The Boston Globe
Historians hope significance comes to light as Obama takes office
By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff December 28, 2008
WASHINGTON - When Barack Obama takes the oath of office at the US Capitol, the first African-American to become president will be standing amid stonework laid by slaves more than two centuries ago. He will appear before a crowd massed on the Mall, where slaves were once held in pens, ready for auction. He will end his inauguration route at the White House, where the foundations were laid by slaves, and where eight presidents held blacks as their human property.
At nearly every turn of Obama's march to history, the thread that deeply intertwines the founding of the nation with its great stain, slavery, will be evident. Yet for all the attention on Obama's racial breakthrough, the full story of slavery in the nation's capital remains beneath the surface.
While the Lincoln Memorial on the far end of the Mall draws attention to the fight to end slavery, there is no memorial at the spot near the Capitol where slaves were once kept and sold in a three-story building called the Yellow House.
"Many people come down to the National Mall and never realize that they are walking on the site of the slave markets," said Jesse J. Holland, author of the recent book, "Black Men Built the Capitol." Now, with Obama's inauguration, historians are hoping that the role of slaves in the history of building Washington will become more widely recognized.
Obama is the son of a black African father and a white Kansan mother, while his wife, Michelle, has a direct connection to America's history of enslavement, as Obama noted during the presidential campaign, saying the next first lady "carries within her the blood of slaves and slave owners." Her great-great grandfather, on her father's side, was born into slavery and is believed to have lived in a small cabin at a coastal South Carolina rice plantation.
Thus, a story that begins with slavery comes full circle with the arrival of the Obamas. "It is an affirmation of the whole democratic ideal in American history," said historian William Seale, author of "The President's House."
It was in the early 1790s that the government of the United States, founded on the notion that "all men are created equal," began to pay slaveholders for the work of their slaves on both the Capitol and the White House.
Full Story: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2008/12/28/at_capitol_slaverys_story_turns_full_circle/?page=full
1 comment:
Whites in the U.S. of America should be ashamed of themselves for the way in which they treat black Americans to this day, that helped to build this country. They should hang their heads in shame. We can give reparations to the Japanes and we can bil out AIG, The big three et al, ut no reparations are even thought of for lacks. Racewill always be an issue in this country.
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