WEEKEND MEMOS

'Weekend memos' give our editorial writers a chance to express their own opinions, comment on topics they have been writing about, or take a lighter approach. The opinions in 'Memos' do not always follow the Enquirer's editorial positions.

There will be much to write about as President George W. Bush completes his tour of Africa this week - AIDS, war, famine and political alliances.

But I was impressed by where the president chose to stop first: Goree Island, Senegal, the last piece of homeland an estimated 20 million Africans saw before being taken to other lands as slaves.

There was a photograph, striking in its appearance and its significance, of the U.S. president standing alongside Senegal's president, Abdoulaye Wade, at "The Door of No Return" in newspapers all over America this week.

We can recount the horrors of slavery all we want on these shores. We can pontificate on how its legacy has crippled generations of African-Americans, socially, economically and in other ways to this day.

But seeing Goree Island brings the reality of the past home with great clarity.

My hat is off to Bush and his advisers for being there. A lot of folks have been asking Bush to apologize for slavery. Perhaps they did not hear his speech.

"For hundreds of years on this island peoples of different continents met in fear and cruelty. Today we gather in respect and friendship, mindful of past wrongs and dedicated to the advance of human liberty.

"At this place, liberty and life were stolen and sold. Human beings were delivered and sorted, and weighed, and branded with the marks of commercial enterprises, and loaded as cargo on a voyage without return. One of the largest migrations of history was also one of the greatest crimes of history. ..." Bush said.

Bush acknowledged slavery as a crime and the pain of a people, and he did it at the source.

Then, too, his actions speak louder than words. His African-American security adviser and secretary of state were with him, and are playing crucial roles in the policy decision to engage Africa, finally, in a meaningful way.

Most African-Americans are born with the knowledge that their ancestors were brought here as slaves. But over generations, the immorality that was slavery has been replaced with freedom and opportunity ripe for the taking.

That makes me a proud American.

Byron McCauley