Saturday, President Joe Biden commemorated Slavery Remembrance Day. It was one of many moments when we’re glad Donald Trump isn’t president.
Biden released this nice statement, which you should read in full below:
More than 400 years ago, twenty enslaved Africans were forcibly brought to the shores of what would become the United States. Millions more were stolen and sold in the centuries that followed, part of a system of slavery that is America’s original sin.
Great nations don’t hide from their history. They acknowledge their past, both the triumphs and the tragedies. Today is a day to reflect on the terrible toll of slavery, and on our nation’s profound ability to heal and emerge stronger. Despite the horrors they faced, these men and women and their descendants have made countless contributions to the building of this nation and the continuous effort to realize the American ideal. I was honored last year to declare Juneteenth a national holiday, another moment to reflect and rededicate ourselves to becoming a more perfect union . And it’s why my Administration will continue the hard, ongoing work to bring true equity and racial justice to our country
Democratic Rep. Al Green from Texas and Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts have introduced a joint resolution to officially designate August 20 as Slavery Remembrance Day. The bill passed in the House but will likely languish in the Senate.
Green said the date was chosen because it’s when an English privateer ship, the White Lion (yes, really), arrived at Point Comfort near Norfolk, Virginia. Governor George Yeardley and his head of trade, Cape Merchant Abraham Piersey, exchanged “victuals” ( i.e. food) for “20 and odd Negroes” ( i.e. human beings) aboard the ship. As historian Henry Louis Gates has noted, Black people had previously visited what would become the United States. Gregg Carr from Howard University argues that this date is more the beginning of Africans’ Anglo-centric history in America.
In 2019, the New York Times released The 1619 Project, and our supposedly great nation has spent the past three years hiding anew from its history. Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones became a target of abuse and right-wing smears for daring to suggest that slavery played a key role in the nation’s founding.
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A year later, Donald Trump created The 1776 Commission, a tuneless Pat Boone cover of The 1619 Project intended to “promote patriotic education.” Republican-controlled legislatures across the nation passed knee-jerk lawsbanning schools from teaching The 1619 Project, which historically illiterate right-wingers call "a racially divisive and revisionist account.”
Back in 2019, Virginia’s governor was Democrat Ralph Northam, who was still reeling from his Blackface Klansman yearbook photo controversy. Northam, however, signed an executive order establishing the Commission on African American History Education. He pledged to examine Black history in Virginia schools.
Unfortunately, in 2021, Northam’s Republican successor Glenn Youngkin won the governor’s election with a blatant race-baiting campaign that seized on the right-wing-generated critical race theory panic. Teachers were accused of training Black kids to hate whitey and white kids to hate their parents. Books about slavery and racism were put on the (not always metaphorical) bonfire.
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As governor, Youngkin immediately banned CRT in public K-12 schools, even though it isn't actually taught there. Of course, for the right, "CRT" is just scary code for any actual reckoning with America’s racist history. That’s what Republicans consider "inherently divisive.”
The past three years have unfortunately demonstrated that many (white) Americans don’t want to remember or even acknowledge the truth about slavery, but Black history can’t remain hidden or suppressed forever.
[ The Hill ]
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