A Message From 3BAAS Media Group: From Public Sale of Negroes To The White House

This was once our resume' ...

None of us has had to experience the pain of separation or live with the disgrace and humiliation that comes with not being free. When you cast your vote for who will run our country, never forget your history and keep this bill of sale in mind. When we allow ourselves to forget our not so distant past, then we are destined to repeat these actions in our future. Stand for those who came before us and those who could not stand up for themselves. VOTE!

California Celebrates 100th Anniversary of Post Slavery Black Township Known As Allensworth

In 1908, Lt. Col. Allen Allensworth, a charismatic ex-slave and retired military man, set out to build an all-black community on a hardscrabble patch of land 40 miles north of Bakersfield. This visionary and other former slaves turned the desert wasteland into a thriving pioneer town, making a strong statement about black self-determination.

This weekend, the centennial of his long-shuttered town will be honored by thousands of Californians trooping to the site, now known as Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park.

Though it thrived for less than a decade, the town strikes a special chord among many, who see it as a pioneering effort in black self-determination.

"That group in the first 50 years after emancipation was probably the most dynamic group we've had," said Rick Moss, chief curator of the African American Library & Museum at Oakland. "Allensworth is a real testimony to their drive, their dignity, their willpower -- it's all right there."

Moss is among the speakers at the two-day celebration. So is Lonnie G. Bunch III, founding director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History. The Crenshaw High School Elite Choir and actor William Allen Young will be among the entertainers making appearances.

Amtrak is establishing special bus and train routes to the park from Los Angeles, Inglewood, Sacramento, Oakland and elsewhere. (Details are available at www.parks.ca.gov/). About 5,000 visitors are expected -- far more than the couple of hundred residents who lived in Allensworth at its height.

Visitors will tour the town's three remaining original buildings and 19 that have been reconstructed. The hamlet boasted a hotel, a school, a library, a church, a general store -- the basic municipal amenities that its settlers had found wanting.

A state historic park since 1974, Allensworth was recently the focus of a battle over plans for a 12,000-cow dairy on adjacent land. After concerted protests from black community groups, the state last year paid the landowner $3.5 million to give up his rights for any kind of livestock operation.

Funded by donations, Saturday and Sunday's event is sponsored by the state's Legislative Black Caucus, the California State Parks Foundation and the state parks department.

"We're honoring the vision of these people from 100 years ago," said state parks director Ruth Coleman. "At a time when white supremacy was so rampant, they created this town to demonstrate their self-sufficiency, to prove that blacks could do everything whites could do."

As a youth, Allensworth was sold in the slave markets three times -- once for daring to learn how to read. In a remarkable career, he fought on Navy gunboats in the Civil War and served as an Army chaplain in the Philippines, attaining the highest military rank any black man had held. He also became a Baptist minister before founding the town that bears his name.

At its dedication, he reminded his followers of their purpose in separating from their former, mostly white communities.

"If we expect to be given due credit for our efforts and achievements, they must be made where they will stand out distinctively and alone," he said, exhorting the residents to "settle upon the bare desert and cause it to blossom as a rose."

The colonel, who recruited many settlers from the ranks of his old Army comrades, was "not shy" about promoting the cause, said his granddaughter, Josephine Blodgett Smith of Los Angeles.

The 94-year-old former teacher recalled chugging over hair-raising roads in a model-T to visit relatives in Allensworth.

"When you think of where they began and what they accomplished, these were remarkable people," she said. "The state gave them one teacher and they actually taxed themselves so they could have two."

Just three months after her birth, her grandfather was fatally struck by a motorcyclist.

Beset by water problems and hurt by the closure of its railroad depot, the town withered in just a few years. But, as the only privately financed black community in the U.S., it had already made its mark.

"Even though it didn't 'succeed', it was a tremendous effort," said Moss.

By Steve Chawkins, LA Times Staff Writer (steve.chawkins@latimes.com)

Something Different? Black Lawyer Turned Author Pens Next Chapter In The Sally Hemings Saga

One Sista's New Jefferson Memorial

In her new book, "The Hemingses of Monticello," Annette Gordon-Reed traces the family history of Sally Hemings, the slave who had a 38-year relationship with Thomas Jefferson.

Gordon-Reed, a former lawyer, also edited an anthology of essays about race and the law, and co-wrote Vernon Jordan's 2001 memoir, "Vernon Can Read!"

