I wrote this blog a few years back but have decided to re-post due to recent events. It is relevant today as we stand in solidarity to stop the brutality we saw done to George Floyd. We must take this opportunity to work to overcome slavery’s stain. To stand with people of color and all of us to Protest the Injustice, Protect our Neighbors, and Pray for Love, Kindness and Justice for all.
I am just returning from a week long vacation visiting historic sites in Virginia. This is the first of a series of blogs on what I learned. This lesson is the most important. I gained it while visiting the National Museum of African American History and Culture in DC and tours/talks on slavery at Montpelier, Monticello, and Colonial Williamsburg.
What I took away from this experience is four things:
- We owe a debt of gratitude to those enslaved and their descendants for building this country that is hard to repay. The impact that African Americans had on building this country far surpasses their percentage of the population. From the plantation slaves to the Tuskegee Airmen from Marcus Garvey to Martin Luther King, the smarts, sweat, ingenuity and determination of African Americans was a driving force in building this country.
- Slavery was just pure evil and despite the myth, there was no such thing as a “good” slave owner. This was hammered home on both at the Montpelier and Monticello tours. Madison’s stepson John Payne Todd after taking over the estate, ran the estate into bankruptcy and along with his mother Dolly Madison sold off the slaves and broke up families in attempt to pay off debts due to John’s profligacy. Monticello’s tour of Mulberry Row hammered home even more poignantly the evil nature of slavery. Our tour guide was from the Bronx and in the typical no-nonsense way of a New Yorker shattered the myth that Jefferson was a lenient slave owner. Although he decried slavery in his writings, he only freed 6 slaves (less than 1 percent of those at Monticello). And, of those freed, 4 of the 6 were his children by Sally Hemmings as genetic testing suggests. Most of the rest were sold to pay off the debt of Monticello upon his passing. This does not take away from all the good that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison done. Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence and Madison’s Constitution set in motion the ideas that would eventually topple the paradox of slavery. But these flawed men could not fully escape their times.
- We must be ever vigilant. The museum climbs from the basement to the ground floor with the presidency of Barrack Obama. In this way, it is meant to show America as it progresses from the depths of slavery to the promise of a more equal future. But there is nothing in the museum that prevents a person from walking back down through history into the basement. Indeed, in the last years we have taken some giant steps back with George Floyd, Ahmaud Aubrey, Breonna Taylor. But we have and need to start climbing again. America in better than this! We still hear the echoes of slavery and the vestiges of the past. This time I spent in our nation’s past has hammered home in me the need to be ever vigilant. We cannot let the mistakes of the past repeat themselves. We must continue to stand for civil rights and secure justice. To be on guard and fight for equality for all and a more perfect union.