Minutes 09-03-2019 Regular Meeting

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12 The Board considered voting to approve a proclamation declaring August 1, 2019 through July 31, 2020 as a year of remembrance to commemorate the 400th anniversary of unfree Africans first arriving in English North America and authorize the Chair to sign. Annette Moore, Human Rights and Relations Director, read the following: In 1619, after having been kidnapped from their villages and taken from what is now referred to as Angola, 350 Africans were forced onto Portuguese slave ships that were bound for the new world. Approximately half of those Africans died at sea. 50 Africans were stolen by English pirates off the coast of Mexico, and taken to Point Comfort, a colony that eventually became Virginia. That ‘some 20 and odd negroes,’ identified by James Rolfe, the widower of Pocahontas and colony secretary, who were taken to Point Comfort, came on two ships: The White Lion and The Treasurer. Upon his arrival in Point Comfort, the Captain of The White Lion sold the Africans for food. This marked, what some believe, to be the beginning of slavery in the United States. James Horne, President of the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation said, ‘1619 gave birth to the great paradox of our nation’s founding: slavery in the midst of freedom. It marked both the origin of the most important political development in American history: the rise of democracy; and the emergence of, what would become, one the nation’s greatest challenges: the corrosive legacy of racial discrimination and inequality that has afflicted our society since its earliest years.’ For 246 years slavery was legal in America. It did not become illegal until 150 years ago. Slavery has been part of America much longer than it hasn’t. A century and a half after slavery was made illegal, we still see the trauma of this infectious disease. Throughout the 20th century, text books either glossed over slavery, often not treating it as a part of America’s story, or fed students tales that masked the reality of slavery; some even telling students that Africans were better off enslaved. What has this practice lead to: lack of understanding; confusion; tension; and polarization. Tonight we ask you, Commissioners, to proclaim this 400 year anniversary, and ask you to ask the Human Relations Commission, over this next year, to plan programs to educate people, and to acknowledge the history of Africans in America. BACKGROUND: In 1619 unfree Africans, “some 20. and odd Negroes,” arrived in the English settlement that would become Virginia. This marked the beginning of the period in America where people of Africa were forcibly taken from their homeland, transported to the American colonies, and committed to lifelong slavery. The Human Relation Commission (HRC) requests that the Board of County Commissioners recognize the harrowing experience of the Africans who first came to the shores of English North America and the plight and burden of their descendants with this Proclamation. Organizations throughout Orange County have had events to commemorate the 400th year anniversary since January 2019, either as an underlying theme or as the backdrop to events. Some events include: • Inaugural Reception of the Orange County Community Remembrance Coalition [HRC is a member] • OCCRC Symposium: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching • 110th Anniversary of the Founding of the NAACP • 400 Years: Sounds of Freedom Music Festival by Free Spirit Freedom • 154th Juneteenth Celebration • Screening of “The Long Shadow” • Symposium: Reconstruction, Redemption and the On-Going Struggle for Freedom