But she is best known for 1997's groundbreaking "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy," which examined historians' treatment of the Jefferson-Hemings liaison, and made a strong case that Jefferson fathered seven children with Hemings.

DNA testing a year after the book came out vindicated Gordon-Reed's assertion, and made her book a cause célèbre among Jefferson scholars. Joseph Ellis, whose National Book Award-winning biography of Jefferson, "American Sphinx," claimed Jefferson never slept with Hemings, later conceded the point, writing that it was difficult not to conclude Jefferson had been "living a lie."

When she was in first grade, Gordon-Reed made history. Although Brown v. Board of Education had passed a decade earlier, the school district of Conroe, Texas, where she lived in 1963, operated under a system called "freedom of choice."

Gordon-Reed's mother, a teacher at the "black" school, and her father, a local businessman, knew that "freedom of choice" really meant de facto segregation, so to challenge it they insisted that their daughter attend the "white" school.

"I had a sense of being on display," says Gordon-Reed, remembering also how her grandmother went to a fancy Houston department store and bought her granddaughter a new wardrobe, so she would make a good impression on the white students and their families. "It was uncomfortable.

But we had this notion that blacks, whether you wanted to be or not, were going to be judged. You represent the race."

That early, firsthand experience with the interplay of race and history informs much of Gordon-Reed's work, including her compulsively readable piece.

Jefferson has been a subject of fascination for Gordon-Reed ever since she read a school biography as a girl. When she was 14, she joined the Book-of-the-Month Club so she could read Fawn Brodie's "Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate Portrait."

"The fact that he loved books and I loved books was something that attracted me to him," she says. "I'm not really a Jeffersonian in my political philosophy. It was mainly the personality, the endless curiosity that I found and find attractive about him."

The real subject of her work is the way we view the history of slavery, and how it affects our views of race today. "For African-Americans, social history almost invariably overwhelms biography, obscuring the contingencies within personal lives that are the very things historians and biographers normally rely upon to create meaningful depictions of events and lives in the past," she writes. In that respect, the Jefferson-Hemings relationship provides a trenchant case study.

Hemings and her brothers James and Robert arrived at Monticello with Martha Wayles, who married Jefferson in 1772. Hemings was also Wayles's half-sister, born after Wayles's mother died and her father had an affair with his slave, Elizabeth Hemings, Sally's mother. Wayles died in 1782.

When Jefferson traveled to Paris two years later, Hemings and her brother James accompanied him. By the time they returned, the 16-year-old Hemings was pregnant. Although she could have stayed in Paris as a free woman, she chose to return with Jefferson, and lived with him at Monticello until his death in 1826.

As Gordon-Reed writes, our reaction to the idea that Jefferson, a lifelong propo-nent of emancipation, could own slaves and sustain an intimate relationship with a woman who was not only his property but his dead wife's half-sister, and that Hemings could participate in the relationship, makes up "the very complex American response to matters involving not only slavery but even more particularly race and gender."

Here, she says, is where her training as a lawyer gives her an advantage: "The first thing you learn in law school is people are crazy," says the author, who also teaches history at Rutgers and law at New York Law School. "They'll come into your office and explain their motivation, and it will be totally a lie. They don't even understand themselves what their motivations are.

It's not all going to fit." Historians may think that because their subjects are dead, "you don't have to deal with the consequences of their shattered lives if you're not for real." Lawyers don't have this luxury. "We're training people to deal with people's lives. Somebody's going to go to jail, somebody's going to lose a child. You have to be for real." Which may be how Gordon-Reed takes the stuff of Sally Hemings's life—the quotidian and the epic—and makes it indelibly real.

By Newsweek's Jennie Yabroff © 2008

Obama Is My Slave?????

By Jayar Jackson

It’s August of 2008 in America. The horrific atrocities that embodied American slavery officially ended at the end of 1865. After 143 years of freedom from the institution of slavery, leading to the struggle of racial equality and eventual opportunity for everyone, we still have Americans that don’t care enough about the country that gave them the opportunity to live free, to respect it.

Doron Braunshtein, also known as Apollo Braun, owner of a New York City boutique, claims he was recently attacked in his store by two African American men for selling his line of “Obama is My Slave” T-shirts.

