Newspaper editor encourages slavery apology
Accepting group's award, he says reparations should be in form of opportunities
BY KATHRYN ORTH
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Thursday, June 15, 2006

Crusading small-town newspaper editor Ken Woodley yesterday challenged journalists across the state to support a national apology for slavery.

Accepting the 2006 George Mason Award from the Society of Professional Journalists -- Virginia Pro Chapter, the editor of The Farmville Herald asked newspaper editors and broadcasters to encourage politicians to support a congressional resolution of apology that would be delivered publicly by the president.

"When he died, there was one thing, and one thing only, that George Mason was unreconciled to in this world. . . . Slavery," Woodley said in remarks prepared for delivery at the award dinner held last night at the Times-Dispatch Hanover Production Plant.

He acknowledged that some people say such an apology is unnecessary and wonder why the nation should apologize for an institution that ended more than a century ago.

"Most of the people who say that don't have ancestors who were slaves. Others say an apology would be empty, just words," he said. "Our nation is strong enough, and good enough, to speak these words."

Journalists must use the power of the pen to influence society -- and politicians -- to redress wrongs, he said.

"When we see someone drowning," Woodley said, "there are times when we are uniquely situated, because of the power of the press behind us and within us, to be their life preserver."

He cited the black students of Prince Edward County whose education was interrupted by the closing of the county schools in 1959 in the wake of Massive Resistance to desegregation.

"Decades later, they were still there, swimming as hard as they could against the tidal forces of history, caught in the tsunami effect of Massive Resistance," Woodley said.

Woodley was instrumental in establishing the state's $2 million Brown v. Board Scholarship Program, which provides scholarship money for Virginians who were the victims of school closings in Prince Edward and other areas of the state.

He campaigned for the scholarships in the Farmville Herald -- whose editorial pages in the 1950s supported Massive Resistance. Woodley, a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, began working for the Herald in 1979.

Woodley also said the nation needs "a domestic Marshall plan for education, health care and economic development opportunities for blacks."

This form of reparation would be a way to repair the damage done by slavery but would be a better course to take than individual cash payments, which could be racially divisive, Woodley said.

"All of us today, no matter our skin pigmentation, were born into a nation fractured by race and, in particular, the consequences of slavery. . . . Americans have been born into consequences they didn't deserve from actions they had nothing at all to do with," Woodley said.

In April, Woodley issued a similar challenge to Sen. George Allen, R-Va., and Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., when both politicians took part in a Faith and Politics Institute pilgrimage to Prince Edward to study reconciliation efforts there.

Last month, Allen said he was undecided whether to sponsor such an apology and he hadn't seen much of a coalition of support for it.

Woodley said that a congressional resolution would be particularly effective if issued before the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown next year.

The George Mason Award recognizes journalists who make lasting contributions to civic journalism and freedom of the press.


Contact staff writer Kathryn Orth at korth@timesdispatch.com or (434) 392-6605.

This story can be found at: http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149188491711&path=!news&s=1045855934842