[cure-news] Why African descendants should have free access to slavery records

[Ida Hakim]

Why African descendants should have free access to slavery records
30/04/2007
Deborah Gabriel
www.blackbritain.co.uk
 
Last week it was announced that a genealogy company plans to put 
colonial records relating to the chattel enslavement of some three 
million Africans online. Eventually the archive will hold records for 
the Caribbean, South Africa and Sri Lanka.

In order to access records one has to take out a monthly subscription or 
use the pay-per-view facility, in much the same way that digital 
satellite services are offered. The company concerned is obviously 
looking to cash-in on the increased interest during the Bicentenary 
Year. But I feel strongly, that as the descendant of enslaved Africans 
whose names may appear in those records, I should not have to subscribe 
to such a service.

But my contention is not with the genealogy company, but with the 
British government. This merely highlights the obligation that it still 
has to repair some of the damage caused by its forbears. African 
descendants in the UK - and elsewhere in the Diaspora, have been robbed 
of our history, robbed of our heritage and robbed of our ancestral ties 
as a consequence of European chattel enslavement.

As a recent survey revealed, the overwhelming majority of African and 
African Caribbean people questioned believe that the British government 
should make reparations for its role in the Maangamizi (African 
Holocaust). As the word Maangamizi denotes - the mass destruction of 
African humanity was intentional and has had devastating consequences on 
the social, cultural, psychological, economic and political development 
of Africa and its people.

It is quite apparent that having thrown a few crumbs in the form of 
funding for so-called projects to commemorate the Bicentenary, that 
having mumbled a few insincere words of 'regret' about slavery, that 
having held a sham service to commemorate a year that is of little 
significance to people of African descent, that Blair and his government 
are swiftly trying to move the agenda on, to sweep it all under the 
carpet and get back to business as usual.

It won't work. The complete and utter lack of respect that has been 
shown to people of African descent thus far, is itself a motivation to 
pursue the justice that our ancestors fought for with their bare hands 
on the plantations and on the continent. I want to know who my ancestors 
were who were robbed of their freedom and humanity - but I am not paying 
for the privilege; neither should any other African descendant be 
expected to.

Records should be brought out of their hiding places and made public, 
interrogated and inspected so that the full history - not the doctored, 
carefully worded and sanitised version - can finally be known. The issue 
of reparations will never go away- the voices will only multiply and 
become louder until they are deafening. So the sooner the British 
government meets its obligations the sooner it will get peace. It can 
start by helping us to trace our ancestors - free of charge.
>From hakimida at reparationsthecure.org  Tue May  8 19:21:39 2007
From: hakimida at reparationsthecure.org (Ida Hakim)
Date: Tue May  8 19:15:27 2007
Subject: [cure-news] US blacks pay higher interest rates on car loans
Message-ID: <46412223.10006 at reparationsthecure.org>

US blacks pay higher interest rates on car loans

May 8, 2007

African-Americans face higher interest rates for car loans than other US 
borrowers, according to a consumer association.

Blacks paid a median rate of seven percent for loans on new cars 
compared to a typical rate of five percent for all American consumers in 
2004, the Consumer Federation of America said on Monday based on an 
analysis of a federal survey.

And for used car loans, African-Americans paid 9.5 percent, compared to 
a rate of 7.5 percent for Americans in general, the association said in 
a statement.

"It's hard to believe that any differences in credit-worthiness explain 
all of these rate gaps," said Stephen Brobeck, executive director of the 
association.

The analysis also showed that a higher percentage of African-Americans 
were likely to pay car loan rates of at least 15 percent. In 2004, six 
percent of blacks paid the 15 percent rate compared to only two percent 
for all US consumers.

"A difference in credit risk can explain a part of it, but we believe 
that African-Americans get these rates just because they are 
African-American," Brobeck told AFP.

The percentage of black households with at least one auto loan is 32 
percent, the same as the overall percent for all US households.

The study, using 2004 data from the Federal Reserve Bank, was based on a 
random sample of some 3,000 American households, the Consumer Federation 
said.

RawStory.com/news
>From hakimida at reparationsthecure.org  Sat May 12 06:56:57 2007
From: hakimida at reparationsthecure.org (Ida Hakim)
Date: Sat May 12 06:49:16 2007
Subject: [cure-news] The wider historical context of the abolition of the
 transatlantic slave trade
Message-ID: <4645B999.3040105 at reparationsthecure.org>

The wider historical context of the abolition of the
transatlantic slave trade
Hakim Adi (2007-05-02)

Trade in African slaves underpinned the British
economy in the 18th century: the rich and powerful,
the monarchy and the Church. So why was an enterprise
that was so economically important ended so abruptly
in the first decade of the 19th century? Hakim Adi
explains...


