Congressman Cohen Introduces Bill Calling for U.S. Government to Apologize for Slavery and Jim Crow
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Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen of the House, today I am going to introduce a bill to call on the United States Government to apologize for the history in this country of having a slave system and for Jim Crow laws that went on for a hundred additional years.
The State of Virginia is to be commended for its action this past week in making, in essence, an apology saying they regretted a system of slavery in this country.
For 246 years, our Constitution and our laws allowed a system that made people slaves, that divided people from their families and treated them as property. And for 100 years thereafter, a system of laws in many States throughout the country had Jim Crow laws that deprived people of the opportunity for equal access to education, health care, public facilities, and other types of programs. These ended by law in the sixties somewhat through the efforts of Thurgood Marshall and other attorneys in Brown v. Board of Education, but the effects are lingering.
This country needs to apologize for a brutal, inhumane system of slavery and Jim Crow laws. President Bush has made remarks similar to this in Senegal; President Clinton also in the State of Virginia most recently.
I hope we will have all our colleagues sign on and pass this unanimously, as the State of Virginia did, and make a proper apology for a harmful and unfortunate part of our history.