White families wear yokes & chains while apologizing for slavery!!! No, this is not a fucking joke folks!!! thank you Brian
NEWPORT – The sight of a 13-year-old boy with a yoke over his head and his hands tied in chains was perhaps the most controversial image in Thursday’s “slavery reconciliation march” through the streets of Newport. Jacob Lienau of Camano Island in Washington said he decided on his own to wear the yoke and chains after seeing a painting of African slave children wearing them in the 19th century, and hearing about the march.
Lienau and his large family, including his parents, Shari and Michael Lienau, and their four biological children and five adopted children, are part of the
Lifeline Expedition that is visiting prominent American slave-trading ports from the Colonial era this month. They marched in Marblehead, Salem and Boston in Massachusetts earlier this week and in Providence on Wednesday. “We recognize this is an unusual form of symbolic action,” said a
brochure the marchers handed out to passersby.
“Our hope and
prayer is that this form of apology will speak in ways that words cannot.” The group submitted a letter to the Newport City Council, asking the council to vote on a letter of apology for the city’s past involvement in the slave trade.
Marchers wear yokes, chains as sign of apology for slavery
- Jacob Lienau, 13, of the Lifeline Expedition, on right
NEWPORT – The sight of a 13-year-old boy with a yoke over his head and his hands tied in chains was perhaps the most controversial image in Thursday’s “slavery reconciliation march” through the streets of Newport.
Jacob Lienau of Camano Island in Washington said he decided on his own to wear the yoke and chains after seeing a painting of African slave children wearing them in the 19th century, and hearing about the march.
“At the end of the slave trade, the majority of the captured slaves were aged 7 to 15,” he said. “We today don’t need to feel guilty, we just need to feel sorry.”
An international march to recognize America’s role in slavery — where white people wear yokes and chains while black people escort them — will arrive in Charleston on Tuesday, a day after the Columbus Day federal holiday.
If the group’s Annapolis, Md., march last week is the measuring stick, the event should be free of violence but mouths will drop open along the parade route.
The Lifeline Expedition is meant to prod observers into talking, praying and thinking about slavery. Charleston, because of its gateway role in the slave trade, is among 10 cities the group is targeting for “slavery reconciliation walks.”
“It’s a Christian response,” said local organizer Tim Hushion.
In Annapolis, the group marched quietly through the city while stepping to the monotone beat of an African drum.
The march coincided with the 237th anniversary of the arrival of the “Roots” novel’s main character Kunta Kinte in Maryland. It drew a crowd of about 200 after months of debate between blacks and whites about whether the march was necessary.
Some observers held signs that decried white guilt. Marchers wore armbands that said “penitent” or “forgiver.” The Annapolis Capitol newspaper described the scene as “remarkably unexplosive.” Local residents, the newspaper said, “merely looked on, some with mouths agape.”
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