Leaders in Ala. town sorry for mishandling 1944 case of black woman raped by gang of white men

[alp227]

Source: The Washington Post

ABBEVILLE, Ala. — Nearly 70 years after Recy Taylor was raped by a gang of white men, leaders of the rural southeast Alabama community where it happened apologized Monday, acknowledging that her attackers escaped prosecution because of racism and an investigation bungled by police.

“It is apparent that the system failed you in 1944,” Henry County probate judge and commission chairwoman JoAnn Smith told several of Taylor’s relatives at a news conference at the county courthouse.

Taylor, 91, lives in Florida and did not attend the news conference. Family members said she was in poor health and was not up to traveling to Abbeville or speaking with reporters. But her 74-year-old brother Robert Corbitt, who still lives in town, was front and center and said he would relay the apology to his sister.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/mayor-in-ala-apologizes-for-mishandling-1944-case-of-black-woman-raped-by-gang-of-white-men/2011/03/21/ABJ9eI7_story.html

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Found this story from http://ebonymompolitics.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/rape-victim-recy-taylor-receives-an-apology/

[dennis4868]

1. Obama's Fault?

[Keith Bee]

2. So.....

...white Abbeville got caught, eh? Hmph! That's always the #1 precursor of an "apology."

[bluestateguy]

3. Well I hope all of the good ole boy white Southern politicians have cleared their consciences now

The South really should have been much more severely punished than it actually was during Reconstruction.

[14thColony]

4. Fortunately more sage minds prevailed at the time

Lincoln and then Johnson feared sparking a decades-long insurgency which, if bloody enough, might in the end prompt the North to abandon the South, thus giving it its independence anyway.

[SemperEadem]

5. too little, too late

the prevailing notion that it was impossible to rape a black woman, that a white man could disrespect and disgrace a black man's wife isn't a dead enough notion for me.

How much atoning have these disgusting barbarians done? When have they come to Ms. Taylor or her family and begged on their knees for forgiveness? Where are the perpetrators now and why can't we go on and drag their names through the mud?

there's an extra hot place in hell waiting on them and anyone who supported them.

[BlueIris]

6. It took them this long to apologize?

On the one hand, it's nice they bothered, but after so many decades, do they really deserve any credit?

Here's hoping it somehow brings the woman some kind of peace.