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JP Morgan apologizes for slavery

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Thursday, January 20, 2005

JP Morgan Chase issued an apology on Thursday for the actions of two of its predecessor banks that accepted slaves as collateral on loans.

Citizens Bank and Canal Bank in Louisiana, which were ultimately acquired by JP Morgan, accepted approximately 13,000 slaves as collateral and took ownership of approximately 1250 between 1831 and 1865, according to a memo to employees from CEO and Chairman William Harrison and President James Dimon.

The memo was in response to a Chicago ordinance, which requires disclosure of slave ownership.

"We apologize to the American public, and particularly to African-Americans, for the role that Citizens Bank and Canal Bank played during that period," said the company on its website. "Although we cannot change the past, we are committed to learning from and emerging stronger because of it." [1]

JP Morgan was involved in a class action suit in 2002 which sought reparations for slavery from it and 17 other companies. The case was dismissed last year.

The bank will establish a $5 million, need-based scholarship for African-American students in Louisiana.

JP Morgan stock fell 1.6 percent on Thursday to $37.25.

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This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

The text of this article is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License
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