Saying 'sorry' for past wrongs

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Jun 15, 2005 | by Deseret Morning News editorial

The Senate's embarrassingly belated apology this week for doing nothing about the widespread and brazen public murders once referred to as "lynchings" would have meant much more if it had come from the same people who stood against those laws many years ago.

It would have meant more if it had been passed only a few years ago, when Strom Thurmond still held his seat. Once an unabashed racist, he holds the record for the longest individual filibuster -- 24 hours and 18 minutes -- which he staged in 1957 to prevent passage of a civil rights law.

That bit of irony was hard to miss this week, by the way. The Senate has just stepped back from the brink of removing the filibuster as a tool of the minority party, with many on both sides of the aisle venerating it as a time-honored and hallowed democratic tradition. Yet it was the filibuster that stood in the way of bringing federal help to the 4,743 people -- the overwhelming majority of whom were black -- who died in lynchings between 1882 and 1968. Presidents supported laws against the crime. On three occasions, the House -- which does not allow filibusters -- passed anti-lynching bills. But each time, southerners in the Senate filibustered until the bills died.

And yet, this week's apology was important. The ability to recognize wrongs and publicly take responsibility for them is a sign of a great nation. Photographs bring the horror of these crimes into vivid and stark clarity. In some, people, including children in their Sunday best, are seen milling around the hanging corpse of a black man as if it were a holiday picnic.

Such dehumanizing depravity is difficult to understand, much less to acknowledge as a part of this nation's cultural history. But it is an important reminder of what we all are capable of becoming unless care is taken.

There also was a bit of hypocrisy in the grandstanding that took place in the Senate this week. Despite the talk about how the apology showed the character of the body has changed, political bodies rarely stand on principle unless there is a national consensus. Even the apology had to be voted on at night and without a straight yes or no vote.

What issues are there today that will cause tomorrow's Senate to feel shame? What about the treatment of American Indians, whose reservations are riddled with poverty and who have little chance for economic progress? What of the worldwide slavery trade, which often entraps children in Third World countries and brings them to the United States as prostitutes? The State Department is working hard on that problem, but it doesn't get a lot of attention.

Americans should feel thankful that the age of public tolerance toward lynchings is over, but they should not feel smug or morally superior. There are plenty of wrongs for the current generation to consider, as well.