Students Debate Slavery on King Day Observance
Many Concordia faculty and staff have vivid memories from the late 1950s and 1960s of watching nightly news broadcasts of police wielding truncheons, water cannons and attack dogs against crowds of African-Americans who in a were marching in the South for the right to vote and to end racial discrimination through nonviolent means.
For most of today's students the Civil Rights Movement is an abstract, academic exercise, something learned in classrooms and from books.
So it was somewhat surprising for them during the campus observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jan. 21, to come to terms with civil rights by "debating" whether the United States should apologize for slavery.
Visiting scholar, writer and musician Daryl Davis led the impromptu debate on race relations by randomly selecting students to argue both sides of the issue – whether they agreed with that stance or not.
"I don't think we should apologize for slavery," said one student. "It happened a long time ago."
Another student asked, "If this happens, the dominant class will end up apologizing to all minorities for past actions. Where will it stop?"
Added another, "We can't change what happened in the past, but it would be a good step for improving race relations in this country."
Davis said an apology would be symbolic, but that nothing gets resolved until people accept accountability for their actions.
"Unifying people starts with the transgressors saying they're sorry for their behavior," says Davis. "We can't move forward in race relations without addressing the issues of the past."
One student asked on what grounds his family could be held accountable for slavery when they lived in Norway at the time.
"If you're not a citizen there's no reason to apologize," responded Davis. "But when you decided to come here and be an American, you inherited by your choice the responsibility for what has happened in America. So you assumed the burden of slavery."
Other thought-provoking seminars included "Nonviolent Resistance and the Bible," "Racial Communication and Culture," and a book discussion. Davis also shared his musical talent with a blues performance.
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