Modern world should never turn away from legacy of slavery, Biden says while in Angola
President Joe Biden delivers a speech at the Slavery Museum in Luanda, Angola, on Tuesday, where he discussed the nations' past slavery experiences and current economic cooperation. Photo by Ampe Rogerio/EPA-EFE
Dec. 3 (UPI) -- While acknowledging an often painful past, President Joe Biden stressed unity between now-friendly nations during his trip to Angola on Tuesday.
While addressing a gathering outside the National Museum of Slavery in Luanda, Angola, on Tuesday, Biden said, "There's nothing beyond our capacity if we work together."
"To fully consider how far our countries have come in our friendship, we have to remember how we began," Biden told the audience. "Young women [and] young men born free in the highlands in Angola, only to be captured, bound and forced in a death march along this very coast to this spot by slave-traders in the year 1619."
Biden said they were taken to the British colony of Virginia more than 150 years before the United States became a nation and nearly 250 years before slaves would be freed during and after the Civil War.
Biden called slavery the United States' "original sin" and said the nation still has an "unfinished reckoning with racial injustice."
Biden also said Angolans accounted for a significant percentage of slaves brought to America while it was still a British colony until the United States banned the importation of slaves in 1808.
"We remember the stolen men, women and children who were brought to our shores in chains, subjected to unimaginable cruelty," Biden said.
The president introduced three U.S. citizens, whom he identified as descendants of the first slaves from Angola who were brought to the British colonies, and introduced them as Wanda Tucker of Hamilton, Va., her brother Vincent and sister Carolita.
"While history can be hidden, it cannot and should not be erased," Biden said. "It should be faced."
Biden said he is the first U.S. president to visit Angola and the "United States is all-in on Africa's future."
U.S. investments in Africa support clean energy, health care, sports and other sectors in Africa while African voices are being heard, he added.
Biden also met with Angolan President Joao Lourenco on Tuesday to discuss trade and investment opportunities that keep the United States and Angola competitive while defending workers' interests and strengthening democracy around the world.
Biden highlighted the significance of more than $3 billion in U.S. investments in Angolan infrastructure projects, including the multinational Lobito Trans-Africa Corridor that supports the creation of quality jobs while improving the lives of Angolans and other Africans.
Biden and Lourenco on Tuesday co-hosted the Lobito Trans-Africa Corridor that is intended to accelerate the development of the economic corridor in Africa and will support the growth of the $1.77 billion economic relationship between the United States and Angola in 2023, the White House announced.
Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo in November signed a memorandum of understanding with Angola's Ministry of Commerce to establish the U.S.-Angola Commercial and Investment Partnership to enhance commercial ties between the nations and their economies.
The United States also continues to support Angola's efforts to fight corruption and increase accountability and the rule of law and since 2020 has funded grants to support Angolan entrepreneurship and other advancements to improve communities throughout Angola. White House officials said.
Biden is in Angola for a three-day visit after earlier promising to visit Africa while he is the nation's president.
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