US politician: Let's mark end of slavery

A politician who enraged black leaders by saying black Virginians “should just get over” slavery, has changed his message, proposing celebrating the end of slavery instead.

Delegate Frank Hargrove attracted criticism from across the US earlier this month after telling a newspaper he opposed a legislative resolution offering an official apology for slavery because no one living today was involved in it.

He asked whether Jews should be made to apologise for the crucifixion of Christ as well.

Two days later, the state’s black leaders demanded an official censure of Hargrove and an apology from the Republican Party and threatened protests.

In remarks during a legislative session yesterday, Hargrove, 79, said a Mississippi minister who had read his remarks had called and suggested a state resolution supporting a ”Juneteenth” observance for Virginia.

Juneteenth is the observance of the day in 1865 when Union officers read the proclamation declaring slavery’s end in Galveston, Texas, considered the last outpost of the defeated Confederacy to hear the news.

The minister, the Reverend Ronald Myers, is chairman of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation.

“I think it’s very worthy because it’s positive that we here in Virginia and it has nothing to do with the apology. That we celebrate the end of slavery,” Hargrove said.

“Slavery’s over with, it was a horrible institution, there’s nobody living today that approved of it, that thought it was worthwhile.”

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported yesterday that genealogical research conducted by the newspaper and the Library of Virginia revealed that Hargrove’s great-grandfather, Nathan Hargrove, had owned a slave.

Hargrove has previously said he did not know whether any of his ancestors had owned slaves.

When confronted with the discovery, Hargrove said he was not surprised.

“I didn’t know that. I never heard that. That’s probably true,” he said of his great-grandfather.