According to an account from his publicist, the two men worked together - one grabbed Braun's hands while the other kicked him in the testicles. Now, after experiencing the physical fallout for himself, the shirt peddler is reconsidering his merchandise. "I don't want to be killed for my t-shirts. I am still shocked about what happened today but there is a big chance that I will stop selling my anti-Obama merchandise after what happened today. I mean, tomorrow someone can show up at my store with a gun, and I don't want that to happen."

Though he's considering halting the sale of the inflammatory shirts, Braun calls the tees "art" and defends his right to make them. Someone should educate this imbecile on the horrors of slavery since he was never taught in school.

Humans like Braunshtein disgust me. While he cries out for tolerance and understanding, his feeble mind fails to understand that his shirts are inflammatory speech, meant to incite violence and threats towards the Democratic nominee for President, and in this case, himself. This fact can’t be denied as the rest of his line of anti-Obama shirts that sell for $69 carry slogans like, “Jews Against Obama,” “Obama=Hitler,” and “WHO KILLED OBAMA?” Is this garbage supposed to be funny?

I don’t believe that Braunshtein is so stupid to believe that his shirts shouldn’t cause a stir, that they wouldn’t incite violence toward him or anyone else. He’s a business man, smart enough to open his own boutique and keep himself afloat. What I don’t believe he possesses is an understanding or desire to understand what America is.

I like to think that virtually everyone that enjoys the great things America offers has enough of a thought process to be talked to, regardless of how opposite their opinion is of mine. I welcome opportunities to see other people’s point of view as long as I know I am getting the same courtesy in return. Apollo Braun is one of few human beings I’d never like to speak with. His reaction to his assault solidifies his blatant lack of reasoning and provincial mindset.

This reaches beyond my support of Barack Obama for President. I wouldn’t advocate violence upon John McCain simply because I believe he will keep this country I love on its downward path. We forget that we’re dealing with real life when we support our respective candidates. If Braun has something he doesn’t like about Obama, and wants to spread some truth he may have stumbled upon, he has every right to do that. What is it about plastering hate speech on a shirt, advocating assassination, and a regression to a slavery mindset to the country that would make someone vote for his choice, John McCain?

To those that look to defend Braunshtein’s hate speech, think about how quickly someone is booed and shunned when they simply challenge John McCain’s military record. Because he spent time as a P.O.W. and exhibited courage and dedication to his fellow soldiers, it is immediately considered taboo to bring up anything negative he did while serving. Anyone that does is considered unpatriotic and in denial about the courageous things he did while being tortured.

With this mentality firmly in place, I can safely assume that Doron Braunshtein and anyone that thinks his t-shirts are okay to sell are advocating the murder of Presidential nominees; including John McCain, long for the days of oppressive and gruesome slavery, and wish for another Holocaust to occur. Since Braunshtein hates America so much, why doesn’t he just go live somewhere else?

If You Really Want To Apologize For Slavery Amercia, Vote For Obama!

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Source

The House Set to Apologize to African Americans

By Jayar Jackson

The U.S House of Representatives is poised Tuesday to pass a resolution apologizing to Black Americans for slavery and the era of Jim Crow laws. Rep. Steve Cohen, who represents a prominently Black district in Memphis, has introduced the bill.

Once the resolution passes, as expected, the House will also acknowledge the injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow laws that segregated Blacks from Whites, providing an unequal life for Black Americans.

Although this is the first time a branch of the federal government will apologize for slavery, I’ve always wondered what the reasons behind these types of resolutions are. Considering the fact that the U.S. doesn’t foolishly deny these heinous acts took place in its past, one can only assume Rep. Cohen is attempting to show his constituents that he understands the severity and repercussions these institutions have had on today’s society.

This resolution is the House of Representatives’ formal agreement with many Americans that have a guilty conscience for what their ancestors did to Black Americans. In my opinion, this resolution is not necessary; no one is rejecting the idea that slavery happened, no one in today’s Congress has been saying that Jim Crow Laws created this false utopia of “separate but equal.”

Some White Americans feel that Black Americans want them to “feel guilty” for what occurred, so a quick, “I’m sorry your ancestors, grandparents, and parents went through such horrible experiences in their own country” isn’t necessary. How can someone apologize for something they didn’t personally do?

