(LA Progressive) — A year before the Mayflower arrived in 1620, the first group of enslaved Africans depicted as “20 and odd Negroes” arrived sometime during the final week of August to the Virginia colony of Jamestown. The fact that the exact date cannot be pinpointed assists in obfuscating the origins of slavery in the United States. What is incontrovertible is the fact that this month marks the 400th anniversary of black bodies arriving at these shores against their will. Little could these “20 and odd Negroes” fathomed millions more would come as huge cargoes of chattel slaves and not as human beings.
America keeps running away from this story, albeit America will acknowledge slavery is its original sin. There are few accounts for its apology: Southern Baptist Convention in 1995; Former President Bill Clinton in 1998, U.S. House of Representatives (H.Res. 194) in 2008, and spiritual guru and presidential hopeful Marianne Williamson in 2018.
“On behalf of myself, and on behalf of my country, to you and all African Americans, from the beginning of our nation’s history, in honor of your ancestors and for the sake of your children, please hear this from my heart, I apologize, please forgive us,” Williamson told her audience during her “Love America Tour”
