General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMissing From Presidents Day: The People They Enslaved.
Over a quarter of US presidents were involved in human trafficking.
http://zinnedproject.org/2014/02/hidden-black-history-of-white-house/
Schools across the country are adorned with posters of the 44 U.S. presidents and the years they served in office. U.S. history textbooks describe the accomplishments and challenges of the major presidential administrationsGeorge Washington had the Revolutionary War, Abraham Lincoln the Civil War, Teddy Roosevelt the Spanish-American War, and so on. Childrens books put students on a first-name basis with the presidents, engaging readers with stories of their dogs in the Rose Garden or childhood escapades. Washington, D.C.s Smithsonian Institution welcomes visitors to an exhibit of the first ladies gowns and White House furnishings.
Nowhere in all this information is there any mention of the fact that more than one in four U.S. presidents were involved in human trafficking and slavery. These presidents bought, sold, and bred enslaved people for profit. Of the 12 presidents who were enslavers, more than half kept people in bondage at the White House. For this reason, there is little doubt that the first person of African descent to enter the White Houseor the presidential homes used in New York (178890) and Philadelphia (17901800) before construction of the White House was completewas an enslaved person.
The White House itself, the home of presidents and quintessential symbol of the U.S. presidency, was built with slave labor, just like most other major building projects had been in the 18th-century United States, including many of our most famous buildings like Philadelphias Independence Hall, Bostons Faneuil Hall, Thomas Jeffersons Monticello, and James Madisons Montpelier. President Washington initially wanted to hire foreign labor to build the White House, but when he realized how costly it would be to pay people fairly, he resorted to slave labor.
Constructed in part by black slave labor, the home and office of the president of the United States has embodied different principles for different people. For whites, whose social privileges and political rights have been protected by the laws of the land, the White House has symbolized the power of freedom and democracy over monarchy. For blacks, whose history is rooted in slavery and the struggle against white domination, the symbolic power of the White House has shifted along with each presidents relation to black citizenship. For many whites and people of color, the White House has symbolized the supremacy of white people both domestically and internationally. U.S. nativists with colonizing and imperialist aspirations understood the symbolism of the White House as a projection of that supremacy on a global scale. This idea is embodied in the building project itself.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)And the blood and pain of those who did most of the bleeding is glossed over in our public schools. There is a feeling that we need to shield our young from the brutalities of our past, but when we do, we leave them with no understanding of the brutalities of the present.
1939
(1,683 posts)1. The Revolutionary War did not occur during George Washington's presidential administration.
2. The Spanish-American War did not occur during Teddy Roosevelt's presidential administration.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)oberliner
(58,724 posts)And even more extensively in college.