Michigan Needs to Recall Its Heritage as Birthplace of Universal Freedom

Ceremony Planned July 7 to Mark Slavery Apologies by U.S. House, Senate

June 20, 2009
By: Dave Rogers

On July 7 a long-delayed ceremony will be held in the rotunda of the United States Capitol.

Officials of the government will gather to bring attention to the fact that both houses of Congress have, at long last, adopted resolutions apologizing for slavery.

Looming nearby in the Hall of Columns is a statue of Michigan Senator Zachariah Chandler, who no doubt will be looking on approvingly from another firmament.

Chandler, Republican abolitionist senator from Michigan, played a vital part in Congressional support for the Civil War.

New Hampshire-born Sen. Chandler had been mayor of Detroit in 1851, was one of the founders of the Republican Party in Jackson, Michigan, in 1854. In 1857 Chandler was elected to the Senate and he was re-elected in 1863 during the Civil War.

Had Chandler still been living he might address the august group in the rotunda and remind them that the political movement to end slavery started in Michigan with the founding of the G.O.P.

He also might recall that the movement for universal freedom was initiated politically by James G. Birney, Bay City pioneer and two time abolitionist candidate for President in 1840 and 1844. Birney also ran twice for governor of Michigan as an abolitionist and helped spread the movement that led to the Republican Party.

The Senate adopted a resolution Thursday offering a formal apology for slavery and the era of "separate but equal" Jim Crow laws that followed.

"It's long past due. A national apology by the representative body of the people is a necessary collective response to a past collective injustice," Iowa's Sen. Tom Harkin said. "So it is both appropriate and imperative that Congress fulfill its moral obligation and officially apologize for slavery and Jim Crow laws."

Sen. Harkin called the vote "a collective response to a collective injustice." He had aimed the vote to coincide with the June 19th anniversary of the end of slavery in Texas, called "Juneteenth" by civil rights advocates.

Juneteenth celebrations recall the reading of a proclamation by Gen. Gordon Granger in Galveston, Texas, June 19, 1865. The day has come to be known worldwide as African American Emancipation Day.

The Senate action echoes across history: it has been more than 40 years after the Civil Rights Act was passed, 146 years after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and in the same year Barack Obama was sworn in as the first African-American president.

A disclaimer is attached to the resolution stating that the measure does not authorize or support reparations for the descendants of African slaves brought to the United States before the Civil War.

Although the resolution was approved by voice vote and was proclaimed "unanimous" by the news media, the fact that no roll call vote was recorded is perhaps fortunate. The world will never know which senators might have parsed their decision with some minute complaint and voted "no."

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., has for years pushed proposals for the federal government to consider some form of reparations. Inclusion of that issue might have clouded the positive vote with an insoluble argument.

But Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala., who is trying to become the first black governor of his Deep South state, said he was glad about the Senate action, and added that the Congress is overdue in apologizing for slavery.

The Alabama Legislature apologized for slavery two years ago, following similar actions by legislatures in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina.

Rep. Davis noted the Alabama Legislature was controlled by Republicans and the governor is a Republican.

Professor Carol M. Swain of Vanderbilt University urged the Republican Party to endorse the action by the national legislative bodies even though party members individually supported the resolution.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, recalled Dr. Martin Luther King's vision of a colorblind society and said the resolutions were "steps to building a more perfect union."

Rep. Steve Cohen D-Tenn., a white Democrat representing a black majority district, sponsored a slavery apology resolution adopted by the House last year.

Rep. Cohen said: "The House may do a resolution similar to the Senate or just rest on the one we passed last year," said Cohen.

Congress rarely offers a formal apology, noted the Washington Post. In the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 (PL 100-383), Congress apologized to the Japanese who were forced to live in internment camps during World War II. During a debate on an Indian health bill last year, the Senate adopted an amendment apologizing for the U.S. legacy of brutality against Native Americans. And in 2005, the Senate adopted a resolution apologizing for its history of filibustering legislation designed to combat lynching of African Americans during the 19th and 20th centuries.