City apologizes for slave trade
Charleston resolution proposes office of racial reconciliation
CHARLESTON, S.C. — The city council in what was once a key seaport for slave trade adopted a resolution Tuesday apologizing for slavery.
By voice vote, the Charleston City Council approved a resolution that offers a denouncement of slavery, a promise of tolerance and a proposal for an office of racial reconciliation.
The vote came after an hour of public comment followed by nearly two hours of comments from council members, one of whom was met with heckling that led Mayor John Tecklenburg to have the chamber cleared.
The vote coincided with “Juneteenth,” a celebration of the end of U.S. slavery, and came just two days after the third anniversary of a racist attack by a white man that killed nine black church members.
In expressing support for the resolution, Councilman William Dudley Gregorie compared slavery with a U.S. immigration policy that has resulted in children being separated from their families.
“I do think that as a council, we have an opportunity to make history, not to right wrongs, but to recognize that the seat of the Confederacy was wrong,” Gregorie said. “It was wrong to enslave people. It was wrong to treat people as property and chattel and sell their children and breakup families, Sound familiar?”
Councilmen Harry Joseph Griffin and Perry Waring expressed opposition to the resolution, both saying the city needed to focus on economic development.
The vote was taken by a majority-white council in a City Hall that was built by slaves and sits less than a mile from the old wharf where slave ships unloaded. That site is soon to be the location for a $75 million African-american history museum.
Organizers, including former Charleston Mayor Joe Riley, are trying to raise the millions of additional dollars they will need to break ground this summer and open the museum in 2020. It will be located on the site of the old wharf.
The museum will tell the story of African-americans in the U.S. from slavery to today. It also will include genealogy resources.