Southern Senators Support an Apology for Lynching Law

Two Southern senators, Republican George Allen of Virginia and Democrat Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, yesterday asked the Senate to apologize for failing to enact anti-lynching legislation long ago. "It is time for healing, if that is at all possible," Allen said. "We are not here to erase history," he added, but to "go on record to say that history of inaction was wrong." "We call attention so we don't forget what happened," Landrieu said, condemning a period when the Senate blocked or filibustered three strong anti-lynching measures passed by the House of Representatives. At the request of a group called the Committee For A Formal Apology, whose members include entertainer and activist Dick Gregory, the senators introduced an apology resolution aimed at reconciliation and improved racial relations. At least 4,749 people, predominantly African-Americans, were reported lynched in the nation between 1881 and 1964, the resolution said, and 99 percent of lynch mob perpetrators escaped any punishment from authorities. Allen once kept a Confederate flag in his home in Albemarle County, and he displayed a hangman's noose in his law office, an emblem of his views on law and order as well as a symbol deeply offensive to many Blacks. [more ]