Delaware Apologizes for Slavery

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Delaware Apologizes for Slavery

February 18th, 2016

Awake Goy

Delaware, the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, is the ninth sate to apologize for slavery.

Delaware, the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, is the ninth state to apologize for slavery.

In December, 1865, The 13^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery in the U.S. In December, 2015 – 150 years after the ratification of that 13^th Amendment – Delaware Governor Jack Markell announced a resolution to apologize for the state’s role in perpetuating slavery. The state legislature passed the resolution in January, 2016, and it was signed by the Governor in February, 2016.

The apology section of the resolution reads: “The General Assembly apologizes, on behalf of the people of Delaware, for the State’s role in slavery and the wrongs committed against African-Americans and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow.” It also implores Delawareans to ”remember and teach their children about the history of slavery and Jim Crow laws to ensure that these tragedies will neither be forgotten nor repeated.”

Slavery was practiced in Delaware for 226 years. The resolution acknowledges that Delaware enslaved both Native Americans and Africans in the mid-1600s but by the end of the 1700s the entire slave population was of African descent. Although Delaware was a slave-holding state, it did not secede from the union and had soldiers fighting with the Union during the Civil War.

Rep. Stephanie Bolden, one of the sponsors of the resolution, told The Wilmington News Journal, “We were one of the last states to end slavery, but we don’t have to be one of the last to recognize the terrible damage it did”.

Delaware was one of the last three states to end slavery – Kentucky and Mississippi were the last two – and is the ninth state to issue a formal apology for slavery. Virginia was the first state to do so in 2007, and was followed by Maryland, North Carolina, and Alabama, also in 2007; New Jersey and Florida also formally apologized in 2008, and Tennessee and Connecticut followed in 2009.

Sen. Margaret Henry, another sponsor of the resolution, said, “Who we can be tomorrow is predicated upon our ability for each other today. An apology for slavery is just that: an act of empathy that won’t undo the past, but will once and for all acknowledge the experience of so many Delawareans who still feel its harsh effects.”

While signing the resolution, Governor Markell said, “A candid acknowledgement and acceptance of our past is the only way to understand our present and to take full responsibility for our future.”