Five years ago this week, just months after President Barack Obama took office, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution apologizing for slavery. The Senate acknowledged the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery and apologized to African Americans, on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery.
The House of Representatives had passed a similar measure the previous year. But Congress could not resolve the two apologies because of differing views on how the resolution would be used in any discussion of reparations. The Senate version was insistent that an apology would not endorse any future claims. The House could not agree. Significantly, the office of the president of the United States has never issued an apology.
In other words, the United States has never given an unconditional apology for slavery. For a nation that cant even agree on an apology, the recent conversation around reparations could be seen as little more than an exercise in oratory.
