Happy Juneteenth -- But Senate Concurrent Resolution Apologizing for Slavery Is Flawed

The United States Senate, my former employer during the mid-1970s, apologized for slavery yesterday. See below.

That's a good idea.

But the apology said it was not intended to support reparations. We can do better.

The amendment is not unlike the amendment that City of St. Augustine City Commissioners inflicted upon Commissioner Errol Jones' resolution apologizing for the mistreatment of African-Americans here in 1964 during Civil Rights demonstrations.

The statute of limitations has presumably run on both counts. Inclusion of such language is contrary to the dignity of a free people.

As President Clinton said in his Second Inaugural Address, "Nothing great was ever accomplished by being small."

Let's apologize for slavery to African-Americans without sounding small.

The House of Representatives passed a similar resolution last year, without such language.

I hope the House-Senate conference committee deletes the offending language.

Also, perhaps one day we'll also apologize for indentured servitude (also outlawed by the Thirteenth Amendment), which affected non-African-Americans, like the Mincorans who settled in St. Augustine in 1777, leaving the British colony of New Smyrna Beach, "voting with their feet" like other refugees throughout world history.