Comprehensive coverage
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has Georgia’s largest team at the Gold Dome for this year’s legislative session. To find the most expertise on issues that matter to taxpayers, go to myAJC.com/georgialegislature.
It can be awfully hard for Georgia politicians to say “I’m sorry.”
In a cramped conference room across from the statehouse, a handful of Native American leaders quietly gathered last week to start laying the groundwork to ask for a formal apology for Georgia’s treatment of their forefathers during the Trail of Tears and other injustices.
Their guest speaker was Lord John Alderdice, who helped broker peace talks that ended the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland and later served as the first speaker of its Assembly. But few in the room expected a breakthrough.
“I’ve been working the Capitol for 20 years. And I’d like to win one,” said Vonnie McCormick, the principal chief of the Lower Muskogee tribe. “But the state of Georgia is a strange creature.”
Expectations are low for a reason. They need look no further than state Rep. Tyrone Brooks, the Atlanta Democrat who for years has urged that Georgia issue a formal expression of regret from the state for condoning slavery and segregation-era laws. His proposal, House Resolution 3, is pending again this year, but it's yet to be assigned to a committee.
“They need to stick with it. Be persistent and demand it. And don’t give up,” Brooks said of the Native American effort. “Neither of these should be a difficult decision for Georgia lawmakers.”
The reason they are, though, is a complicated mix of legal and political concerns.
Some fear that a formal apology could open the door to litigation over reparations and other legal claims from descendants of slaves and Native Americans. Others say there’s no reason to make amends for moral and legal injustices they did not commit.
Glenn Richardson summed up the latter sentiment when, as the House speaker in 2007, he said during a debate that he didn’t support an apology over slavery because “nobody here was in office.”
“There’s a natural resistance to apologize for someone else and a question of whether it is even our place to apologize,” said state Sen. Charles Bethel, R-Dalton, who is open to resuming the debate. “We can be socially resistant to judging people who live in very different times than we do. And that makes it more difficult, even if we all know what was done was wrong.”
Apology pioneers
Georgia wouldn’t be the trailblazer on either apology front.
Brooks, who heads the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, borrowed language for his proposal from Virginia, Alabama and other Southern states that have adopted similar resolutions. His measure declares that the apology cannot be used as the basis of any type of litigation.
It would express “profound regret for Georgia’s role in slavery” and acknowledge moral and legal injustices perpetrated by the state government on slaves. It would call the Atlantic slave trade, which funneled an estimated 12 million Africans to the New World, “the worst holocaust of humankind.”
“We all inherit the legacies of our forefathers. We all have to collect the wrongs of those who made these terrible decisions,” Brooks said. “No one is blaming the current generation, but we have a responsibility to address the sins of our fathers and forefathers. And if we don’t do it on our watch, we’re just as guilty as them.”
The call for an apology to Native American tribes is forging a newer path.
Daphne Swilling, a Chattanooga activist, helped persuade Tennessee lawmakers to offer the state’s “sincere regret” last year for its role in following orders by President Andrew Jackson that forced thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral lands more than 175 years ago.
“If it can happen in Tennessee, the home of President Jackson, it can happen anywhere,” Swilling said. “And what government wouldn’t care what happened to its citizens?”
‘On the sidelines’
Georgia seemed to be Swilling's natural next step. The state was the springboard for the Trail of Tears, the brutal forced march of thousands of Cherokee Indians across the Southeast to present-day Oklahoma. And it is the home of New Echota, the once-thriving capital of the Cherokee Nation that was home to a city council, courthouse and printing press.
She shared her proposal with state Rep. John Meadows, a Republican power broker whose district includes the New Echota grounds. A draft was circulated with leaders of both chambers, but he said it hit a “snag” over the language. It may not be an easy sell, he told the group.
“We need to work on this for a while,” he told them. “It’s not dead, but it’s just on the sidelines. I’ve been down here for 11 years, and I’ve had things that haven’t moved for 11 years, and then suddenly it does.”
They are steeling themselves for a long fight. David Wilkerson, a member of the Cherokee Nation of Georgia’s tribal council, said his pitch is ready. He has many relatives in Oklahoma, he notes, who are descendants of Trail of Tears survivors.
“It’s not for us,” he said. “It’s for our ancestors. And it would mean a lot just to know the state of Georgia was sorry.”
About the Author
