The Leon County Commission has voted unanimously to apologize for the slavery and Jim Crow laws of its past. Commission Chair Carolyn Cummings recalls the Jim Crow era of her childhood.
On Tuesday, the Board of County Commissioners adopted a proclamation saying, “The Board acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow laws.”
Cummings, who grew up in Mississippi, remembers her mother explaining that…
“...’Negroes have to come to the back door.’ And then there was a little cubby where you would order your sandwich, but you had to wait till all the patrons in the front were served.”
The commission says it is re-committed to the principle that “all people are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
“It’s just a tremendous acknowledgment from our county, and I think it will help us heal and move forward.”
In making the public apology, the commission followed the lead of Tallahassee’s First Presbyterian Church. Now, Cummings says, the county’s proclamation should also be publicly displayed so everyone can see it.
