Michelle Obama may have spoken Monday night, but Fox News Radio host John Gibson was so overwhelmed he had to unleash his rage in a blog post this afternoon.
During her speech, Obama addressed the “shame of servitude,” referencing the history of American slavery. “I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves — and I watch my daughters — two beautiful, intelligent, black young women — playing with their dogs on the White House lawn. And because of Hillary Clinton, my daughters — and all our sons and daughters — now take for granted that a woman can be President of the United States.”
Gibson couldn’t take it, according to Fusion. “A couple relevant facts,” he began. “It was 1792. The land for the District of Columbia was ceded to the federal government by two slave states. Slaves lived in the area and were employed in building much of the capitol. What, then, is the purpose of appropriating the construction of the White House to black slave workers, neglecting to mention other workers?”
Slaves, of course, were never “workers” in the sense that they were paid a living wage, allowed to quit whenever they want, had rights and could go home at the end of a long day. The history of America was built on the forced migration and forced labor of people of color that were enslaved by wealthy whites. To associate it with free white workers diminishes the horror they faced.
Gibson says that there were just as many white workers as slaves working on the White House when it was constructed. That’s outright false. The White House Historical Association verifies that there were indeed white workers, but the vast majority of the workers were black people, who were both slave and free. This was in large part due to problems finding enough white workers willing and able to do the work.
Bad News Fau Moron…Slaves indeed built the white House, the Capital Building, and a number of other Government buildings in Washington, DC. Most of the skilled workers at that time were slaves.
Along with the Capitol and other iconic buildings in Washington, D.C.
…Up until a few decades ago, little attention was paid to looking into who actually laid the foundations and put up the walls of the White House. But what documentation exists today shows that many of Washington, D.C.’s most iconic government buildings, including the White House, were built by slaves.
In 2005, Congress put together a task force to shed light on the subject. After months of research, the commission announced that while it would never be able to tell the full story of the slaves who built these buildings, there was no doubt that they were intricately involved in the work, Alexander Lane reported for PolitiFact.
“Indifference by by earlier historians, poor record keeping, and the silence of the voiceless classes have impeded our ability in the twenty-first century to understand fully the contributions and privations of those who toiled over the seven decades from the first cornerstone laying to the day of emancipation in the District of Columbia,” Senate Historian Richard Baker and Chief of the House of Representatives Office of History and Preservation Kenneth Kato wrote in a foreword to the report.
From a geographical standpoint alone, it should come as no surprise that slave laborers were used to build the nation’s capital. Washington, D.C., was built on landed ceded to the federal government by Virginia and Maryland, and at the time the Potomac region was home to almost half of the country’s 750,000 slaves, Lane reports.
While the White House Historical Association reports that the D.C. commissioners originally tried to bring cheap workers over from Europe to build the new capital, their recruitment efforts fell short. As a result, they forced local slaves to provide the labor, often renting workers from their masters for year-long periods of time.
“Slaves were likely involved in all aspects of construction, including carpentry, masonry, carting, rafting, plastering, glazing and painting, the task force reported,” Lane writes. “And slaves appear to have shouldered alone the grueling work of sawing logs and stones.”
The payroll to slaveowners shows that the government did not own slaves, but that it did hire them from their masters. Slave carpenters Ben, Daniel, and Peter were noted as owned by James Hoban. (National Archives and Records Administration)
In addition to constructing the buildings, slaves also worked the quarries where the stones for the government buildings came from. Ironically, the Statue of Freedom that sits atop the Capitol dome was made with the help of Philip Reid, a man enslaved by sculptor Thomas Crawford, who was commissioned to build the statue. According to the Architect of the Capitol, Reid was paid $1.25 a day by the federal government for his contributions.
“There is no telling how many stories that have been lost because, as a country, we didn’t value these stories,” historian and reporter Jesse J. Holland tells Smithsonian.com. “We’re always learning more about the presidents as we go forward and we’ll also learn more about the people who cooked their meals and dressed them.”