In March 2007 large-scale commemorative events were
organised to mark the bi-centenary of the
parliamentary act to abolish the trans-Atlantic slave
trade.

This unprecedented commemoration of a historical
event, in which the British government itself is
playing a leading role, was difficult to avoid.

There has been a frenzy in the British media. We have
seen government publications (allegedly designed to
enlighten the public); meetings and exhibitions; a
debate in parliament; an apology from London?s mayor;
the issuing of postage stamps; a service in
Westminster Abbey; and release of the film Amazing
Grace which promotes the well-established myth that
abolition was largely due to the efforts of the
Hull-based MP William Wilberforce.

It would be hoped that owing to the vast amount of
information that is being disseminated, everyone would
be now disabused of such erroneous views; and would be
able to place both the so-called abolition and the
centuries of trafficking of human flesh from Africa in
historical perspective. The commemorative events
certainly provide the opportunity for broad and in
depth discussion of Britain?s history and the crimes
against humanity committed over many centuries.

But are we any clearer about what went on 1807? More
importantly, do we know why parliament decided to make
illegal an enterprise which had underpinned Britain?s
economy throughout the 18th century, when Britain was
the world?s leading slave trading power?

After all, Britain was involved in the trafficking of
kidnapped and enslaved Africans from the mid-16th
century, when this enterprise was pioneered by John
Hawkins and Elizabeth Tudor, until the early 1930s,
when legislation was still being passed outlawing
slavery in Britain?s African colonies.

In the 18th century Britain, as the world?s leading
slave trading power, transported about half of all
enslaved Africans not only to its own colonies but
also those of other major powers such as France and
Spain. British ships transported at least 3,500,000
Africans across the Atlantic.

In total, this entire ?trade? led to the forced
removal of some 15,000,000 Africans, transported to
the colonies of the European powers and the Americas.
Many millions more were killed in the process of
enslavement and transportation. Historians now
estimate that Africa?s population actually declined
over a period of four centuries, or remained stagnant
until the early 20th century.

In 1713 the British government was militarily
victorious against its rivals in Europe. By the Treaty
of Utrecht (the same treaty by which Britain lays
claim to Gibraltar) , it gained the lucrative contract
to supply Spain?s American colonies with enslaved
Africans.

The government promptly sold the contract for ?7.3m to
the South Sea company, whose first governor happened
to also be the chancellor of the exchequer.

Indeed the trafficking of Africans was the business of
the rich and powerful from the outset. The monarchy
was a zealous supporter and beneficiary, as was the
Church of England. The slave trade was Britain?s trade
in the 18th century. The British Prime Minister
William Pitt declared that 80 per cent of all British
foreign trade was associated with it. It contributed
to the development of banking and insurance,
shipbuilding and several manufacturing industries.
Most of the inhabitants of Manchester were engaged in
producing goods to be exchanged for enslaved Africans.
Their trafficking led to the development of major
ports of London, Bristol and Liverpool. Today it is
difficult to find any major stately home, or cultural
or financial institution which is not connected with
the profits generated by this trade and the luxury
items associated with it such as sugar, tobacco and
coffee.

It might be wondered therefore why an enterprise that
was so economically important to the rich and powerful
in Britain in the 18th century should have been so
abruptly ended in the first decade of the 19th
century.

The answer requires the abolition of various myths and
disinformation peddled since that time. One such myth
is that abolition was largely the work of one man ?
William Wilberforce; and that it was carried out
largely for humanitarian reasons. And there is another
myth: that abolition was the work of an enlightened
parliament, finally acknowledging the barbarism and
inhumanity of the kidnapping, enslavement and
trafficking of other human beings.

However, on the contrary, it is a matter of historical
fact that the struggle to end the enslavement and
trafficking of Africans was first initiated and
pursued primarily by Africans themselves.

Historians now speak of centuries' long wars of
resistance in the Caribbean; of the maroons; of day to
day large and small-scale liberation struggles.

But such resistance also took place throughout the
American continent, wherever enslaved Africans were to
be found. There were also significant acts of
resistance within Africa itself, and on many ships
engaged in the human trafficking, most famously on the
Amistad.

