Re: [UC] Slavery Disclosure Bill

[Benseraglio2]

Lest we forget, George Washington's slaves were kept in sheds on what is now the site of the new Liberty Bell pavilion. Every July 3 for the past few years there has been a remembrance and demonstration aiming at getting some sort of historical plaque erected on that site. Two years ago on July 3 there was an interesting interfaith religious service on 6th St. which as I understood it called up and attempted to pacify the spirits of the ancestral slaves.   It's common knowledge that Thomas Jefferson not only kept slaves but fathered children by at least one of them. As I understand it, Slavery Disclosure Bills are part of the movement for reparations, of which the first step is simply writing into the American consciousness that the prosperity of this country was founded on the institution of human slavery, which was already almost two centuries old at the time of "Independence."   The demise of the institution of lynching is less than a century old in this country. Official, legal segregation began to be eliminated less than 50 years ago. De facto segregation still exists in most parts of the country today. As Vachel Lindsay put it so eloquently, "Mumbo jumbo gonna hoodoo you."     Ross Bender http://rossbender.org   In a message dated 4/3/2005 2:41:55 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Take, for example, slavery. Briatin abolished the slave trade in 1807, and the 1830s saw the emancipation of all British slaves and the abolition of slavery as an institution. It took America another thirty years, plus a bloody Civil War, to accomplish this on our own shores. There is some research showing that the American revolution was, in part, a reaction to the growing abolitionist movement, and the possibility that Britain might abolish the institution--- but this is debatable. On that point alone we can say that many Americans (or rather, those kept as property until 1865) were _worse_ off after independence. And given the profundity of slavery, I can't quite class it along "flaws and lapses."