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After 60+ Years They Apologize
The platform for this apology took place at Fort Lawton, but how much publicity was it given? How high was this apology on this government’s priority list? Was it set up to acknowledge and let the world know that an injustice had been done, an injustice that caused these Black African American Army Soldiers to suffer along with their families for over 60 years?
What was given to these victims outside of this statement which is found here? http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008076850_snow28m.html
“But after reviewing the case last year, an Army board concluded the trial was "fundamentally unfair" and set aside the convictions.” But what was given to these families, was there any real restitution? Oh there was $725.00 back pay that was given to one soldier’s son; this was for actual back pay.
Can you image back pay of $725.00 for over 60 years of pain, that’s almost like spitting in someone’s face. Back pay for their being as they say fundamentally unfair. Those words bother me, especially the way they are used, they say fundamentally which means basic for the most part, and then use unfair which means just that, unfair, it also means not just: not equal or just, unethical in business: not ethical in business dealings. When you use them together it simply says that they were unjust and unethical to those men. Now unethical means not ethical: not conforming to agreed standards of moral conduct, especially within a particular profession. This was an abomination, a travesty of justice and that’s what should have been said, but then this is the Army’s story; to simply say that a trial was fundamentally unfair tells me that there is a lot that is not being told.
In my opinion if it takes over sixty years to apologize, then it either wasn’t high on this governments list of priorities or either they had dismissed it, a cold case if you will, and others that wanted to see justice saw to it that this country would finally exonerate these twenty eight soldiers.
How many Americans are focusing on this injustice of those Black African American Soldiers? Is the media doing what they do when a Black African American Person of Color commits a crime, are they continuing to explode and or exploit the facts so that it remains headlines? I think not, after all it’s over sixty years old, and how many want to read this news?
Perhaps America is not together enough and angry enough to care for this kind of injustice to keep pulling America’s skeletons out of her closet, but the only thing in my opinion that will bring this country closer together is to start realizing that we are all one people regardless of race, gender, religion or sexual orientation; it’s time we as a people woke up and remained awake for each others sake.
The convictions were overturned due to the constancy of Rep. Jim McDermott, a D-Seattle based on a book was written by a CNN and PBS journalist.
http://wcbstv.com/national/black.soldiers.sorry.2.780905.html
The ceremony took place at Fort Lawton the same place where these Black African American soldiers were convicted in that 1944 incident.
Only two soldiers were known to be living, one which didn’t come and the other who died before he could make it to this ceremony; his son attended.
Where is the real justice after sixty years when mostly everyone has passed on?
