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They Completed the Founders’ Vision - A Monumental Achievement
- Thoughts on the Recent Statue Wars from a Memorial Organizer by Maurice A. Barboza Founder, National Mall Liberty Fund D.C. August 2020 |
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No, America, do not consider renaming the Washington Monument or evicting Thomas Jefferson from the Tidal Basin, or Rochambeau and de Grasse from Lafayette Park. These statues do not exist in a vacuum. They interrelate with buildings, museums, landscapes and other monuments nearby. From the Colonists’ bold experiment in government ‘by the people’ to the search for a more perfect union and the Articles of Confederation to the 27 amendments of the U.S. Constitution, they voice our nation’s story.
Persuaded that a crucial element is missing from Washington’s Monumental Core, Congress approved a new memorial in 2012 to contemporaries of the Founders. These were African Americans who fought for a vision of independence that foretold the 13th, 14th, and 15th Reconstruction Amendments. They passed down patriotism to their children and grandchildren who would fight for emancipation and to save the union in the Civil War.
While monuments to the Founders present only one side of the story and are silent on the issue of slavery, they state timeless, universal principles of liberty, individual rights, and a unified nation. These principles drove African Americans forward despite the legal and informal constraints designed to keep them enslaved and, later, out of sight. Both the Founders and African Americans are indispensable to complete the story of America. If we carelessly chop away at the Founders’ imperfections, our footings could collapse, thus endangering our political stability.
Confederate monuments are different; they signify the obliteration of the Union and the slaughter of 600,000 in the Civil War, including my own great-great grandfather. Over the past weeks, they have been pulled down, burned, dismembered and declared unworthy. The Confederacy was accustomed to violence, so it is poetic, though unfortunate, that violence, instead of due process, became the arbiter of statuary fate. Admirers of these traitors will suffer no psychic or economic trauma. A noble Confederacy never existed, and its rhetoric never rang true in any authentic version of the American narrative. No sculptor can transform a Confederate into a patriot, regardless of how high on a horse they elevate the traitor.
Yes, the Founders were flawed and passed on an incomplete Constitution lacking equal protection and universal freedom. But the principles they championed manifested in a relentless patriotism that created a nation capable of improvement. Even at the cost of a civil war, future generations were animated to preserve the nation and continue the drive to a more perfect union. The proof is in the thousands of African Americans eager to do battle by the Founders’ side and defend the nation against its enemies during the Revolutionary War. While the Founders’ generation, and later Confederates, manipulated principles to maintain racial superiority, African Americans refused to accept enslavement as permanent or America as permanently flawed. Although unlettered, they grasped the quintessential meaning of the Revolutionary War: ‘Those principles apply to me, too’. The Confederacy strenuously fought this inexorable logic and perished.
With a record on slavery somewhat mixed, but morally objectionable overall, many Founders bought, sold, and abused human beings with a ferocity equal to the Confederates who would come later. They broke up families and caused succeeding generations to be without roots -- uncertain of parentage and their history. Gen. Washington held over 300 enslaved and Jefferson, who declared “all men are created equal” clung to 600. Gen. d’Estaing promoted the importation of slaves into Haiti and Gen. Galvez sanctioned the sale of stolen slaves in Florida. But he led nearly 1,700 black troops in battle. Lafayette supported abolition as Franklin and Rush did in later life. Cmdr. Jones gave up the trade before 1776. Haitians fought alongside Pulaski at Savannah. Kosciuszko and Hamilton advocated abolition. Upon his death, Washington became the liberator of Mount Vernon.
I have been convinced for decades that a modest addition to the National Mall could transform existing Revolutionary War monuments and sightlines into a grand Revolutionary War remembrance zone. The approved National Liberty Memorial would honor up to 10,000 free and enslaved persons of African descent, who bartered for freedom and volunteered to serve as soldiers, sailors, and marines on the side of the Founders. The names and residences of as many as 5,000 are known. More will become known as the memorial advances. They fought in every major battle, from Lexington and Concord to Yorktown. Connected to 24 states, they were killed, wounded and acknowledged for bravery by Washington, Lafayette and others. In addition, tens of thousands fled plantations or performed acts of patriotism, such as spies, waggoneers, miners and bakers.
