The General Assembly would express “profound regret” for Virginia’s role in slavery and for “historic wrongs visited upon native peoples” in the latest version of a proposed apology that cleared the House Rules Committee yesterday, reports Pamela Stallsmith with the Times-Dispatch. The revised version of an apology originally authored by Del. A. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico, passed unanimously.

The new verbiage sounds like an improvement over the original, in which McEachin had called upon the General Assembly “to atone for the involuntary servitude of Africans and call for reconciliation among all Virginians.”

The substitude, submitted by Del. John M. O’Bannon III, R-Henrico, would express the General Assembly’s “profound regret for the commonwealth’s role in sanctioning the immoral institution of human slavery, in the historic wrongs visited upon native peoples, and in all other forms of discrimination and injustice that have been rooted in racial and cultural bias and misunderstanding.”

I can live with that. I’m still concerned about other language in McEachin’s bill that attributes the social ills of African-Americans today to past injustices like slavery and Jim Crow while skipping over the impact of the modern welfare estate. I can’t find the revised bill online. Can someone point me to the revised apology?

Update: Jim Bowden has posted the text of the revised apology, HJR 728, on his website, Deo Vindice. The language does not sugar coat the injustices of slavery or Jim Crow in the least, yet avoids the pitfalls of McEachin’s original.