I don’t want you to feel sorry for me or my parents. I don’t want you to simply hear my frustrations and hope everything is better now. Discussing race is so taboo in this country, we just want to get it over with, apologize for reasons unknown to us, and get out of the uncomfortable conversation. Listening, internalizing, and actually understanding what was wrong with this country will provide many with the mindset to change the way they think about other races and therefore change the way we still treat each other.

Comparatively, Congress’ simple apology for the past isn’t going to be what continues to move this country forward, either. Learning from the country’s past and the mistakes we made is what is necessary to continue to fight against future instances of human rights violations, a commitment Cohen included. If we label human rights violations as something this country can only do to Black Americans, quickly apologize for it, and then forget about it, we’ll easily overlook the fact that we can violate the rights of Muslims, Middle Easterners, and gay Americans.

The resolution blatantly states, “African-Americans continue to suffer from the consequences of slavery and Jim Crow -- long after both systems were formally abolished -- through enormous damage and loss, both tangible and intangible, including the loss of human dignity and liberty, the frustration of careers and professional lives, and the long-term loss of income and opportunity.” My Bad!!

Justin Timberlake Edited for Joke at 2008 ESPYs

By Jayar Jackson

Now that everyone has had the chance to see the ESPYs 15 times in the last few days, the controversy of Justin Timberlake's hosting performance has made its rounds.

Boy bander turned all-around entertainer JT seems to be making a living off of his sports related performances needing a tape delay.

How could anyone forget his role in the infamous wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime performance with Janet Jackson, forcing CBS to implement a tape delay to avoid the FCC the next time around?

Well, our man Justin has now brought his line pushing to the doors of ESPN.

While joking about the Celtics' NBA Champion Paul Pierce's knee injury from Game 1 of the Finals this year, Timberland described his dramatic return as "shucking and jiving" back onto the floor. Although he had been getting laughs all evening, reports say that this joke evoked crickets from the audience of celebrities and professional athletes.

In case you're wondering, Pierce is Black and the term "shuckin and jivin" is a racially offensive way to describe Black people in trouble. It dates back to slavery days in America where a slave may try to quickly come up with a story to tell a White authority figure to get himself out of some mischief.

If it's still not sinking in, the negative imagery that comes to my mind is a Black man, fumbling and stuttering over his words, obviously lying to avoid some sharp and severe punishment for stepping outside of his box. He thinks he's smart, but he'll never fool the wiser White guy.

Unsurprisingly, ESPN utilized their 4 day gap between taping and broadcasting the event to edit out the controversial joke.

Should fans be annoyed and upset over Timberlake's irresponsible use of the term? Definitely. Should Timberlake apologize and move on with his life? Of course, that's what celebrities do. Should people assume that he is a racist that harbors negative thoughts and feelings about Black people? Hell no.

First of all, no one even knows who wrote that joke, and even if Timberlake did, it's pretty apparent that it was misplaced. The images of Pierce bouncing back onto the basketball court after being taken out on a wheelchair probably looked a little like a dance to some. The "jiving" of Timberlake's lame joke seemed to fit in his mind, not realizing that the term has origins of hate, ridicule, and mistreatment.

Pierce wasn't explaining anything, he wasn't coming up with a story to get himself out of any trouble as the term requires.

Bottom line, let him go; stop calling him a racist, a "wigger," (a term I happen to hate) and just keep buying his music every guy tries to hate, but secretly loves. Go ahead, play "FutureSex/LoveSounds the next time your boys come over (because you know you secretly have it). You'll get clowned at first, but they'll soon subconsciously start bobbing their heads!

IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU'VE COME FROM, YOU WON'T KNOW WHERE YOU'RE GOING!

NEVER FORGET

We the People — the beginning of the preamble of the constitution of the United States. When that document was completed on September 17, 1787, I was not included.

It was not until the end of the Civil War, on September 22, 1862, that President Abraham Lincoln historically declared the freedom of all slaves in ANY state of the Confederate States of American that did not return to the Union by January 1, 1863. This was memorialized through Lincoln's signing of “The Emancipation Proclamation”.

Technically, I was officially included. Two and a half years later on June 19th Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. Thus the birth of Juneteenth!

One hundred eighty-five years after this news I was born. Free and innocent to the misdeeds of my country against a people that I was now apart of. Free to take the advantages of the opportunities paid for by the struggles, trails, death, but advancements of countless people. Ironically during that time our country was involved in the resolution of other misdeeds of the time. I offer these as example: the Vietnam War, Watergate, Abortion legislation and School Desegregation to name a few.

