Friday, March 6

Slavery: A Lenten inquiry from Ken Sehested

For people of faith, slavery is more than a social issue subject to political realities. It is a deeply theological issue, because it distorts, sometimes erases the imago dei (image of God) stamped on every human heart.

All told, nearly 13 million Africans were forced into servitude and transported to the Americas. Nearly 2 million of those died enroute.

Though the practice of enslavement is as old as recorded history, beginning with the first European flesh merchants in the mid-16th century occasioned the evolution of racial and caste theories needed to justify such barbarity. This became pronounced with the development of industrial scale agriculture in the Americas, which massive free labor made especially profitable in various places in South and Central America, the Caribbean, and the US. Starting in the mid 17th century, British colonial legislatures began codifying slavery in formal statues.

The struggle over slavery in the colonies was a prominent source of aggravation in the founding of the US republic. Thus, the US Constitution of 1787 avoided the word “slave,” but instead used the euphemism “other persons,” with the provision (to secure the support Southern representatives) that each of such would be counted as three-fifths of a person for the census (and thereby representation in Congress).

The celebrated rhetoric of the US Declaration of Independence—that “all men are created equal”—not only did not include slaves. Polling privilege was limited to white, property-owning, adult men. It can be rightly said that slavery was the “original sin” of the United States.

It was a mere 61 years ago that voting privilege for all was established in law. But, of course, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 simply opened the door. Given the enduring reality of structural racism, the “equal” part of our national credo remains a struggle.

---Ken Sehested