Such acts of resistance also took place in Britain,
where enslaved Africans who liberated themselves were
subjects of court cases contesting the legality of
slavery throughout the 18th century.

It was as a result of this self-liberation of Africans
that drew some leading abolitionists, such as
Granville Sharp, into the abolitionist movement in the
late 18th century. While the resistance acts of
Africans culminated in the famous legal judgement of
1772 which declared that it was illegal for
self-liberated Africans to be re-enslaved in Britain
and taken out of the country against their will.
Africans in Britain had organised their own
liberation. But they were assisted by the ordinary
people of London and other towns and cities.

African resistance to enslavement and kidnapping
contributed to growing public support and opposition
to slave trafficking in Britain and elsewhere.

In Britain, a popular movement opposing the trade
began in the 1780s. It soon became a broad mass
movement of enormous proportions, possibly the
biggest. It was certainly one of the first mass
political movements in Britain?s history, although it
is conveniently ignored in most historical accounts.

Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people
eventually took part in this movement which involved
the petitioning of parliament and the boycotting of
slave-produced sugar. This abolitionist movement
coincided with a more general concern with and
struggle for the ?Rights of Man?. Its more advanced
elements consciously promoted the view that the rights
of Africans were indeed part of that struggle.
Therefore what was required was a struggle for and
defence of the rights of all.

Africans themselves played a leading role in this
movement as lecturers, propagandists and activists.
The most notable was Olaudah Equiano, formerly
enslaved, whose autobiography became a bestseller. But
we should not forget the writing of others, for
example Phyllis Wheatley, Ottobah Cugoano and James
Gronniosaw.

Africans in London, including Equiano and Cugoano,
formed their own organisation, the 'Sons of Africa',
which campaigned for abolition. It worked with both
the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and
the wider mass abolitionist campaign.

But African resistance in the Caribbean and elsewhere
was an even more important factor in the abolitionist
struggle, since it had the tendency to make slavery
both less profitable and more dangerous for the slave
owners.

Uprisings by enslaved Africans threatened not just the
profits of individual owners but the control of entire
colonies and the fate of Europe?s economies.

The most important of these liberation struggles, the
revolution in St Domingue, the largest and most
prosperous French colony in the Caribbean, broke out
in 1791 not long after the revolution in France.
Revolutionary St Domingue therefore became the first
country to effectively abolish the enslavement of
Africans.

In Britain, the popular mass abolitionist movement
coincided with wider demands for political change, at
a time when the vast majority were denied the vote. It
also coincided with crucial economic changes; the
industrial revolution; the emergence of new social
forces with the workers on one side and industrial
capitalists on the other, attempting to consolidate
their economic and political domination of the
country. The industrialists were sometimes at odds
with the economic and political power exercised by
those who owed their position to the slave-based
economies of the Caribbean.

Mass petitioning of parliament, the only means open to
the disenfranchised, against the trade was often
strong in manufacturing towns such as Manchester,
where perhaps a third of the entire population signed.
This was viewed with alarm by the ruling class.

The Prime Minister of the time, William Pitt,
recognised that popular sentiment might be used to
persuade parliament to abolish Britain?s exports of
enslaved Africans to its main economic rival, France.
It was Pitt who first encouraged Wilberforce to bring
an abolition bill before parliament. Wilberforce?s
bill was first introduced in 1791. It was defeated, as
were several similar bills during the next 15 years.

But during this period several significant changes
took place. First, the French Revolution of 1789.
Britain?s declaration of war against revolutionary
France in 1793 allowed the suppression of the
political activity of the people at home, effectively
limiting the popular abolitionist campaign and driving
it underground.

The revolutionaries in St Domingue successfully
defended their revolution against the French army then
against invasions by both Spain and Britain. It is
worth remembering that this war was pursued by Pitt
and supported by Wilberforce, who clearly did not
believe that Africans should liberate themselves.

In 1804 St Domingue declared its independence and was
renamed Haiti. The revolution in Haiti contributed to,
and occurred alongside, other major insurrections
across the Caribbean, in Jamaica, Grenada, St Vincent
and elsewhere, which severely threatened the entire
colonial system.

Even those Africans forcibly recruited into Britain?s
West India regiment in Dominica mutinied. Toussaint
L?Ouverture and some of the other leaders of the
Haitian revolution became nationally known figures in
Britain. Abolition came to be viewed by some both as a
means to press home a naval and economic advantage
over France and its allies, and a means to limit the
numbers of Africans imported into British colonies;
thereby preventing the likelihood of further
revolutions and maintain the slave system.