We the People – we the people of America of all races, colors, cultures and creeds have come such a great distance in our social interactions, morals and philosophy. It hasn’t been pretty or easy, and we have not “stepped into the promise land” as of yet. But we’re on the right road.

Continue with Tim Valentine's "My Celebration of Juneteenth"

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Birthright Citizenship For Illegals Like Elvira Arellano

Her saga made good copy for the media, and immigrant advocacy groups now want the recently deported, high-profile illegal immigrant who sought sanctuary in a Chicago church to be allowed to return here because her son, born in the U.S., is considered an American citizen.

In 1997, Elvira Arellano had been deported back to Mexico but re-entered the country illegally and gave birth. She was arrested again in 2002 and convicted of using a phony Social Security number.

The day she was to appear before immigration authorities, she hid out in the Chicago sanctuary. She went to Los Angeles last month, where she was arrested and again deported back to Mexico.

Because of the misapplication of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, children born in the U.S. to illegal aliens like Arellano are granted automatic, or “birthright,” citizenship.

The amendment was passed in 1868 to protect the rights of freed slaves. In Dred Scott v. Sanford (1856), the Supreme Court held that blacks, whether free or not, were neither citizens of the U.S. nor could they become citizens. The Citizenship Clause essentially struck down this ruling.

The key phrase as it relates to the present immigration debate is “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” which indicates there are exceptions to granting citizenship to those born in the U.S.

The Supreme Court tackled this issue in 1898 in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, finding that the language “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” excluded from American citizenship children born to diplomats, alien enemies in hostile occupation, and members of Indian tribes subject to tribal laws.

One could argue that people like Arellano are “alien enemies in hostile occupation,” though it might be a stretch. Regardless, why should she benefit from her criminal activity simply because she gave birth to a child here?

Unfortunately, the automatic citizenship precedent is set. Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., introduced the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2007, which would end the practice. Under the present “anchor baby” scam, illegal immigrant parents of a baby born in this country can apply for all sorts of government aid for the baby. Once the child reaches adulthood, he can sponsor his parents and a “chain” of other family members.

Deal’s bill would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to clarify who is or is not a citizen. Citizenship would be granted only to children born in the U.S. with at least one parent who is a citizen, national, legal resident or an alien in active duty in the armed forces.

The illegal “immigration” problem must be attacked on all fronts. State and local governments are doing their part by writing laws to prevent official agencies from issuing driver’s licenses or granting welfare to people who can’t prove citizenship. Employers who hire illegal immigrants face fines and revocation of business licenses.

Will these measures, including ending birthright citizenship, encourage millions of illegal immigrants to return to their home countries and stand in line for legal entry like everyone else? Probably not. But it’s a start.

By La Shawn Barber

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Courtesy of Black Report

I DON'T CARE WHAT AL SHARPTON SAYS, JUNETEENTH HAS BECOME A JOKE

Milwaukee Police say a 33-year-old man has a broken tooth and cuts all over his face after a group of teenagers pulled him from his car and beat him following Milwaukee's Juneteenth celebration.

JUNETEENTH? The day all Black folks were considered free? The descendant of slave's 4th of July Juneteenth? The time for assessment, self-improvement and planning for the future Juneteenth? This must be a mistake.

While Black Presidential Candidate Barack Obama was texting people to join his movement, a few blocks away - still in Wisconsin mind you - a group of girls are throwing some serious punches.

When police went to break up the fight, the department says a 17-year-old girl started punching and kicking a 15-year veteran officer.

Police say there was also a fight earlier in the day where three different women were fighting. A 15-year-old boy reportedly tried to break up the fight when an 18-year-old man got involved in it.

According to police, the 18-year-old got angry, walked away and told the boy he was coming back with a gun. The 18-year-old did in fact return with a gun and fired five shots into a crowd where the boy was standing. The 15-year-old's 39-year-old uncle was hit in the shoulder.

It's the second year in a row that violence has broken out at the celebration.

In Texas, David Morales, 40, was beat to death on Tuesday June 19 night near a local Juneteenth festival in Austin after accidentally running over a small child.

Police say anything between two and 20 attackers beat Mr Morales after the driver stopped following the collision which involved him purportedly driving at a low speed.

It is thought that up to 25 onlookers may have seen the fatal assault.
Some people think all this violence takes away from the real meaning of Juneteenth. WRONG!

