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42 Conn. L. Rev. CONNtemplations 1 (2009)

handle is hein.journals/conntemp42 and id is 1 raw text is: CONNECTICUT LAW REVIEW VOLUME 42 CONNtemplations FALL 2009 Apology Lite: Truths, Doubts, and Reconciliations in the Senate's Guarded Apology for Slavery KAIMIPONO DAVID WENGER I. INTRODUCTION The United States Senate formally apologized for slavery on June 18, 2009.' This followed an apology made nearly a year earlier, on July 29, 2008, by the House of Representatives.2 Unlike the House apology, the Senate apology contains additional limiting language, specifically stating that it cannot be used as a ground for monetary compensation. The apology is nearly nine hundred words, with a preamble which goes into some detail about the wrongness of slavery, admitting that slaves were brutalized, humiliated, [and] dehumanized.4 It then states: (1) APOLOGY FOR THE ENSLAVEMENT AND SEGREGATION OF AFRICAN-AMERICANS.-The Congress . . . apologizes 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 and Jim Crow laws .... Assistant Professor of Law, Thomas Jefferson School of Law. I received helpful feedback from Linda Keller, Alfred Brophy, and the participants in the Thomas Jefferson Junior Faculty workshop, and excellent editorial assistance from Courtney Scala and the editors of CONNtenplations. All errors are my own. Thanks as always to Mardell, Sullivan, Kace, and Indigo for their support. 'Krissah Thompson, Senate Backs Apology for Slavery; Resolution Specifies That It Cannot Be Used in Reparations Cases, WASH. POST, June 19, 2009, at A05. Id.; Darryl Fears, House Issues an Apology for Slavery, WASH. POST, July 30, 2008, at A03. See Thompson, supra note 1, at A05 (One key difference is that the Senate version explicitly . .. say[s] that the resolution cannot be used in support for claims for restitution ..). 4 S. Con. Res. 26, 111th Cong. (as passed by Senate, June 18, 2009).