I think Russell Simmons may have said it best:

Today, we celebrate Juneteenth, a day commemorating the announcement of the abolition of slavery on June 19, 1865.

Yesterday, after 144 years, the United States Senate apologized for slavery.

With a unanimous vote, America has begun her healing process. For our country will never be able to heal itself without atoning for the sins of our past.

We have finally recognized that in order for us to move forward as a people in this beautiful nation, we need to acknowledge the pain that we all have suffered because of slavery.

I have learned the history of the slave trade, experienced for myself the slave "castles" on the coast of Ghana and absorbed the amazing African connections in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil --the first stop for 40% of the enslaved Blacks, from the time the Portuguese (by virtue of better boats and navigation skills fostered by Prince Henry the Navigator) found their way to West Africa, observed strong people with different pigment and invented the cruel/inhuman processes involved in the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

And of course with the Portuguese as a model, soon many other countries got into the evil trade -- capturing Black people, separating families and friends, marching them away from their homelands, locking them first in dungeons and then ships that deposited them on foreign soils to be displayed and sold as no more than a working animal.

I have taken pride in the fact that the USA was not even a glimmer in anyone's eyes when in 1444 Portugal captured their first Africans. And, although less than 5% ended up on USA shores, it is to our shame that here Blacks were on the receiving end of worse treatment and conditions than in Brazil or the Caribbean. It was nothing less than dehumanization. And its vestiges, most especially in the South, are still so very plain to see and hear.

Again, Russell Simmons, now United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Permanent Memorial to the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade:

The effects of slavery on our communities have been devastating. The devastation does not stop because of the apology; however these are words that we needed to hear. We all needed to hear. This was a day that many of us have dreamed about for our entire lives. This was a day that many who were at the forefront of this struggle could not enjoy because they are no longer with us. And for those heroes, I go to work every day to make sure that they are never forgotten.

Positively,
Carolan