Rhode Island considers 'plantation' name change
Rhode Island considers taking 'plantation' out of its official state name.
The plantation where Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively got married has issued a statement now that the famous couple has voiced regret about tying the knot in a venue where slavery took place.
Their selected venue – the more than 330-year-old Boone Hall Plantation & Gardens in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina – released the following statement to Fox News:
Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. (Getty)
“We treasure all our relationships with couples that have chosen to get married at Boone Hall, and, when needed, respond to them in private, honest, and personal discussions to address any concerns they may have. The discussions are heartfelt as we want to listen and put love and respect at the center of any issues that arise. We will always work to be a part of the solution for our couples, not a part of the problem.”
RYAN REYNOLDS APOLOGIZES FOR PLANTATION WEDDING WITH BLAKE LIVELY: 'GIANT F--KING MISTAKE'
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The preserved estate, which is located eight miles from Downtown Charleston, was settled and founded by Englishman Major John Boone in 1681 – 95 years before the Declaration of Independence was adopted and 184 years before the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was ratified to abolish slavery.
In modern day, the property doesn’t hide from its past and operates historical tours and educational programs regarding colonial rule and the enslavement of Black people from the African diaspora. Nine cabins and other antebellum relics are displayed, which is a fact that some critics have a problem with considering Boone Hall hosts special events and weddings.
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And now Reynolds, 43 and Lively, 32, have reportedly reflected on that criticism.
"It's something we'll always be deeply and unreservedly sorry for," Reynolds said in a recent interview with Fast Company. "It's impossible to reconcile.”
The couple originally got married at Boone Hall in 2012 but privately remarried a few years later in their home, he told the outlet.
PINTEREST, THE KNOT AND OTHER WEDDING PLATFORMS MOVE AWAY FROM PLANTATION WEDDINGS
Last year, major wedding publications such as The Knot and Brides committed to not featuring plantation weddings in addition to the image-based platform Pinterest and wedding planning resource Zola.
The decision was made after a letter was distributed by Color of Change, a progressive nonprofit civil rights advocacy organization.
“The wedding industry makes hundreds of millions of dollars in profit by promoting plantations as romantic places to marry, and in doing so, routinely denies the violent conditions Black people faced under chattel slavery,” the nonprofit’s Vice President Arisha Hatch wrote to FOX Business at the time. “Plantations are physical reminders of one of the most horrific human rights abuses the world has ever seen, which, over the course of the Atlantic Slave Trade, enslaved 10.7 million Black people in the Americas.”
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