It was with these aims in mind that parliament passed
the Foreign Slave Act in 1806, banning the export of
enslaved Africans to Britain?s economic rivals, a
measure that effectively ended around 60 per cent of
Britain?s trafficking, but which is now hardly
remembered, and certainly not commemorated.

There is no doubt that for many in parliament and
outside, the demand for abolition was based largely on
economic motives. Prime Minister Pitt, and others had
been concerned about competition from St Domingue and
other Caribbean colonies even before 1791. They had
unsuccessfully sought agreement from both France and
Holland to prohibit the trafficking of Africans.

Others were more concerned about what they saw as the
subsidies given to slave owners and sugar producers in
the Caribbean; and government support for economies
and a trade that was declining in importance by the
end of the 18th century, not least because there was
over-production of sugar.

Others in Britain became more interested in developing
direct trade links with India, Brazil and other
Spanish American colonies. The trafficking of Africans
to Britain?s colonies was no longer so important and
was seen as by some as being an impediment to
important trading links elsewhere.

These economic motives for abolition have long been
associated with the names of Eric Williams and C.L.R.
James. Many attempts have been made to discredit them.
In fact very similar views were expressed by British
historians of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Most importantly economic justifications for an end to
?the trade? were strongly advanced in the period
preceding the Abolition Act.

What is significant is that this explanation for
abolition is hardly ever discussed. It has been
largely absent from many of the commemorative events
so far and even from the government?s own publication
which, it is claimed, is designed to educate the
public.

Simply stated, this explanation means that the
parliamentary act was passed not for humanitarian
reasons but because it was in the interests of the
rich and their representatives in parliament to do so.
And it should be added that it was the actions of
people, and most importantly of the enslaved
themselves, in the Caribbean, Britain and elsewhere
that made enslavement and trafficking increasing
inefficient, unprofitable and dangerous.

In 1807 therefore, parliament was persuaded to pass
the Abolition Act; partly on the basis of such
economic concerns, partly on the basis that limiting
the importation of enslaved Africans would likely
limit future revolutions and preserve slavery
throughout the Caribbean colonies. Partly it seems,
because it was seen as a way of diverting attention
away from an unpopular war against France and its
allies, and persuading the people that such a war was
being fought in the interests of abolition.

Of course after the 1806 act it is arguable that most
of ?the trade? had ended already. Even some of the
major established Caribbean planters were in favour of
abolition since this worked against the interests of
their commercial rivals, both foreigners and those who
had acquired newly captured territory in the Caribbean
from Britain?s enemies. They reasoned that this might
be especially advantageous if abolition could be
forced upon other countries as a consequence of
Britain?s military and naval supremacy. Other
representatives of the rising bourgeoisie supported
the measure as a means to limit the economic and
political power of those who had hitherto retarded the
development of industrial capitalism and ?free trade?.

The 1807 Act was subsequently used as the
representatives of the rich envisaged, not least as a
means by which the Royal Naval might interfere in
international shipping across the atlantic.

Yet it did not end British citizens? involvement in
the trafficking of Africans nor slavery itself.
Following other major insurrections in the Caribbean
and similar economic and political considerations,
slavery itself was only later made illegal in 1834.
But it continued in some areas of the British empire
for another century. The trafficking of Africans in
general increased during the 19th century. Many
British slavers sailed under foreign flags of
convenience.

The 1807 Act did not end Britain?s dependence on slave
produced goods such as cotton, the mainstay of the
industrial revolution. Even that so-called ?legitimate
commerce? subsequently developed with Africa, such as
the extraction of palm oil, was largely produced with
slave labour. The act increased rather than diminished
Britain?s interference in Africa which culminated in
the so-called ?scramble? for Africa at the end of the
19th century: the invasion of the continent and
imposition of colonial rule.

It is sobering to reflect that Britain?s first colony
in Africa was Sierra Leone. This was the region from
where the first enslaved Africans had been kidnapped
in the 16th century. It was established allegedly as a
haven for liberated Africans in 1807, and has now been
under Britain?s domination for the last 200 years Much
of this time, it has been occupied by British troops,
while its shores are still patrolled by the Royal
Navy.

Today the government is demanding that even its basic
utilities, such as water, should be privatised for the
benefit of British multinationals. Centuries of
interference by British governments have produced a
country that manages to be one of the world?s poorest
- and at the same time the world?s leading producer of
diamonds.

