Ghouliani ducks question: Apologizing for slavery is a "local" decision.

ATLANTA (AP) -- Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, making a swing through the South on Wednesday, ducked the racially charged issue of whether Georgia should apologize for slavery, saying it was up to individual states.

"States like Georgia should decide that for themselves," Giuliani said at a stop in Atlanta. "I read the Federalist papers and there's a great deal of wisdom in the idea that most of these issues should be decided locally," Giuliani said....

The Georgia arm of the NAACP is pushing for the Peach State to apologize as well. State Rep. Al Williams, leader of Georgia's Legislative Black Caucus, said Wednesday negotiations over language continued and he was confident a proposal would be ready before the end of the Georgia legislative session next Friday.

Giuliani has had a rocky relationship in the black community. During his tenure as mayor of New York, police shot and killed unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo and Haitian immigrant Abner Louima was beaten and sodomized with a plunger in a Brooklyn station house. Black leaders lambasted the mayor for refusing to meet with them and for supporting the police.

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