Many forgotten patriots received pensions and bounty lands afterwards. They used the wealth to grow families, churches and self-help groups, even as others took from them what was theirs through unjust laws and the destruction of communities, such as Tulsa’s Black Wall Street in 1921. A tradition of self-support culminated in the thought of Booker T. Washington and, later, the Civil Rights Movement. Whether by petitioning, suing, fleeing, buying freedom, or fighting, they remained unshakable in the belief that liberty was just beyond the next barrier. John Lewis expressed this in 1963 during the March on Washington: “Get in and stay in…until the revolution of 1776 is complete.”
In 2014, Congress designated the contributions of African Americans to the Revolutionary War of “preeminent historical and lasting significance to the nation,” putting the approved monument on a par with all other monuments on the Mall. The favored location is the West Side of the Jamie L. Whitten Building, between Jefferson Drive and Independence Avenue, across 14th Street from the Washington Monument. This is the hub of the remembrance zone and the busiest gateway into downtown Washington from Virginia and the former Jefferson Davis Highway. Two generations ago, Dr. King described a “dream deeply rooted in the American dream.” Standing at the Lincoln Memorial, he could see the Washington Monument and Capitol beyond the Reflecting Pool and know the truths this alignment expresses.
From Lafayette Park to the Jefferson Memorial, comprising the great cross-axis of the Mall, 15 Revolutionary War monuments plus the Lincoln, King, and World War II memorials and African American History Museum could contextualize these separate events in history and restrain disorder in the streets by reminding one and all of the timeless principles that unify us. Using sightlines and proximity, the yet unfunded National Liberty Memorial will record how persons desperate for citizenship -- in a nation built on their free labor -- served honorably under Gen. Washington and beside their diverse compatriots; struggled to win freedom and equality decades before Lincoln's birth and the Emancipation Proclamation; sought to incorporate the Declaration of Independence into the Constitution; fought and died in all wars, from the Revolution to the present (including the Civil War); and ultimately prevailed in their vision for America.
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Maurice A. Barboza is the Founder of the National Mall Liberty Fund DC, a 501(c)(3) authorized in 2013 and 2014 to construct a memorial to as many as 10,000 African American Revolutionary War fighters and patriots at a location in Washington, including the last available site on the Mall. Website: National Mall Liberty Fund D.C.
Persuaded that a crucial element is missing from Washington’s Monumental Core, Congress approved a new memorial in 2012 to contemporaries of the Founders. These were African Americans who fought for a vision of independence that foretold the 13th, 14th, and 15th Reconstruction Amendments. They passed down patriotism to their children and grandchildren who would fight for emancipation and to save the union in the Civil War.
While monuments to the Founders present only one side of the story and are silent on the issue of slavery, they state timeless, universal principles of liberty, individual rights, and a unified nation. These principles drove African Americans forward despite the legal and informal constraints designed to keep them enslaved and, later, out of sight. Both the Founders and African Americans are indispensable to complete the story of America. If we carelessly chop away at the Founders’ imperfections, our footings could collapse, thus endangering our political stability.
Confederate monuments are different; they signify the obliteration of the Union and the slaughter of 600,000 in the Civil War, including my own great-great grandfather. Over the past weeks, they have been pulled down, burned, dismembered and declared unworthy. The Confederacy was accustomed to violence, so it is poetic, though unfortunate, that violence, instead of due process, became the arbiter of statuary fate. Admirers of these traitors will suffer no psychic or economic trauma. A noble Confederacy never existed, and its rhetoric never rang true in any authentic version of the American narrative. No sculptor can transform a Confederate into a patriot, regardless of how high on a horse they elevate the traitor.
Yes, the Founders were flawed and passed on an incomplete Constitution lacking equal protection and universal freedom. But the principles they championed manifested in a relentless patriotism that created a nation capable of improvement. Even at the cost of a civil war, future generations were animated to preserve the nation and continue the drive to a more perfect union. The proof is in the thousands of African Americans eager to do battle by the Founders’ side and defend the nation against its enemies during the Revolutionary War. While the Founders’ generation, and later Confederates, manipulated principles to maintain racial superiority, African Americans refused to accept enslavement as permanent or America as permanently flawed. Although unlettered, they grasped the quintessential meaning of the Revolutionary War: ‘Those principles apply to me, too’. The Confederacy strenuously fought this inexorable logic and perished.