The trafficking of Africans over many centuries was
one of the greatest crimes against humanity. The
current commemorative events, which are organised for
a variety of purposes, at least provide the
opportunity for widespread discussion.

What is vital is that the myths are shattered and
disinformation combated. We must ensure that
appropriate and adequate reparations are made for
slavery, colonialism and all crimes against humanity.
People themselves must draw the appropriate lessons
from history, one of the most important being that it
is people that make and change history; and that
therefore, we are our own liberators.


* Hakim Adi is reader in the history of Africa and the
African diaspora at Middlesex University, London, UK.


Forward Ever (by any means necessary)!
Karen C. Aboiralor
>From hakimida at reparationsthecure.org  Fri May 25 11:45:56 2007
From: hakimida at reparationsthecure.org (Ida Hakim)
Date: Fri May 25 11:46:12 2007
Subject: [cure-news] Slave Descendant Takes Reparations Case to the United
 States Supreme Court
Message-ID: <465720D4.2050109 at reparationsthecure.org>

Dear All,
 
This is a very exciting moment in the struggle for reparations and we 
want to keep you up-to-date on the litigation against corporations.
 
On Monday, May 14, 2007, I filed a petition with the Supreme Court of 
the United States asking the Court to hear our class action case against 
corporations for reparations.  It is entitled: Farmer-Paellmann v. Brown 
& Williamson.  On May 22, 2007, the case was docketed as No. 06-1533.  
 
As you may know, we won the consumer fraud part of this case in the 7th 
Circuit Court of Appeals.  However, we lost the part demanding the 
return of wealth from corporations that profited off enslaving our 
ancestors.  We believe that we have a strong chance of being granted 
review by the Supreme Court and winning our argument.
 
We have published our Supreme Court petition along with other writings 
about the corporate restitution effort.  To obtain a copy, visit our 
online store at: www.cafepress.com/rsgincorp.
 
Below is the press release we sent out today about the case.  Thank you 
all for your ongoing support!
 
Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, M.A., J.D.
Executive Director
Restitution Study Group
www.rsgincorp.com
917-365-3007


Slave Descendant Takes Reparations Case to the United States Supreme 
Court http://publish.indymedia.org/en/2007/05/886174.shtml
Restitution Study Group 23 May 2007 18:57 GMT
  
Deadria Farmer-Paellmann with her attorney Bruce Afran - Photo by 
Claudette Perry

On Tuesday, May 22, 2007, the Supreme Court of the United States 
docketed a petition filed by Deadria Farmer-Paellmann -- the descendant 
of Africans enslaved in South Carolina -- asking the Court to hear a 
case against 17 major financial institutions for their role in 
financing, underwriting and supporting slavery. At issue is whether 
statues of limitations should be tolled to permit slave descendants to 
bring actions for restitution against the corporations that allegedly 
earned profits enslaving Africans in violation of Northern antislavery 
laws. The case is entitled, Farmer-Paellmann v. Brown & Williamson, No. 
06-1533. The defendants in the action include: FleetBoston Financial 
Corporation, Aetna Inc., JP Morgan Chase Manhattan Bank, New York Life 
Insurance Co., Lehman Bros, AIG, and Brown Brothers Harriman.

Contacts:

Deadria Farmer-Paellmann: 917-365-3007 or  paellmann at rcn.com; Bruce I. 
Afran: 609-924-2075 or  bruceafran at aol.com; Carl J. Mayer: 609-921-0253 
or  carlmayer at aol.com;

On Tuesday, May 22, 2007, the Supreme Court of the United States 
docketed a petition filed by Deadria Farmer-Paellmann -- the descendant 
of Africans enslaved in South Carolina -- asking the Court to hear a 
case against 17 major financial institutions for their role in 
financing, underwriting and supporting slavery. At issue is whether 
statues of limitations should be tolled to permit slave descendants to 
bring actions for restitution against the corporations that allegedly 
earned profits enslaving Africans in violation of Northern antislavery 
laws. The case is entitled, Farmer-Paellmann v. Brown & Williamson, No. 
06-1533. The defendants in the action include: FleetBoston Financial 
Corporation, Aetna Inc., JP Morgan Chase Manhattan Bank, New York Life 
Insurance Co., Lehman Bros, AIG, and Brown Brothers Harriman.

