c. 2004 Religion News Service

ANNAPOLIS, Md. _ Dressed in a black T-shirt marked with the words “So Sorry,” London citizen David Pott dropped to his knees and apologized for his ancestors’ role in transporting slaves to America.

“I confess the greed of my city and that I was made rich at the expense of Africans,” said the tall white man near a bronze statue of author Alex Haley that marks the landing point of Kunta Kinte, Haley’s slave ancestor made famous through the book and movie “Roots.”

“I ask forgiveness of African-Americans here today for the horrors endured by your ancestors on London slave ships.”

On Wednesday (Sept. 29), Pott and a dozen other people comprised a core group who led Annapolis residents on a reconciliation walk on the 237th anniversary of the landing of the Lord Ligonier ship that brought Kinte here.

The Lifeline Expedition, Pott’s London-based Christian organization, has visited European countries with links to the slave trade and continues its reconciliation effort with a tour of the eastern United States that began in Annapolis. The tour marks the latest attempt to foster improved relations between blacks and whites by recalling slave times of yesterday and racism of today.

The Annapolis walkers started at the dock where the ship landed, passed a tavern where slaves were sold, and ended at a statue of Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court justice, that sits in the shadow of the Maryland State House. About 200 people, many wearing armbands declaring themselves “forgivers” or “penitents,” joined Pott’s international troupe. The crowd included white members who symbolically wore chains and a yoke to dramatize their penitence and an African drummer whose beat quickened as participants marked two centuries of history.

Under a cloudy sky, members of the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Foundation joined the British group in a two-hour ceremony that culminated with Haley’s nephew, Chris Haley, shaking hands with Orlando Ridout IV, a descendant of John Ridout, one of the men who sold Kunta Kinte into slavery.

“By golly, if they can do it, who can’t?” asked Leonard Blackshear, president of the Annapolis foundation, which plans to spearhead ongoing interracial “study circles” to continue efforts toward reconciliation.

Participants in the event came from far and near, some wanting to bring history to life for their children, others hoping for an easing of racial tensions in the Annapolis area.

Shari Lienau traveled with her family of 11 via motor home from Camano Island, Wash., to expose her home-schooled children to the Lifeline Expedition’s message.

“We all learn better visually,” said Lienau, a white woman with a “penitent” armband who was surrounded by her children, some of whom are adopted Native Americans. “History is the greatest teacher and if we can learn from our past _ both the mistakes and the good things _ we think our children will be in a great place to be great citizens and hopefully leaders, too.”

Cynthia Carter, the first African-American alderwoman on the Annapolis City Council, said racial tension in the city is hindering its progress.

“I want to see us heal in this city,” said the fourth-generation resident, who wore a “forgiver” armband.

“There’s a lot of division, separatism, hatred which derives from bigotry, racism.”

As the Lifeline Expedition members dropped their chains at the home of slaveholder and Declaration of Independence signer William Paca, a few protesters with an opposing view held signs across the street that read “You Are Entering a White Guilt Zone.” Organizers said hate fliers were distributed in the weeks prior to the march.

Others chose not to support the walk because they were more interested in present circumstances rather than history.

“I think they should focus on slavery that’s going on now in other countries rather than what’s happening in the past,” said Mari Andujan, a white woman from nearby Arnold who works in an Annapolis restaurant. “We can change what’s going on now.”

Organizers said some people misunderstood the purpose of the walk but that was all the more reason to march.

“Personal discomfort around this topic is precisely a … big piece of what racism today is and we just need to get more comfortable about it,” said Patience Schenck, a member of the Annapolis Friends Meeting who supported the reconciliation walk. “We need to listen to each other. We need to review history.”

The Lifeline Expedition troupe will continue its U.S. tour with October visits to Baltimore, Boston, Rhode Island, Charleston, S.C., and Richmond, Va.

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It follows previous tours that aimed to foster racial reconciliation in communities across the country and the globe.

Donald W. Shriver Jr., former president of Union Theological Seminary in New York, said a similar unity walk was held in Richmond in 1993 that visited historic sites in the former capital of the Confederacy. More recently, the Faith and Politics Institute has sponsored pilgrimages for members of Congress to key sites of the civil rights movement in the Alabama cities of Selma, Montgomery and Birmingham.

“The 1990s saw a remarkable outbreak of groups concerned to say `I’m sorry’ and to consider some kind of reparation, even if symbolic, to the descendants of some deeply harmed groups of people,” said Shriver, author of the forthcoming book “Honest Patriots: Loving a Country Enough to Remember Its Misdeeds.”

He predicted walks like the Lifeline Expedition project, which began in 2000, will continue “if we can ever get over our preoccupation with terrorism.”

“We need to think that something like terrorism was carried out against some people in our past.”

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