ON JUNE 11, the night before Democratic representative Tony Hall introduced his resolution apologizing for slavery, he called Jesse Jackson. During their 15-minute conversation, Jackson expressed support for Hall’s effort, telling him, “I don’t have any problem” with the proposed apology. But when Jackson appeared on Meet the Press a few days later, he had changed his tune. Hall’s proposal was mere “emotional symbolism,” said Jackson. “It’s just not a good thing. It has no substantive value to it.”
Jackson’s flip-flop underscores the tricky politics of the proposed apology. For even though the resolution was originally sponsored by six liberal Democrats and six conservative Republicans, it’s been the target of bipartisan sniping. Jackson’s sentiments have been reiterated on the left by spokesmen like black historian Roger Wilkins and on the right by the likes of House speaker Newt Gingrich, Senate majority leader Trent Lott, and presidential aspirant Lamar Alexander.
The Clinton administration, meanwhile, has been left flummoxed by the proposal. A week before Hall introduced the apology, he called the White House, having just learned of the president’s plan to deliver a speech about race relations in San Diego on June 14. But in a brief conversation, deputy chief of staff Sylvia Mathews refused to say whether the White House would support Hall’s effort. He asked for a talk with Clinton, but never got one.
White House aides were waging an aggressive PR campaign to launch Clinton’s race-relations initiative and resented the timing of Hall’s announcement, two days before the San Diego speech. Fears the announcement would dilute the impact of Clinton’s speech were borne out when Gingrich made headlines on June 13 by blasting the apology idea as “backward-oriented” and “an avoidance of problem-solving that strikes me as a dead end.” The president was asked about the apology during one of his many interviews that weekend, but refused to endorse it. “An apology, under the right circumstances, those things can be quite important,” Clinton told CNN. But before making a decision, he said he needed “more time to think about it.”
Hall is an unlikely candidate to be leading the apology campaign. For one thing, he’s white, as are all the other original cosponsors, and he has no discernible history on racial issues (though his Dayton, Ohio, district is 18 percent black). His real passion during his 18-year House tenure has been hunger issues. Since traveling to impoverished North Korea in April, he’s lobbied — unsuccessfully so far — for U.S. humanitarian aid to that country. And in 1993, he staged a 22-day hunger strike after the House Democratic leadership abolished the Select Committee on Hunger.
Hall is no granola-eating liberal, though. He’s a pro-life evangelical who leads Wednesday-morning prayer sessions at Washington’s Martin Luther King Library. The idea for an apology came to him in January 1996 while he was watching C-SPAN broadcast a New York prayer meeting. He watched as Reggie White, an ordained preacher and a defensive tackle for the Green Bay Packers, debated B. J. Weber, a New York minister, about what constituted a proper governmental response once slavery had been abolished.
The exchange sparked Hall’s interest, and he spent the next 18 months researching an apology. He suggested the idea to scores of people and was pleasantly surprised to find it supported by conservatives such as Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition and liberals such as Barbara Skinner, a former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus. Hall then had the Library of Congress investigate slavery’s aftermath and discovered the only apology had come from tribal chiefs in Ghana, who a few years ago acknowledged their ancestors’ complicity in the slave trade.
Since Hall introduced the apology resolution on June 12, it’s picked up five additional cosponsors and, coupled with Clinton’s San Diego speech, has made race relations the subject of the day. On June 18, USA Today wrote up the apology on its front page and Nightline had Hall debate Roger Wilkins. And on June 20, two black columnists took opposing positions — Donna Britt endorsed the apology, while Clarence Page came out against it.
Hall acknowledges the value of his proposal is limited, saying, “It’s not going to put anyone to work or create any day-care centers.” But he’s pressing on because he believes “reconciliation should begin by saying, ‘I’m sorry.'” Perhaps it should, though some might very well think Lincoln said that in 1865, and indeed that the nation said it in the Civil War. In any case, Hall’s idea is not without risks for race relations today. An ABC News poll last week found it sharply divided blacks and whites. Wouldn’t a congressional debate on slavery exacerbate rather than ease racial tensions?
Matthew Rees is a staff writer for THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Resolved by the House of Representatives that the Congress apologizes to African-Americans whose ancestors suffered as slaves under the Constitution and laws of the United States until 1865.
