ATLANTA — More than 140 years after slavery was abolished, Congress and a growing number of elected officials in states and cities are wrestling with whether to formally apologize.
The movement began in the former Confederate capital, Richmond, Va., with state legislators last month unanimously passing a resolution expressing "profound regret" over Virginia's role in slavery and the Jim Crow era.
Now, lawmakers in Georgia, Maryland, Delaware, New York, Missouri, Massachusetts and Vermont are considering similar measures that would express regret, apologize or create commemorative days.
The wave of contrition has spread to cities too. In Macon, Ga., the mayor issued an executive order last month apologizing for the city's role in slavery. And in the former slave port of Annapolis, Md., the City Council has proposed an apology for "perpetual pain, distrust and bitterness" caused to African Americans.
On the federal level, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) has introduced a House resolution for a national apology.
"America has never apologized for the enslavement of millions of Africans," said Tyrone Brooks, a Democratic Georgia state representative, noting that Congress had apologized to Japanese Americans interned during World War II and to native Hawaiians for the 1893 U.S. coup. "An apology is just long overdue."
There is wide agreement that such apologies would be largely symbolic political gestures, but there appears to be little consensus on what exactly they would mean.
Some believe official legislative remorse could be cathartic to the nation, showing that it is mature enough to confront its past. But others accuse lawmakers of picking an easy battle: Apologizing for blatant historical wrongs such as slavery, they say, only detracts from addressing present-day injustices.
"The value of such an apology is up for debate," said history professor James Cobb of the University of Georgia. "Certainly, for many people, it's not much of an emotional concession to apologize for something you don't really feel responsible for."
In Virginia, critics note, one of the legislators who voted for the apology was Frank Hargrove, a Republican who incensed African American leaders a month earlier by saying black citizens should "get over" slavery.
A deep divide
Nowhere has the debate been more fractious than Georgia, where slaves made up more than 40% of the state's population in 1830. The state ranks second only to Mississippi in the number of lynchings recorded during the Jim Crow era.
