Washington (Founder, 1st)
Advertisement for Runaway Slaves, Fairfax County (Virginia) August 11, 1761.
Ran away from a Plantation on Sunday the 9th, the following Negroes
Peros, 35 or 40 Years, a well-set Fellow, of about 5 Feet 8 Inches
yellowish and full black Beard, his Speech something slow and broken
Jack, 30 Years (or thereabouts), a slim, black, well made Fellow, of near 6 Feet
small Face, Cuts down each Cheek, being his Country Marks
his Feet are large for he requires a great Shoe
Neptune, aged 25 or 30, well set, and of about 5 Feet 8 or 9 Inches
thin jaw’d, his Teeth stragling and fil’d sharp, his Back has small Marks
running from both Shoulders to his Waistband
Cupid, 23 or 25 Years old, a black well made Fellow, 5 Feet 8 or 9 Inches
round and full faced, the Skin coarse, and inclined to pimple
The two last of these Negroes were bought from an African Ship
August 1759 and talk unintelligible English, the second one, Jack
speaks good English, having been several Years in the Country
The other, Peros, speaks much better than either, indeed has little
of his Country left, is esteemed a sensible judicious Negro
As they went off without the least Suspicion, Provocation, or Difference
with any Body, or the least angry Word or Abuse from their Overseers
tis supposed they will hardly lurk about the Neighbourhood, but steer
some direct Course in Hopes of Escape
Whoever apprehends the Negroes, so that the Subscriber may get them
shall have, if taken up in this County, Forty Shillings Reward
beside what the Law allows
_
Jefferson (Founder, Declaration Drafter, 3rd)
Martha Jefferson (nee Wayles) was daughter of John, slave trader, and of a mother who died when Martha was six days. Her mother owned a person, Betty Hemmings; her father owned many. Her father buried two other wives and after the last raped Betty across twelve years and to six children, the youngest being Sally. Martha grew up, inherited 135 people upon her father’s death, including Betty Hemmings and her children, Martha’s half-siblings. Sally Hemmings then an infant. Martha and Thomas had six children, two of which lived to adulthood. Martha died months after birthing their last. Martha’s siblings grew, forced to labor at Monticello. After Martha’s death, Jefferson raped Sally Hemmings, fifteen to his fourty-five, as she served as nursemaid to Jefferson’s daughter during a stay in France; he continued across forty years and to five children. Sally Hemmings returned from France, where the government saw her as her own person, only when Jefferson promised their future children freed at 21. She and her surviving children were forced to labor under Jefferson until his death; in his will he released them, four of the seven (all Hemmings) freed of 600 people he owned across his life. He did not free Sally Hemmings. In 1941, her bedroom, steps from Jefferson’s own, renovated to a men’s bathroom
Jefferson, 1788: Nobody wishes more ardently
to see abolition not only of the trade but of the condition
of slavery and certainly nobody will be more willing
to encounter every sacrifice for that object
Jefferson, 1820: I consider a woman who brings a child
every two years as more profitable than the best man
of the farm. What she produces is an addition to the capital
while his labors disappear in consumption
Jefferson, 1825: Notes on the State of Virginia, Chapter 13, Laws:
The plan of the revisal was [lists five topics, including] to emancipate slaves
born after passing the act. An amendment was offered that they should continue
with their parents to a certain age, then be brought up to tillage, arts or sciences
till the females should be eighteen, the males twenty-one, when they should be
colonized to such place as most proper to declare them a free and independant
people, and extend to them alliance and protection, till they have acquired strength
It will probably be asked, why not incorporate blacks into the state and thus save
the expence of supplying, by importation of white settlers, vacancies they will leave
Deep prejudices entertained by whites, ten thousand recollections by blacks
of injuries sustained, distinctions which nature made, will divide us, produce
convulsions which will end in the extermination of the one or the other
The first difference which strikes is that of colour. Whether the black resides
in the reticular membrane between the skin and scarf-skin or in the scarf-skin
itself; whether it proceeds from the colour of the blood, the colour of the bile,
or from that of some other secretion, the difference is fixed
[Then pages of white claims about Black people’s spiritual intellectual
artistic capacities. Account like a rape highly detailed, so we end it
Then a passage on slavery under the Romans, where the institution fell
short and where it excelled, freeman who evolved in part because]
the slaves of which Homer speaks were whites. And is this difference
of no importance. To justify a general conclusion requires observations
even where the subject may be submitted to the Anatomical knife
to Optical glasses, to analysis by fire or solvents
I advance it therefore, as suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally
a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior
to whites in endowments of body and mind. It is not against experience
to suppose that different species of the same genus
or varieties of the same species possess different qualifications. Will not a lover
of natural history, one who views the gradations in all the races of animals
with the eye of philosophy, excuse an effort to keep those in the department of man
as distinct as nature has formed them? This unfortunate difference of colour
and perhaps of faculty a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these people
Among the Romans emancipation required one effort. The slave, when made free
might mix with, without staining the blood of his master. But with us a second
is necessary, unknown to history. When freed, he is to be removed
_
Emerson (Essayist, Abolitionist)
In his journal mid-1840’s: If the black man carries in his bosom
an indispensable element of a new & coming civilization
no wrong nor strength nor circumstance can hurt him
he will survive and play his part. If the black man is feeble
& not important to the existing races, not on a par
with the best race, the black man must serve & be sold
& exterminated. In his journal in 1851, parsing his opposition
to the Fugitive Slave Act: The absence of moral feeling
in the country whiteman is the calamity I deplore. The loss
captivity of a thousand Negroes is nothing to me
_
Lincoln (Great Emancipator, 16th)
Reply to Horace Greeley, 1862. As to the policy I “seem to be pursuing”
I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save the Union
I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution
If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could
