Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 21, 1994 TAG: 9408210101
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: JAMESTOWN LENGTH: Short
The greatest honor that can be bestowed on those 20 or so Africans who came as indentured servants is to overcome the barriers that still face blacks, said Carol Reid-Wallace, a Corporation for Public Broadcasting senior vice president, during the two-hour ceremony.
"We must wipe out the drugs that are destroying us. We must educate our children whether they want to be educated or not. We must take care of the elderly," she said.
The arrival of the first blacks in America should be remembered not with resentment but with jubilation, she said.
"It should move us to commemorate the power of the human spirit to endure and persevere," Reid-Wallace said.
While little was recorded about the first blacks in America, they were thought to have been captured in the West Indies, brought by ship to Point Comfort - now Fort Monroe - and taken to Jamestown where they worked as indentured servants, not slaves.
Former Gov. Douglas Wilder, the nation's first elected black governor, was scheduled to speak at the ceremony but arrived after the ceremony ended.
The more than 4,700 who visited the Jamestown Settlement on Saturday were greeted with songs, art, costume and words - both oral and written - of the African culture.
by CNB