"It is a pivotal moment for African Americans and all people, and we 
believe the Court should hear the case, said Bruce Afran, counsel for 
Farmer-Paellmann. Co-counsel Carl Mayer added,"the issues presented are 
unique and are important in settling a long running injustice."

Farmer-Paellmann originally filed the landmark case on March 26, 2002. 
It was consolidated with 8 similar actions in the Northern District 
Federal Court in Chicago, IL in 2003. The consolidated action was 
dismissed with prejudice by judge Charles Norgle on July 6, 2005. 
Plaintiffs appealed the case in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, one of 
the most pro-business circuits in the country, and secured an 
unprecedented victory. In the Decision, written by Judge Posner, the 
Appeals Court ruled in favor of half the case consisting of consumer 
fraud and fraud claims. It held that companies that lie about their role 
in slavery are guilty of fraud. However, they affirmed the lower Court 
ruling that former slaves should have brought their own claims against 
the companies and therefore, the plaintiffs are not the proper parties 
to bring the case.

"It was impossible for slaves or ex-slaves to bring this action. No one 
knew anything about these companies until 2000," said Farmer-Paellmann. 
It was in January of 2000 that Farmer-Paellmann initiated an effort to 
identify the names of specific companies that played a role in slavery 
and asked that they apologize and pay reparations. Prior to that time, 
books written on the history of slavery never identified any of the 
defendants as participants in slavery. However, the Appeals Court 
suggested that books written prior to the 2002 action should have been 
enough for former slaves to bring their own actions.

Adding to the absence of information identifying the defendants as slave 
profiteers is the fact that many of the defendants continue to deny that 
they played a role in slavery. Farmer-Paellmann argues in her petition, 
"most dastardly were the public false statements made by representatives 
of the JP Morgan Chase Bank denying, as late as March 5, 2004, that they 
were at all involved in slavery." Months later, after threat of loosing 
lucrative vending contracts with the City of Chicago, the bank filed a 
report admitting to their role in slavery.

"That we had a victory in the Appeals Court renewed my faith in the 
justice system. I am optimistic that the Supreme Court will hear our 
case and give us a chance to secure justice," said Farmer-Paellmann.

The court petition has been published to support the litigation by the 
non-profit Restitution Study Group with additional writings and can be 
purchased at: www.cafepress.com/rsgincorp.

 e-mail:: rsgincorp at yahoo.com  homepage:: http://www.rsgincorp.com  
phone:: 917-365-3007
>From hakimida at reparationsthecure.org  Thu May 31 11:35:48 2007
From: hakimida at reparationsthecure.org (Ida Hakim)
Date: Thu May 31 11:35:39 2007
Subject: [cure-news] The Shackles in the Shadows of History
Message-ID: <465F0774.8000500 at reparationsthecure.org>

The Shackles in the Shadows of History

By Lynne Duke
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 30, 2007; C01



In 1619, 12 years after Jamestown's settlement, two British privateers 
sailed into the James River with African captives for sale. The Africans 
had Portuguese names; they apparently knew Christianity, according to 
John Thornton and Linda Heywood, a husband-and-wife team of Boston 
University historians. Those first Africans came from the kingdom of 
Ndongo, now Angola, which had been penetrated by Portuguese missionaries 
and traders who soon stopped praying with the Africans and started 
selling them.

The settlement of Jamestown would ultimately wither and die, but the 
American form of slavery born with those first Africans would endure for 
nearly 250 years. Slavery and America grew up hand in hand, and the 
African imprint on the new nation is evident to this day -- a fact being 
highlighted in Jamestown events this weekend in the ongoing 
commemoration of the Virginia settlement's 400th anniversary.

Though 142 years have passed since the constitution's 13th Amendment 
ended slavery, the vestiges of that "peculiar institution" are deeply 
embedded in our society, as are the cultural memories of slavery that 
lurk like shadows between the lines of our racial discourse.

But sometimes the memories are explicit and raw, painful to encounter, 
for who in 2007 can conjure what life was like for the enslaved? Only 
the slaves themselves can say, in words whispered through time.

"The conch shell blowed afore daylight and all hands better git out for 
roll call or Solomon bust the door down and get them out."

This is Mary Reynolds, a former Louisiana slave.

"The times I hated most was pickin' cotton when the frost was on the 
bolls. My hands git sore and crack open and bleed. . . . We prays for 
the end of trib'lation and end of beatins and for shoes that fit our 
feet. . . . Some of the old ones say we have to bear all, cause that all 
we can do. Some say they was glad to the time they's dead, cause they'd 
rather rot in the ground than have the beatins. What I hated most was 
when they'd beat me and I didn't know what they beat me for, and I hated 
they strippin' me naked as the day I was born."