With a record on slavery somewhat mixed, but morally objectionable overall, many Founders bought, sold, and abused human beings with a ferocity equal to the Confederates who would come later. They broke up families and caused succeeding generations to be without roots -- uncertain of parentage and their history. Gen. Washington held over 300 enslaved and Jefferson, who declared “all men are created equal” clung to 600. Gen. d’Estaing promoted the importation of slaves into Haiti and Gen. Galvez sanctioned the sale of stolen slaves in Florida. But he led nearly 1,700 black troops in battle. Lafayette supported abolition as Franklin and Rush did in later life. Cmdr. Jones gave up the trade before 1776. Haitians fought alongside Pulaski at Savannah. Kosciuszko and Hamilton advocated abolition. Upon his death, Washington became the liberator of Mount Vernon.
I have been convinced for decades that a modest addition to the National Mall could transform existing Revolutionary War monuments and sightlines into a grand Revolutionary War remembrance zone. The approved National Liberty Memorial would honor up to 10,000 free and enslaved persons of African descent, who bartered for freedom and volunteered to serve as soldiers, sailors, and marines on the side of the Founders. The names and residences of as many as 5,000 are known. More will become known as the memorial advances. They fought in every major battle, from Lexington and Concord to Yorktown. Connected to 24 states, they were killed, wounded and acknowledged for bravery by Washington, Lafayette and others. In addition, tens of thousands fled plantations or performed acts of patriotism, such as spies, waggoneers, miners and bakers.
Many forgotten patriots received pensions and bounty lands afterwards. They used the wealth to grow families, churches and self-help groups, even as others took from them what was theirs through unjust laws and the destruction of communities, such as Tulsa’s Black Wall Street in 1921. A tradition of self-support culminated in the thought of Booker T. Washington and, later, the Civil Rights Movement. Whether by petitioning, suing, fleeing, buying freedom, or fighting, they remained unshakable in the belief that liberty was just beyond the next barrier. John Lewis expressed this in 1963 during the March on Washington: “Get in and stay in…until the revolution of 1776 is complete.”
In 2014, Congress designated the contributions of African Americans to the Revolutionary War of “preeminent historical and lasting significance to the nation,” putting the approved monument on a par with all other monuments on the Mall. The favored location is the West Side of the Jamie L. Whitten Building, between Jefferson Drive and Independence Avenue, across 14th Street from the Washington Monument. This is the hub of the remembrance zone and the busiest gateway into downtown Washington from Virginia and the former Jefferson Davis Highway. Two generations ago, Dr. King described a “dream deeply rooted in the American dream.” Standing at the Lincoln Memorial, he could see the Washington Monument and Capitol beyond the Reflecting Pool and know the truths this alignment expresses.
From Lafayette Park to the Jefferson Memorial, comprising the great cross-axis of the Mall, 15 Revolutionary War monuments plus the Lincoln, King, and World War II memorials and African American History Museum could contextualize these separate events in history and restrain disorder in the streets by reminding one and all of the timeless principles that unify us. Using sightlines and proximity, the yet unfunded National Liberty Memorial will record how persons desperate for citizenship -- in a nation built on their free labor -- served honorably under Gen. Washington and beside their diverse compatriots; struggled to win freedom and equality decades before Lincoln's birth and the Emancipation Proclamation; sought to incorporate the Declaration of Independence into the Constitution; fought and died in all wars, from the Revolution to the present (including the Civil War); and ultimately prevailed in their vision for America.
______________________________
Maurice A. Barboza is the Founder of the National Mall Liberty Fund DC, a 501(c)(3) authorized in 2013 and 2014 to construct a memorial to as many as 10,000 African American Revolutionary War fighters and patriots at a location in Washington, including the last available site on the Mall. Website: National Mall Liberty Fund D.C.