The violence is telling us that if we're fighting and destroying each other on a day marking the end of slavery, then we don't deserve to be free.. or alive.

The solution? Re-enslave those that can't be killed quickly with little to no effort.

Desperate times demand desperate measures. We keep hearing Bill Cosby lecture us but not enough folks wants to listen. While I accept that Bill Cosby has his own personal issues, what he's saying is on point: We are a mess!

Activist C. Delores Tucker was dogged when she was spoke out about rap disrespecting women in the 90's. Then Don Imus threats our women like St. Louis rapper Huey, and suddenly we realize that she had it right all along. Problem is, this came AFTER her death!

Are we going to do the same thing to Cosby?

PEOPLE, PEOPLE - THIS IS JUNETEENTH WE'RE TALKING ABOUT!

Is this site on????

ARE BLACK FOLKS REALLY INTO JUNETEENTH?

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GET ON BOARD, SLAVERY'S A COMIN'

Slave Museum: You Means We's Still Ain't Free Massa?

Shackle Keys - $8 Bucks A Pop

A $200 million slavery museum near the former capital of the Confederacy is being planned in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

The brainchild of former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder -- the nation's first black elected governor and the grandson of slaves -- the museum has been in the making for over a decade.

Upon completion in 2008, the 290,000-square-foot museum will include more than 5,000 historic relics of slavery, galleries and a full-scale replica of a Portuguese slave ship.

One problem - we ain't trying to pay for it. Damn you RACISM! (CLICK HERE)

In September, organizers urged each American to donate $8 -- a number symbolizing slave shackles. While that ongoing fundraising effort raised $50,000 in one weekend, folks like comedian Bill Cosby blamed apathy among black folks for keeping donations below the half million dollar mark so far.

"When you go out and get $8 from every African American, you do the math and you come up to this whopping millions of dollars," Cosby said. What he didn't say was how low budget our people can be at times.

Yeah, we said it. Prove us wrong. Make a donation by going here, then post a comment with us bragging that you did it.

Speaking of slavery, Check out the next post on the nation's first slaveowner... um, we mean president.

SONNY CARSON CAN'T GET A STREET, YET SLAVE-OWNING PRESIDENT STILL REVERED

When the nation's first president died in 1799, George Washington owned more than 300 human beings that he consciously chose to enslave.

I realize that this was a different time in the United States. I also fully understand that even during this period, there were people who knew Washington's actions were barbaric, despicable and evil.

That thought alone distracts me for a minute.

So upon reading about a hidden underground passageway in Washington's presidential home, used so guests would not see the people he enslaved as they slipped in and out of the main house, I find myself really pissed off.

Recently unearthed by archaeologists, the both disturbing and fascinating passageway used by nine black people (I'm not labeling them slaves by choice) is raising questions about whether the ruins should be incorporated into a new exhibit at the site.

Just steps from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, Washington lived and conducted presidential business at the house in the 1790s, when Philadelphia was the nation's capital.

Thousands of visitors have been drawn to the ruins, standing on a small wooden platform to gaze down at the house's brick and stone foundation.

The public response spurred officials to continue the excavation until at least July 4; it began in March and had been scheduled to end last month.

Before the ruins were unearthed, officials had planned an exhibit without archaeological findings. The planned design included a framework of the house, LED screens and other audiovisual elements explaining its history, including stories of Washington's slaves.

"As you enter the heaven of liberty, you literally have to cross the hell of slavery," said Michael Coard, a Philadelphia attorney who leads a group that worked to have slavery recognized at the site. "That's the contrast, that's the contradiction, that's the hypocrisy. But that's also the truth."

Most of the Black people Washington owned lived at his Mount Vernon estate in Virginia.

In his will, moreover, Washington arranged for them to be freed AFTER the death of he and his wife. That was so kind of massa!

C'mon, here's a White man that school children of every color are brainwashed into believing deserves to be held in the most highest of esteem, yet he was treating possibly one of my direct ancestors like cattle.

Would Washington be celebrated if he were a known child molester or a serial murderer?

Probably not. But because slavery was accepted in some aristocratic circles, we discard his vile behavior and treat it like some minor character flaw.

So let's stop pretending America. Let's leave everything in place as it relates to this incredible finding, and deal with our countries glorious past. Warts and all!

MSNBC