Best Historical Accountability Quotes

"No nation can get past their past without correcting it."

"We are writing a record we will have to explain to the next generation."

"He's causing an exposure of America's original sin."

"The sins of your forefathers are going to be visited upon your children and their children's children."

"A great nation does not hide its history, it faces its flaws and corrects them."

"There is a totally reasonable genesis to it which is there are things from our past we have not looked at enough."

"In Britain, the aristocrats still had to pay tax to the monarch. They were still accountable."

"History will not let us forget that America... failed to protect defenseless civilians."

"We shouldn't ruin people's careers based on old stuff they've said."

"You're actually campaigning for whatever other position you want because you become so famous when you run for president."

"America will not have the future that we want if we're not willing to clean up this original character defect of racism."

"If you do not stand with the descendants of American slaves, then you are standing with injustice."

"Sorry, sorry for the alleged sins of those who died decades before we were born, sorry for the color of our skin." - Unknown

"No statute of limitation of questioning treachery. Never forget and keep asking, the truth always becomes evident even if not admitted."

"For all that von Manstein attempted to exonerate himself and his fellow generals, he was just as complicit in the crimes of the Third Reich as many of the Nazi leaders."

"Reparations should happen. Let's start right here."

"Your decisions are causing people to die." - British official to Churchill

"Germany's voluntary payments for past wrongs amount thus far to more than 55 billion over a period of six decades and are unparalleled in history."

"It's absolutely shocking that this was happening lives had been destroyed."

"The state now owes it to the descendants of people to provide them with answers and some sort of redress."

"We are the daily reminder of this nation's hypocrisy, and I argue that's why we have been constantly punished because we have the audacity to survive."

"The church's failure to speak out against slavery remains sustained on its historical record."

"Nations make mistakes. You can move forward if you understand those mistakes, but we have to be open about them."

"We have to reckon with the fact that we did that as a nation, the United States of America. We let that happen. Admit that."

"Ultimately, what we did in the past shouldn't be used to validate the continuing existence of that action."

"Post-war congress sought to hold Britain responsible for the destruction caused by the Alabama."

"Everything she's wearing here all this bling is stolen as [ __ ] the only reason she ever had the position she did was because her ancestors were a bunch of thieving and murdering Warlords."

"If you want to predicate the dispensation you're giving to black people... on the fact that our ancestors suffered X Y & Z, then it's a cold fact."

"Apology is not the way to go. To apologize for something is to take responsibility for it, but you obviously cannot take responsibility and ownership of things that were done at a time when you didn't exist."

"Nobody is responsible for the actions of their ancestors and one man cannot and should not apologize to another man for events that occurred before both of them were born."

"We need a 911 commission to find out what happened and make sure it never happens again."

"He was an executive administrator of genocide."

"Much as he had done when questioned at trial, at both Nuremberg and in Warsaw, Höss made no effort to disguise the truth of what had occurred at Auschwitz and his role in it."

"We must not just confess our sins, iniquities, and transgressions, but the sins and transgressions of the ancestors."

"Let there be a change where white people, those in particular who have benefited from the slave trade, let them now decide that they have a pang of conscience."

"That was 70, 80 years ago. I mean, this is the person, the people that own the company now have absolutely nothing to do with that."

"The overwhelming response to the truth and reconciliation commission, the apology, the dark legacy of unspeakable things we did to children in the name of erasing their very identity was indifference."

"Here's where the British could legitimately be charged with war crimes because they are deliberately undertaking an action that they know will result in unnecessary exposure of risk to a civilian population."

"It's hard to think of any society in human history in which a majority population has said that as a consequence of historic wrongs we're now going to make to take a big chunk of the nation's resources over a long period of time to make that right."

"Reparations are like demanding back what was stolen from you, with compound interest."

"Should bad history mean that a person can never change?"

"To correct past errors, you have to acknowledge past errors."

"I've already forgiven you. Your country's already paid the price."

"Please pay recognition to those who have had family destroyed by the selfishness and the greed of, well, not only colonization but governments and organized religion preying upon innocent people."

"Slavery reparation becomes a moral duty the US cannot escape anymore."

"If the Pakistani military that are guilty of the crimes 50 years ago in Bangladesh would have been tried, we would have saved a lot of lives in Balochistan."

"No amount of money can make up for the historical sins of the Church of England." - Reverend Dr Ian Paul

"Your community created racism. Your community created Jim Crow."

"We built this country with slave labor, our ancestors eat, and there's a debt for that."

"A crime is a crime, and they're not backing down on pre-2016 crimes."

"We have to continue that freedom struggle in this country. We were not rooted properly and this is a blame you know this is a blame on everyone who didn't root us that way."

"The bottom line is that serious crimes happened on the Queen's imperial watch."

"You created the mess, things were going quite well before you showed up."

"Ilhan Omar a progressive Democrat she called out Elliot Abrams to his face and pointed out his history of involvement in war crimes and genocide."

"In the immediate aftermath of World War II, Germany didn't exactly fall over itself to try former Nazis."

"It's awful, I love being an American, but it's about time we address the hurt we've caused in the world."

"For Who We Are. If the truth is that we are systemically racist and that all our recent past is a past of racism and exploitation, then who on Earth would want to maintain faith in us?"

"It's been 20 years. These people deserve some information."

"There is no question from the presidents on down for the past 50 years those that have been in charge of these experiments, there's no question that this is truly beyond treason."

"You cannot rewrite history, Mr. Murdoch. The problem was criminal."

"Yeah, cut the check, but no one can be held responsible today for what happened many hundreds years ago."

"If we read more literature, would this be a nicer, more peaceful, a more tolerant world? Yes."

"I think reparations are eventually going to be needed for people of every country that we have soiled the land of."

"We cannot blame our own for decisions and actions done before they were brought to this earth."

"No one can be held responsible today for what happened many hundreds of years ago."

"Reparations should be paid by any business that thrived off of slave labor if it is still around."

"History will not excuse the inadequacy of our response because of the enormity of the challenge."

"...unless America has a kind of almost like a truth and reconciliation committee where a lot of this stuff that happened at this absolutely seismic time in their past is accounted for and is brought out into the light..."

"I have a responsibility to tell the story, then there will be people who will say it never happened."

"We need a more dynamic picture to prepare the society... giving folks money that was taken from them historically is a good thing, but in the long run, we're going to revert to that other mean unless there are other preparations for how we reorder our society."

"If we can't fully account for one of the worst incidents of racial violence in the U.S., then who are we as a people and what does this country actually stand for?"