Dear people of God: descendants of slaves, descendants of slave masters, and all who have benefited from the systems of slavery and structures of racism, we stand together to express our most profound acknowledgement and regret that the Episcopal Church lent the institution of slavery its support and justification based on scripture, and after slavery was formally abolished, continued for at least a century to benefit from and to support de jure and de facto segregation, discrimination, and racism. – The Bishop of Virginia