Slave Trade

Michael Apted sits in a posh, sunlit Washington hotel room discussing his film Amazing Grace, which opened this weekend, anticipating what questions may arise out of his approach to the 19th-century abolitionist tale. Surely, he believes, some detractors are bound to ask: Why make a film about Britain's slave trade in Africa with virtually no slavery scenes and only one black main character? "I'll have to eat that," says Apted, who says he's also braced for those who will scoff at his nearly all-English cast, with few box-office notables.

Calling racism "a spiritual evil" that must be "named, confronted and dealt with," Cardinal William H. Keeler prayed for forgiveness last night on behalf of Baltimore's Roman Catholics for their past acts of racial discrimination and participation in the slave trade. "We gather here this evening mindful of the pain of poverty so many feel, mindful also of an evil, a spiritual malady that has gnawed at the moral fiber of our nation, our community and our church from the early days of Colonial America," Keeler said during an evening prayer service that nearly filled the Basilica of the Assumption, the first cathedral of the American Roman Catholic church.

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Lured by easy riches, the Dutch took up the slave trade in the 17th century and left a legacy of brutality. From the start of European settlements in the North America, the Dutch had their hands in slaving. The first 20 Africans to arrive in the British colony at Jamestown were brought from the West Indies in 1619 by a Dutch trader who had robbed them from a Spanish ship. He exchanged his human cargo for food. Almost from its beginning in 1621, the Dutch West India Company found a place for slaves in its financial schemes.

Quick, how many U.S. presidents owned slaves? Two? Washington and Jefferson? Hmm. Madison and Monroe? A new Web site created by a Wesleyan University psychology professor and a team of researchers and designers is an eye-opener. The answer is not two. Two is not even close. Four is not close either. Go to www.understanding prejudice.org/slavery, and take the quiz. If you are like most of the people who have taken it so far, you will flunk. You also will be asked to guess how many slaves were owned by each of the presidents who owned slaves.

Christopher Columbus may get all the ink nowadays, but in those heady final years of the 15th century, when all sorts of explorers were making all sorts of perilous journeys, Vasco da Gama was just as important a figure."

Today -- when this country may find itself at war -- is the birthday of one of the 20th century's greatest peacemakers, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And tonight in Meyerhoff Hall, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's annual celebration of Dr. King's birthday will present Hannibal Peterson's "African Portraits," which the jazz composer and trumpeter has dedicated to "all the world's peace lovers."Peterson, 42, is a Texas-born veteran of the Gil Evans Orchestra and the Elvin Jones and Roland Kirk groups, who now is best known for his own Hannibal Peterson Quartet.

Jews and SlavesThe article "Jews and the Slave Trade" (Perspective, Feb. 13) by David Brion Davis could easily have been written by an admirer of Louis Farrakhan.Whether Mr. Davis has written an interesting and objective book on the slave trade is not the question. The excerpt from his writings as presented by The Sun would not disturb Mr. Farrakhan in the least. In fact, Mr. Farrakhan would probably give it his approval.There are several important considerations concerning the article.First, no references are made as to the source of Mr. Davis' material.

A British organization's planned march through Annapolis - described as an apology across generations for the trans-Atlantic slave trade - was granted a waiver from municipal fees by the Annapolis city council yesterday. The London-based Lifeline Expedition is working with the local Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Foundation Inc. in planning the Annapolis event as the kickoff for its first U.S. tour. As part of its quest to heal scars left by slavery, the group has scheduled the stop in Annapolis for Sept.

Teaching Afro-American or black history is not a simple matter of creating a pantheon of heroes and romanticizing ''the first'' in areas of art, business, education, politics or any other field. Teaching black history may, in fact, be an unsettling experience for both blacks and whites.For whites it will mean entertaining the heretical thought that America was not exclusively a noble experiment founded on the principles of brotherhood and charity. For blacks it will mean the discovery of meanness and baseness in some ''soul brothers'' that cannot be ignored.

BOSTON -- In his new, widely publicized book ''Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa,'' author Keith Richburg of the Washington Post sees the corpses of massacred Africans and writes, ''If things had been different, I might have been'' one of them. ''So I thank God my ancestor survived that voyage.''At another point, he visits the place where Africans were loaded for the voyage: Goree Island in Senegal. Many African-Americans cry when they visit Goree. Mr. Richburg writes that he felt ''little personal connection or pain.