Rubio thanked both Pruitt and the black caucus for bringing up the resolution.
The measure stops short of calling for reparations for descendants of slaves, though Republican Gov. Charlie Crist said after the vote that he was open to the idea ``if we can determine descendancy, certainly.''
Crist, who attended the floor vote, said, ``Florida is sorry for the past transgressions and unfair treatment and in some cases just gross inequity as it exists toward members of the African-American community.''
Are there still inequities today, considering that about half the state's prison population of 96,000 is black, while only about 16 percent of the state's total population is black?
''That's hard to determine. You have to analyze these on a case-by-case basis,'' Crist said. ``Whether or not there have been injustices in a case based upon race must be determined by the facts of that case.''
Rep. Joseph Gibbons, a Pembroke Park Democrat, said the incarceration rate ``is a vestige of slavery . . . When you don't have opportunities, you turn to other things . . . you get frustrated and don't want to participate in the system.''
He said fellow black lawmakers ''aren't going to fall into that trap'' about reparations because the resolution wasn't ``about people wanting to get paid.''
Legislators in Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia have recently issued formal apologies for slavery, and New Jersey became the first northern state to apologize in January, according to The Associated Press.
The curator of Florida's historic Capitol, former state house clerk John Phelps, read legislators a history of the slave codes in Florida and listed statistics showing the importance and brutality of the slavery in the state.
Phelps said that, according to an 1855 Senate journal, the state had nearly 111,000 residents, 44 percent black. And of Florida's $49 million in property value at the time, 55 percent was in slaves.
Phelps singled out a letter written by Gov. Richard Keith Call to a Northerner in the hopes of explaining the Southern mindset over slavery to avert the Civil War.
Of blacks, Call wrote: ``Here was an animal, in the form of a man, possessing the greatest physical power and the greatest capacity for labor and endurance. . . . A wild barbarian, to be tamed and civilized by the discipline of slavery.''
Call was a personal aide to future President Andrew Jackson when the general launched the Seminole Wars and made Florida a territory, in part to ensure that slaves escaping from Georgia had no safe haven to the south.
Phelps ticked off the various lashings -- 39 in some cases and a lethal 100 in others -- that slaves would suffer for being accused of robbery, burglary or for simply walking around with a pass from his or her white master. Those convicted of rebellion were executed. Seven slaves together without a white person couldn't travel public roads. Slaves who gave false testimony could have their ears nailed to posts and were whipped publicly.
Jacksonville Sen. Jim King, a Republican and past Senate president, said he didn't know about the specific horrorsand supported the resolution. But he acknowledged that some lawmakers might be uncomfortable with the resolution because it could lead other groups to push for reparations.
''What about the American Indians? They were killed and shoved into a corner of places like Oklahoma,'' King said. ``What about the treatment of Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II?''
For many, the resolution is ''too little, too late. But it's better than not recognizing at all that black slaves built Florida,'' said Marvin Dunn, retired psychology professor and researcher of black history in Florida.
Dunn said the state ''wouldn't dare'' approve reparations that would put dollars into black residents' bank accounts. Such a move would be unwieldy and unrealistic, he said.
Adora Obi Nweze, president of the Florida NAACP, said she embraced the resolution as a step that needed to be taken.
''Those who suffered are not here to hear the words,'' she said. But ``the descendants of those who were enslaved deserve to hear the words uttered that it did exist.''
Miami Herald staff writer Andrea Robinson contributed to this report.

Posted on Sun, Apr. 06, 2008
Make the apology meaningful
By MARVIN DUNN
At last, Florida apologized for the enslavement of African Americans within its borders. My grandmother's father was a slave in Gadsden County; so, why don't I feel better?
Maybe it's because the apology is a meaningless act that only a dolt or outright racist would oppose. It cost the state nothing and of course, there was not a word about the thorny question of reparations. As one of the African Americans to whom the apology was aimed, it was not enough. Frankly, I would love to get a reparations check but how is the state to determine who gets paid and who does not? The complexity of the issue is sufficient grounds for the state to recoil at the very thought of reparations. Beyond the messiness of it, any white legislator who voted for reparations would be road kill back at home. Florida whites today are unwilling to pay for the sins of their fathers, especially since they may not even have been the sins of their fathers, given that so many whites have migrated to Florida from some place else.
In light of these obstacles, not to mention the cost of reparations, what Florida and other states of the Old South should be considering is how to pay reparations to African Americans as a whole, rather than to individuals. Gov. Charlie Crist says he is open to reasonable ideas regarding reparations. Here are some suggestions:
• First, help us to find out about our slave ancestry in Florida. Since the state and the various counties have detailed records of who was owned by whom those records should be digitized and made available to anyone who wishes to research his or her ancestral history in Florida during the time of slavery. These records exist in great detail in tax records, wills, estate records, probate court records, etc. In order to accomplish this, the state should fund a permanent position for an archivist at Florida A&M University whose sole duty would be to digitize and make those records available to the public.
• Second, Florida should erect a monument in Tallahassee commemorating and honoring enslaved African Americans who contributed, albeit under the whip, mightily to the early growth of the state. Most people in the state may prefer to bury slavery rather than memorialize it but monuments are erected to many horrible things including the Holocaust, wars and epidemics. Why not to slavery?
• Third, Florida should ensure that this uncomfortable past of its history is not lost nor the contributions of those who suffered under it forgotten. The state should sponsor the making of a broadcast-quality documentary film such as those done by noted documentary filmmaker Ken Burns on the history of slavery in the state. The film in DVD form should be placed in every public school in Florida.
• Finally, education is the great equalizer. Given that it was illegal in Florida to teach slaves to read, 1,000 fully-paid college scholarships to Florida colleges and universities should be made available each year to African-American students who can establish that their ancestry was enslaved in Florida. Those students would be required to meet the same admissions criteria as other applicants.
We African Americans have some emotional work to do, too. Bury the anger. Don't hold whites who had nothing to do with slavery responsible for happened to our ancestors. I know the counter argument, ''They may not have owned slaves but they are the direct beneficiaries of those who did.'' True, but to quote Vice-President Dick Cheney: ''So?'' Meaning, what are they to do about that? Change color? The open wound on Florida's soul that was slavery can never be excised by any means other than exposure to the clear light of day. The apology provides a whiff of fresh air but like most deep infections, true healing requires a continuous breeze.
Marvin Dunn is the former chair of the psychology department at Florida International University.
© 2008 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.

Writing Assignment Revisions

Today we will revise our writing assignments. In order to get an "A" on each assignment (5 minimum, 10 maximum for 1 - 2 test grades), please follow the directions and complete all parts of each assignment. Also, edit your own work or work with a friend/teacher/tutor to do so. Do not submit work that has misspellings, etc!

In addition, make sure that your writing expresses a main idea or lesson learned.
For example, Why is this book important?

If you did the Reader's Sketchbook, check the instructions and make sure that you have included the following:

• Chapter title or number
• Summary of the chapter
• Drawing of events related to the chapter; specific details to show that you read the chapter closely
• Discussion of what the chapter means, what matters most, and why you think that; provide specific examples or details to support your ideas
• A quotation and your explanation of that quote's meaning and/or its connection to your world

All work is due Friday, April 11th. No exceptions.