Got to work on my political connections and see if I can get an invite to one of these before President Obama leaves! Music at the White House under Obama has gone to entirely new heights. Catch ReRe’s rendition of “Purple Rain” about 3/4 through. The 2016 All-Star Global Concert features a cast of internationally renowned jazz artists including pianists Joey Alexander, John Beasley (Music Director), Kris Bowers, Chick Corea, Robert Glasper, Herbie Hancock, Danilo Pérez and Chucho Valdés; trumpeters Terence Blanchard, Till Brönner, Hugh Masekela and James Morrison; vocalists Dee Dee Bridgewater, Jamie Cullum, Kurt Elling, Aretha Franklin, Al Jarreau, Diana Krall, Dianne Reeves and Sting; saxophonists Eli Degibri, David Sánchez, Wayne Shorter, Sadao Watanabe and Bobby Watson; bassists Christian McBride, Marcus Miller, Esperanza Spalding and Ben Williams; guitarists Buddy Guy, Lionel Loueke, Pat Metheny and Lee Ritenour; drummers Brian Blade, Terri Lyne Carrington and Kendrick Scott; percussionist Zakir Hussain; trombonist Trombone Shorty; and the Rebirth Brass Band.
The cast and founder of the Broadway runaway smash hit “Alexander Hamilton” performed yesterday at the White House, and will be broadcast over free TV for those unable to attend any of the performances on Broadway. This is the hottest ticket on Broadway since “Cats”.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: You remind us that people are only truly free when they can practice their faith freely. Here in the United States, we cherish religious liberty. Yet around the world at this very moment, children of God, including Christians, are targeted and even killed because of their faith. Believers are prevented from gathering at their places of worship. The faithful are imprisoned. Churches are destroyed. So we stand with you in defense of religious freedom and interfaith dialogue, knowing that people everywhere must be able to live out their faith free from fear and intimidation.
Pope Francis immediately dove into the whirlpool of U.S. politics on Wednesday, using his first direct address to the nation to weigh in on deeply divisive issues including climate change, Cuba, marriage and immigration.
The pontiff, speaking before 11,000 ticketed guests at an elaborate welcoming ceremony on South Lawn of the White House, signaled he will take on controversial issues during his six-day visit.
In remarks delivered slowly in accented English, Francis said he was ready to listen to the “hopes and dreams of the American people” and to offer guidance to those charged with shaping the nation’s political future “in fidelity to its founding principles.”
In comments that could antagonize Republicans, Francis endorsed President Barack Obama’s efforts on climate change and rebuilding ties with Cuba after more than half a century of estrangement.
He said it was “encouraging that you are proposing an initiative for reducing air pollution. Accepting the urgency, it seems clear to me also that climate change is a problem that can no longer be left to a future generation.”
“When it comes to the care of our ‘common home’ we are living at a critical moment of history,” he said.
Francis also made reference to one of the central themes of his papacy: that the modern global economy is enriching the few at the expense of the many.
“I would like all men and women of good will in this great nation to support the efforts of the international community to protect the vulnerable in our world and to stimulate integral and inclusive models of development,” Francis said.
But he also delivered a firm defense of traditional values, warning that the institution of marriage and family needed to be protected at “a critical moment in the history of our civilization,” remarks that could irk liberals months after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage nationwide.
He said that it was right that society was “tolerant and inclusive” but warned that American Catholics were “concerned that efforts to build a just and wisely ordered society respect their deepest concerns and their right to religious liberty. That freedom remains one of America’s most precious possessions.”
Stepping into another delicate political issue, the Argentine-born Francis pointedly noted that he was a “son of immigrants” — a sign that he could step into the debate later in his visit on how to handle millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States that has roiled the 2016 presidential campaign.
Obama and first lady Michelle Obama earlier greeted the Pope at the White House as he stepped out of his small black Fiat, which he is using to make a statement of humility in Washington, a city full of limos and hulking government SUVs.
