Institutions You Didnt Know Had Ties To Slavery – Some of America’s defining institutions and traditions have shameful connections to the chains and shackles that bind black people to what built America.
The roots of racism in the United States stemmed from slavery, and more than 150 years after emancipation, they had a stranglehold on many aspects of American life. The lasting impact extends far beyond Confederate statues and entertainment, to the glorification of that shameful aspect of American history.
Institutions You Didnt Know Had Ties To Slavery
During the era of slavery, the Southern economy depended on slave labor not only to thrive but to survive, so perhaps it’s no surprise that many of the American institutions we equate with patriotism and excellence remain inextricably linked, both directly and indirectly. The Slave Trade We cannot dismantle them, but we can move forward with a full awareness of the past and an understanding of the systemic racism that made and continues to pollute the United States. Meanwhile, the companies on the list can respond with more than an apology by investing in black-owned businesses, establishing scholarships for black students and introducing anti-discrimination policies to promote diversity among them. On a personal level, these are some of the small ways you can fight racism every day
Dare We Compare American Slavery To The Holocaust?
What’s in a name? In the case of one of America’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning, strong ties to a time when whites owned blacks. Yale University in Connecticut is named for the American-born Englishman Elihu Yale (1649–1721), a slave owner and slave trader who was a major benefactor of the University of New Haven when the collegiate school at Saybrook was named after him. He made his first donation in 1813, and it was formally named Yale University under the college’s 1845 charter. Activists are now demanding another reshuffle. On June 26, 2020
, Yale Law School visiting professor Sean O’Brien wrote: “The gruesome images of George Floyd, Brenna Taylor and others are not necessary to start an honest conversation about race in America.” What will it take to speed up the process at Yale? “The school has moved to the right, if not rewritten its history.” In 2017, Yale’s undergraduate Calhoun College, originally named for John C. Calhoun, a 19th-century politician who strongly supported slavery, was renamed Hopper College in honor of Yale alumna Grace Murray Hopper. Computer scientist
The President is the highest office in the country. Forty men hold it, and 12 of them – more than a quarter – were slaves at some point in their lives. In fact, only two of America’s first 12 presidents, John Adams (number two) and his son John Quincy Adams (number six), never owned a slave. Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president who served from 1869 to 1877, was the last to claim another person as his property. The future Union general who would lead the Union to victory during the Civil War was the owner of a slave, Williams Jones, whom he freed in 1859, two years before the war began. Today, activists are trying to topple statues honoring slave-owning presidents like Grant, but not all critics of Confederate monuments see it as black and white. Manisha Sinha, a professor of American history at the University of Connecticut, told NPR in June 2020, “We put up their statues, not to commemorate their slavery, but for different reasons. We shouldn’t be ashamed of the fact that many of these men were slave owners, but we also have to be able to judge each case separately. Confederate statues have no redeeming qualities about them, but other statues certainly do. America is not the only country debating historical statues. The monument has sparked controversy around the world
The Paradox Of The Declaration Of Independence
“I wake up every morning feeling embarrassed about America’s holiest home,” First Lady Michelle Obama said in a 2012 speech at the Democratic National Convention. In fact, the workers who began building the White House in 1792 were composed primarily of slaves loaned by their masters for low wages that presumably went to the owners. And related to Jesse J. Holland’s book
Once they finished working in the White House, many slaves began working in it as well: “From Jefferson’s administration through the 1800s until the Civil War, most of the White House staff was made up of slaves. These slaves went to work with the President of the United States in the White House because Congress did not provide money for the President’s personal staff at the time. Slave-owning presidents—Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, John Tyler, James Polk, and Zachary Taylor—brought them to the White House. Ever wonder why the White House is white? It has nothing to do with racism or race
How’s that for American irony? The building where, in 1865, the US House of Representatives passed the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, was built half a century earlier using slave labor. Along with the architects of the capital was “the skilled labor to establish or attract new cities. Slave laborers, hired from their masters, were involved in virtually every stage of construction. ” While it is impossible to determine the ratio of slaves to paid labor, as Alexander Lane wrote in a 2009 article for The Pointer Institute’s Politifact, “Slaves were likely involved in all aspects of construction, including carpentry, casting, churning, rafting, plastering. , glasswork and paint … and the slaves seem to shoulder alone as they cut wood and stone. Lane quotes a directive from the Commissioner of Buildings sent to quarry operator William O’Neill in 1794: “Keep the annual recruits at work from sunup to sundown, especially the negroes.” Masters obviously pocketed most of the pay for slaves’ work Find out why Washington, D.C. is not a state
Slavery At Historical Sites: Some Places Ignore Truth Of Black History
The next time you make a bank deposit, consider this: You may be doing business with a financial institution that exists today because the bank and/or its predecessors benefited from a slave economy. In 2005, JPMorgan Chase & Co. apologized for two of its subsidiaries’ involvement in the slave trade In the 19th century, the Citizens Bank and Canal Bank in Louisiana, now part of JP Morgan, accepted slaves as collateral for loans to plantation owners in the South. “We apologize to the African-American community, especially those who are descendants of slaves, and the role played by Citizens Bank and Canal Bank,” said a letter sent by JPMorgan Chairman and CEO William B. Harrison. , was signed. Jr., and JPMorgan President and COO James Dimon The era of slavery was a tragic time in American history and in the history of our company. The company also established a $5 million scholarship fund for black undergraduates in Louisiana. Bank of America and Citibank are other banking organizations cited for historical ties to slavery, while both Trust and Wachovia (before it acquired Wells Fargo in 2008) have also apologized for them. For the second year in a row, one of the above companies was named the bank with the worst reputation in America.
Beloved whiskey icon Jack Daniel’s may not have benefited directly from the slave trade, but it may not have existed without it. In the 1900s, the workforce producing whiskey was largely made up of Black Americans, slaves who perfected the spirit’s recipe. Along with ancient teachings, Jack Daniels learned how to make whiskey from a distiller named Dan Call. Oh, that’s the white version In fact, Call ordered one of his slaves, Nerys Greene, to teach young Jack Daniels everything he could about whiskey. The rest, a few years ago, history was rewritten And Jack Daniel’s is not the only brand with a tainted past of slavery Blacks contributed a lot to the evolution of American whiskey, but they still don’t get the credit for it. Fred Minnick, author of Bourbon Curiosity, said, “It is so sad that these slave distillers will never get what they deserve.
In the pre-Civil War era, the American Clothing Company was founded in 1818 by slave owners who bought for slaves. “Brooke Brothers was top of the line slave clothing,” said Erin Greenwall, curator of the Historic New Orleans Collection.
Why Can’t We Teach Slavery Right In American Schools?
Magazine in 2015. “Slave traders would provide new clothing for those to be sold, but it was usually cheap.” Although other retailers sold slave clothing and Brooks Brothers was more than just a slave outfit—Abraham Lincoln reportedly wore a Brooks Brothers tailored frock coat at the Fau Theater the night he was assassinated in 1865—Brooks Brothers was one of the few . . A few have survived to this day and one that has not yet fully acknowledged his slavery “We realize that our company’s 200-year history is intertwined with the history of the United States. When we have
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