Ethics Newsline®

HARTFORD, Connecticut
The Hartford Courant, the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper, last week issued a front-page apology for carrying advertisements for the return of runaway and lost slaves during the 18th and 19th centuries.

The article, “A Courant Complicity, an Old Wrong,” noted that the slave-era ads meant the paper’s publishers “in effect … acted as slave brokers.”

“We are not proud of that part of our history and apologize for any involvement by our predecessors,” Courant spokesman Ken DeLisa said in the article.

In March, the paper covered health insurer Aetna’s apology for underwriting slave owners’ life-insurance policies on slaves, and ran a companion article exploring the complicity of other corporations in abetting slavery.

Last week, the Courant admitted that it too had played a role in the slave trade, printing slave ads from 1765 until at least 1823, though it noted that publishing such ads was “accepted practice” at the time.

The New York Times last week noted that the Courant’s admission may be part of a growing trend among companies to come clean about their ties to the slave trade.

Courant vice president and deputy publisher Lou Golden told the Times that such a trend should be encouraged. “I think it would be a good thing,” Golden said. “I think that corporations and organizations all bear responsibility for what their ancestors and forefathers did.”