MSNBC’s Mitchell Slams ‘Flatly Incorrect’ Northam over Slavery Comment: ‘They Were Not Indentured People’

EXCERPT:

MITCHELL: "Embattled Virginia Governor Ralph Northam with a flatly incorrect version of how slavery started in America 400 years ago. As we commemorate, black history month, Northam says -- excuse me, he will not resign from his position, despite photos on his medical school yearbook page showing a person in black face and another in a Ku Klux Klan robe. Today, he repeats his error trying to attribute it to a historian advice writing, 'During a recent event at Fort Monroe I spoke about the arrival of the first Africans in Virginia and referred to them in my remarks as enslaved. A historian advised me that the use of indentured was more historically accurate -- the fact is, I’m still learning and committed to getting it right.' Well, that is not accurate and I don't know what historian he was talking to. Joining me now, NBC White House correspondent Geoff Bennett who has been covering the story from the beginning and Kimberly Atkins, senior Washington news correspondent from WBUR, Washington's -- Boston’s NPR and MSNBC contributor. Geoff, I mean, I don’t know who he was talking to when he talks about this recent --"
BENNETT: "Yeah."
MITCHELL: "-- event he went to, but they were not indentured people. They were slaves brought in 1619 to Jamestown and they were the first slaves brought to America from Africa -- end.”