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“We need to have truth and justice commissions to present to the public what slavery did and how we actually are all involved and either benefited or were hurt,” said Melinda Chateauvert, an African-American studies professor at University of Maryland, College Park.

Slavery “has been deliberately obscured, and we don’t have that atonement that really has to come from having an open discussion.”

Democratic Sen. Nathaniel Exum and Del. Michael Vaughn, both of Prince George’s, introduced identical resolutions that would express “profound regret for the role that Maryland played in instituting and maintaining slavery and for the discrimination that was slavery’s legacy.”

Exum said he agrees the apology should serve as a catalyst for future discussions.

“No one has officially said that [slavery] was wrong,” he said.

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Maryland “imported men, women and children, torn from their homes in Africa and subjected to the brutality of the Middle Passage,” according to the resolution.

“Maryland citizens trafficked in human flesh until the adoption of the Constitution of 1864 and ... subjected its victims to unspeakable cruelties, including beatings, rape and the forcible separation of family members from one another.”

Human trafficking occurred in Maryland as recently as the 1930s, Chateauvert said, when Baltimoreans were sold to farmers on the Eastern Shore.

Her suggestion to form commissions is modeled after groups established to address genocide in Rwanda and Cambodia, she said.

Virginia became the first state last month to apologize for slavery, and Missouri is considering it.

Four advocates and no opponents spoke at a Senate hearing on the measure this month.

A House hearing has not been scheduled.

kvolkmann@baltimoreexaminer.com