Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 1, 1993 TAG: 9306010231
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Gov. Wilder's proposal to build a national monument and museum at Jamestown to honor victims of America's slave trade is a fine idea. Virginians of all races ought to be proud that Wilder thought of it, and - unlike his snake-bit proposal to give the Washington Redskins a new home in Alexandria - Virginians should get behind it.
The governor, who announced his plans during an African-African American Summit in Gabon, conceived of the project during his first trip to Africa last year. He was moved, then, by a visit to an infamous slave house in Dakar, Senegal, where black men, women and children were cruelly held before being put on ships to the New World.
The memorial Wilder envisions at Jamestown would, like the new Holocaust museum in Washington, serve to remind future generations of the horrors that humans are capable of inflicting on one another, horrors that never again should be sanctioned.
But it also could be more closely connected with our history. It could teach Americans about their heritage, and to honor black people - both those who were enslaved for labor, and those who've come along since in freedom - for their role in building this country. However much we might like to forget the dark history of slavery, we should not.
The governor, who will leave office in January, is not talking of using state money or land from the state-run Jamestown Festival Park. He says the project would be privately financed, and that he will lead a national fund-raising drive for it.
Who better than Wilder, whose own roots include grandparents who were slaves, to take on this project?
What better site for such a memorial than in Jamestown, where the slaves first landed? And in Virginia, which overcame its racial heritage - to the extent, anyway, of electing Doug Wilder governor.
by CNB