As part of an oral history project in the 1930s, former slaves like 
100-year-old Reynolds told of the beatings, the brutality, the rapes, 
the families forced apart and, at last, emancipation. All of it shapes 
our consciousness of those slavery days, which became a stain on a new 
nation that told the world it stood for freedom. It was slavery that 
perpetuated the misguided divisions of race, based on presumed 
biological distinctions that scientists these days say are a fiction.

But there it is. Slavery's memory. Blacks here. Whites there. Us. Them.

It is the abiding contradiction of our Americanness, something we bump 
into at random, even in the aisles of a supermarket. Like Aunt Jemima: 
Why does that iconic slave-era mammy still sell?

Or reminders of the past arise in the speed with which comedian Michael 
Richards managed to evoke a lynching with his angry rant about hanging 
people from pitchforks.

And do we need to mention that a former Ku Klux Klansman sits in the 
Senate? (Robert Byrd of West Virginia.)

Uncanny connections crop up when you least expect them, as when black 
activist Al Sharpton discovered that one of his ancestors had been owned 
by an ancestor of a former segregationist, the late South Carolina 
senator Strom Thurmond.

And consider the case of Tim Hashaw, a white Houston writer who 
discovered that his ancestry dates back to those first Africans sold at 
Jamestown.

"The reason I am white with a small part of African is because of that 
first generation," says Hashaw, author of "The Birth of Black America: 
The First African Americans and the Pursuit of Freedom at Jamestown." 
His research revealed that his black ancestors slipped into freedom in 
those early decades after Jamestown's settlement, before the iron fist 
of slavery clamped shut on the possibility of liberty. They bought land 
and intermarried with whites, as did their descendants.

Sometimes, the slaves themselves reach across the centuries to remind 
us. In lower Manhattan, an 18th-century African burial ground with the 
remains of nearly 20,000 people was discovered during a construction 
project. It is now a national monument. There's a similar, though 
smaller, burial ground over in Alexandria, sitting under a gas station.

Remembering is not static. It changes with time and discovery, creating 
new historic theories.

Take, for instance, Denmark Vesey, the former slave who was executed and 
is remembered as a hero for planning a huge slave insurrection in 1822 
to kill whites and set Charleston, S.C., afire. Johns Hopkins University 
historian Michael Johnson says his research indicates that Vesey led no 
such plot; rather, the Charleston conspiracy was fabricated by a 
politician hoping to gain advantage in the fears of his fellow whites.

It's a disturbing twist for Henry Darby, a Charleston County Council 
member who's been pushing for the erection of a Vesey memorial. Along 
with some scholars, Darby rejects the new Vesey theory and is holding 
fast to his belief in Vesey's heroism.

"The thing I love about Vesey is he was a free black man and he did not 
have to do what he did," says Darby. "But he was saying there was a 
larger calling. All African Americans needed to be free."

It seems so long ago. And yet, U.S. shores knew slavery far longer than 
they've known freedom.

American slavery dates at least to 1565 in Florida, when Spanish 
settlers held African slaves at St. Augustine, the nation's oldest city. 
But it was the English, beginning at Jamestown, who spread slavery so 
intensely, as the British colonies' crops of tobacco, rice and cotton 
demanded more and more laborers. And in the Caribbean and South America, 
demand for slaves was far greater. A torrent of slaves were shipped from 
Africa, roughly 15 million, destined for points from Brazil to New York. 
Historians estimate that millions died in the crossing.

President Thomas Jefferson signed legislation effective in 1808 to 
outlaw the import of slaves. But the domestic trade in slaves raged on, 
with slaves sold from one region to another, their broken families 
scattered hither and yon.

By the time of the Civil War, there were some 4 million slaves in the 
United States, and their impact on the nation's economy was deep, says 
David Brion Davis, a Yale historian and author of "Inhuman Bondage."

"The organization of large plantations anticipated in many ways the 
assembly line and modern factory production," Davis says. "Only in 
recent years have we learned that the richest pre-Civil War Americans 
lived in the Deep South, which also had the country's highest per capita 
wealth. In 1860, the market value of slaves exceeded that of the 
nation's railroads and factories combined."

Freedom at war's end left the former slaves adrift, with no homes, no 
food, no jobs, no means of support, in search of lost mothers, fathers, 
husbands, wives, children.

