'Sorry' for the Tuskegee Experiments
Twenty-five years after the U.S. finally ended 40 years of nontherapuetic experimentation on 600 black men at the Tuskegee Institute, President Bill Clinton made a formal, if somewhat underwhelming, apology. "[They] are a living link to a time not so very long ago that many Americans would prefer not to remember but we dare not forget. It was a time when our nation failed to live up to its ideals … that is the very foundation of our democracy. The United States government did something that was wrong, deeply, profoundly, morally wrong. To the survivors, to the wives and family members, the children and the grandchildren, I say what you know: No power on Earth can give you back the lives lost, the pain suffered, the years of internal torment and anguish. What was done cannot be undone. But we can end the silence. We can stop turning our heads away. We can look at you in the eye and finally say on behalf of the American people, what the United States government did was shameful, and I am sorry."