On a glorious early-fall morning, the President and Pope stood together before an honor guard as a band played the national anthens for the Vatican and the U.S.
Obama paid warm tribute to the Pope as an individual as well as the leader of 70 million U.S. Catholics, saying he displayed “unique qualities” of a leader “whose moral authority comes not just through words but also through deeds.”
The White House has said that Obama will not seek to exploit the visit of Francis for political gain — but the president warmly welcomed the pontiff’s support on climate change and Cuba, for which he is trying to build domestic support.
“Holy Father, we are grateful for your invaluable support of our new beginning with the Cuban people, which holds out the promise of better relations between our countries, greater cooperation across our hemisphere, and a better life for the Cuban people,” Obama said.
The president also said the Pope had offered reminders that “we have have a sacred obligation to protect our planet.”
“We support your call to all world leaders to support the communities most vulnerable to a changing climate and to come together to preserve our precious world for future generations.”…
This one is just sad. A 13 year old black kid goes on the Internet to berate President Obama for inviting the Muslim kid who was arrested in Texas for building an electronic clock…
I have known kids who wanted to grow up to be great scientists, or doctors, or lawyers…This indeed is the first one I’ve ever seen planning to grow up to be a Lawn Jockey.
A Georgia teen took to YouTube this week to criticize the White House for its invitation to a Texas teen who has been in the spotlight for an invention that got him suspended.
Ahmed Mohamed, the Muslim teen from Texas who was suspended earlier this week because a teacher thought his homemade clock was a bomb, will not be returning to the school that suspended him.
The case sparked claims of racial profiling and outrage across the country, with some influential people — including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and President Obama, who invited him to the White House — showing Ahmed, 14, support.
That invite is drawing sharp criticism from a 13-year-old boy in Georgia. CJ Pearson has never been a fan of the president. In this case, he sees a double standard.
CJ is from the Augusta area, and his name was trending on Facebook overnight for his latest YouTube video.
“When cops are gunned down, you don’t invite them to the White House. You never did. But when a Muslim builds a clock, come on by. What is this world you’re living in?” he said in the video.
CJ goes on to say the invitation to Ahmed fits the president’s agenda.
By Friday morning, the video, posted Wednesday, had been viewed more than 330,000 times.
It’s the latest in a series of videos from CJ, who labeled himself a conservative at the age of 8. His website claims a Facebook base of more than 29,000 followers and a viewership of more than 2 million on his YouTube channel. His Facebook page shows more than 52,000 people like the page.
According to the Washington Post, CJ is the national chairman of Teens for Ted, a national group backing Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz for president.
For his part, Ahmed said he will accept the president’s invitation, which was posted on Twitter. The president called his homemade clock “cool” and asked the teen to bring it to the White House.
Police in Irving, Texas, do not plan to pursue criminal charges against Ahmed.
Shots have been fired between two cars near the White House, U.S. Park Police confirms.
Sgt. David Schlosser of the U.S. Park Police said Friday evening that the agency received a report of shots fired near 16th Street and Constitution Avenue, NW, between The White House and the Washington Monument, at about 9:30 p.m.
He said that shortly afterward, officers located an abandoned vehicle several blocks away on the ramp to the nearby Theodore Roosevelt Bridge. Authorities tell ABC7 News that an AK-47 assault rifle was found.
He said police are looking at “involvement of this vehicle in the situation,” but didn’t know whether a weapon was recovered. He said police suspect another vehicle was involved.
Constitution Avenue is closed between 15th and 17th Streets. U.S. Park Police and Security Service are on the scene.
Police are looking for bullet holes and haven’t confirmed that shots were actually fired. He said The White House is a fair distance away and doesn’t appear to have been the focus.
President Barack Obama was observing Veterans Day with a basketball game aboard a Navy warship Friday. Obama’s stop in San Diego was the first leg of a nine-day diplomacy mission he’s embarking on, to Hawaii, where the U.S. is hosting an economic summit for the Asia-Pacific, and from there to Australia and Indonesia.