And the nation then debated what to do with them. The African American 
historian W.E.B. Du Bois described it bitterly:

After the Civil War, in which "Negroes fought like the damned," Du Bois 
wrote in 1960, "then we turned from the abolition of slavery to our 
muttons: to making money. Some Americans stepped forward with alms and 
teachers for the black freedmen. Some rushed South to make money with 
cheap labor and high cotton. But most of the nation tried to forget the 
Negro. He was free. What more did he want?"

A Freedmen's Bureau was launched in 1865 to help the displaced slaves 
with food, clothing, the search for work, the search for relatives. Men 
and women clamored to get their slave marriages legalized, another 
service the bureau offered.

But there were those who felt the former slaves were getting too much 
help. Accounts of the debate over the Freedmen's Bureau echo racial 
debates of today.

Sen. Eli Saulsbury, a Delaware Democrat, complained in 1866 that aid for 
the freed slaves amounted to white people being asked "to support in 
idleness a class who are too lazy or too worthless to support 
themselves," according to congressional records quoted in a 2005 article 
in the Law and History Review titled "The Sympathetic State," by Michele 
Landis Dauber.

And yet a 1930s account from former slave Matilda Hatchett tells us 
firsthand what the suddenness of liberty held in store:

"We was freed and went to a place that was full of people. We had to 
stay in a church with about about twenty other people and two of the 
babies died there on account of the exposure. Two of my aunts died too 
on account of exposure then."

Who would want to remember those bad old days of misery and dying? 
That's how some people see it. Let it be. Don't look back. Or, in the 
now famous words earlier this year of Virginia Del. Frank D. Hargrove 
Sr. (R-Hanover), people "should get over" slavery.

"Some of them want to perpetuate this business of victimism," Hargrove, 
a descendant of slave owners, said in an interview, about some slave 
descendants.

But remembering slavery is no different from remembering any other 
aspect of American history, say others.

"Why do we have statues? Why do we have monuments? In Richmond, why do 
we have a street that is a monument to Confederate generals? Why do we 
have Civil War reenactments? Why do we have a Jamestown commemoration?"

That is Del. A. Donald McEachin (D-Richmond), one of the sponsors of the 
Virginia slavery apology that has sparked a national trend in state 
legislatures. Maryland also has offered its "profound regret."

The conversation is especially poignant for McEachin, the great-grandson 
of a slave.

Of slavery, he says, "There's no shame, because I take great pride in 
the fact that my ancestors were able to overcome slavery," though he 
adds the obvious: "There's pain because you wouldn't want anyone to have 
to endure the things that they had to endure."

While it took 100 more years for blacks to win full rights, the moment 
of freedom's arrival is celebrated even today. African Americans gather 
all over the country to mark Juneteenth, short for June 19, 1865, the 
day when the news finally reached the slaves of Texas -- months after 
the 13th Amendment's passage and the surrender of Confederate Gen. 
Robert E. Lee.

Rev. Ronald V. Myers of Belzoni, Miss., founder of the National 
Juneteenth Christian Leadership Council, says 25 states now have 
official Juneteenth observances. Surprisingly, Myers has gotten Hargrove 
on the bandwagon. The state delegate sponsored a Virginia resolution for 
Juneteenth, to be commemorated on the third Saturday of June. Hargrove 
says he is not contradicting his earlier views, just acknowledging that 
commemorating freedom for the slaves is "a positive and productive thing."

It's all about healing, says Myers, and finding common ground for people 
who might not otherwise agree on racial issues.

And who needs this healing?

"The country," says Myers. "America needs it. All of us need it. Black. 
White. We all need to be able to deal with the history and legacy of 
slavery and move forward in a constructive way. . . . We have never 
really had a real time of healing in America from the legacy of slavery."

Instead, the slaves had to sort it out for themselves. They moved on. 
They made new American lives. They worked hard so life would be better 
for their children and their children's children. They passed on the 
memory of slavery or, as often happened in African American families, 
they kept quiet.

But not Mary Reynolds:

"I sets and 'members the times in the worl d. I 'me mb ers now clear as 
yesterday things I forgot for a long time. I 'me mb ers 'bout the days 
of slavery and I don't 'lieve they ever gwins have slaves no more on 
this earth. I think Gawd done took that burden offen his black chillun 
and I'm aimin' to praise him for it to his face in the days of Glory 
what ain't so far off."