Past Injustices Quotes

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future. We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

When people think of slavery, they think of an era from the distant past. Grainy photographs from Civil War times. And yet it goes on.

Coming up in America in the '80s and '90s, we were not too far removed from slavery. People forget that.

The injustices of the past are past. There’s no way to make them up.

It's History that's caused all the troubles in the past.

Honestly, because of the way women were treated, I wouldn't want to go back to Puritan times.

[James] Baldwin explained that you have your own history, and that you cannot be responsible, for example, for slavery.

The justice of our cause must be reflected in the manner in which we rectify the crimes of the past.

That happens to a lot of couples. I understand the black history in this country, and regret it, I wish it hadn't happened. See, I also know that it hasn't happened to African-Americans alive today. There isn't one African-American alive today who's treated as three-fifths of a person like it was in the past.

I have a lot of faith in justice systems around the world even though there were cases in the past where that faith wasn't justified in some countries.

I excavate history. I look at lives buried under too much silence. Periods of time, like slavery, have to be revisited, reimagined, so we can move through them.

Within white Australia, there was a growing movement for what was known as reconciliation - a movement that peaked with millions marching in 2000 to demand the government say sorry for past injustices.

Our crimes, for which we are responsible: as taxpayers, for failing to provide massive reparations, for granting refuge and immunity to the perpetrators, and for allowing the terrible facts to be sunk deep in the memory hole. All of this is of great significance, as it has been in the past.

I am not asking you as a white person to see yourself as an enslaver. I'm asking you as an American to see all of the freedoms that you enjoy and see how they are rooted in things that the country you belong to condoned or actively participated in the past.

As we celebrate the considerable progress we've made toward full equality in our military, we cannot forget about those who continue to suffer because of the discriminatory policies of our past.