at the same time save Slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those
who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy
Slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle
is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery
If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it
and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it
and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone
I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race
I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear
I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union
I shall do less whenever I believe what I am doing hurts the cause
I shall do more whenever I believe doing more will help the cause
I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, I shall
adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views
I have stated my purpose according to my view of official duty
and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish
that all men, everywhere, could be free
_
J. Marion Sims (Father of Gynecology)
Sims’ The Story of My Life, published 1884:
Chapter I. My antecedents —Life and death of my father and mother
Chapter III. My early school experience and first love—My first lie—The story
of the crooked pin
Chapter IV. I start to college and get homesick—My first experience with wine
not a success
Chapter V. College days continued—A midnight serenade—Almost a murder
Chapter XIII. Successful treatment of a hare-lip—I write a description of the case
for the “Dental Journal “—My dislike for compositions at college
Chapter XIV. An interesting case of trismus nascentiuni—Case of vesico-vaginal fistula
A series of experimental operations—Disappointments and final success
Who founded the Women’s Hospital in New York City
which memorialized him in bronze, as did Columbia,
South Carolina and Montgomery, Alabama, praising
his service to suffering women. Empress and slave alike
Who experimented on enslaved babies, used an awl to move
their skull bones, out of “curiosity,” moves they did not
survive; experimented on at least twelve enslaved women
multiple surgeries on each; one, Anarcha, held down and opened
thirty-three times. Without the anesthesia he used for whites
This went on he wrote not one year, but for three, even four
Her agony was extreme
_
Federal Housing Authority (Father of American Middle Class, Underwriter of 47 Million Home Loans)
FHA Underwriting Manual, 1934-1962, instructed lenders to consider factors which afford preservation of desirable characteristics
Influences can so change characteristics that the neighborhood will become
undesirable for residential purposes. Important adverse influences:
infiltration of inharmonious racial groups
the presence of smoke, odors, fog
noisy traffic arteries, railroads
All mortgages in neighborhoods protected against unfavorable influences
obtain higher rating. Such influences cause disqualification
Handbook instructed FHA Valuators to investigate
surrounding areas, determine whether incompatible racial groups
are present, to the end that an intelligent prediction may be
the possibility or probability of the location being invaded
Handbook recommended supplementing racial segregation
with deed restrictions and zoning ordinances.To be really effective
recommend prohibition of occupancy except by the race
for which they are intended. Recommend provisions for enforcement
[eviction from purchased home, rented apartment]
Recommended as a model of restrictive covenant:
No persons of any race other than [race to be inserted] shall use or occupy
any building or lot, except that this covenant shall not prevent
occupancy by domestic servants
of a different race
_
Robert F. Kennedy (Attorney General)
In May, 1963, asked James Baldwin to organize quiet, off-the-record, unpublicized get-together of prominent Negroes to discuss race relations on a day’s notice. Hansberry, Horne, Belafonte, King’s lawyer, local and national civil rights activists, and Jerome Smith, Freedom Rider, who’d been assaulted, jailed in Mississippi. Hosted in Kennedy family apartment, overlooking Central Park. Kennedy told them of his family’s accomplishments, despite discrimination against the Irish, detailed John’s work for African Americans, asked why their leaders couldn’t quell protests. Elections were coming, voters anxious. Kennedy described the Justice Department’s support of activists; Jerome Smith began weeping, said I’ve seen you guys stand around and do nothing more than take notes while we’re being beaten. Said, Mr. Kennedy, I want you to understand I don’t care anything about you and your brother. I don’t know what I’m doing here, listening to cocktail party patter. Said he did not know how much more nonviolence he could muster. Kennedy terse, by all accounts uninterested in critique. Hansberry stood, left before Kennedy adjourned, followed by the other intellectuals, lawyer, psychologist, civil rights veterans.
Kennedy: They seemed possessed. They reacted as a unit. They don’t know what the laws are—they don’t know what the facts are—they don’t know what we’ve been doing or what we’re trying to do. You can’t talk to them the way you can talk to Martin Luther King or Roy Wilkins. It was all emotion, hysteria—they stood up—orated—cursed—wept and left the room
_
Federal Bureau of Investigation (Father of Federal Law Enforcement)
Under directives of J. Edgar Hoover (tenure 1924—1972)
bureau conducted surveillance, covert operations
to disrupt lawful activities of civil rights leaders
through “Racial Matters” program, COINTELPRO
Hoover requested/was granted permission from Kennedy
to wiretap King in 1963; in 1964 Hoover mailed
a typewritten letter and audio recording
of extra-marital affairs to King’s home:
King, in view of your low grade, abnormal personal behavior
I will not dignify your name with a Mr. or Reverend or Dr.
You know you are a complete fraud a liability to all of us
Negroes. White people have frauds but I am sure they don’t
have one anywhere near your equal. Vicious, evil
Like all frauds your end is approaching. You are done
I repeat, you are done. Lend your sexually psychotic
ear to the enclosure. You will find all your dirt, filth
moronic talk exposed on the record. Your hideous
abnormalities, you filthy, abnormal animal
The American public, church organizations
will know you for what you are—a beast
You are done. There is only one thing left
for you to do. You know what it is
There is but one way out. Take it
_
John Wayne (Archetype)
(in interview with Playboy, 1971)
Wayne: With blacks, there’s resentment along with dissent,
but we can’t all of a sudden get down on our knees
and turn everything over. I believe in white supremacy
until the blacks are educated to responsibility
I don’t feel guilty about the fact that five or 10 generations ago
these people were slaves. It’s just a fact of life, like the kid
who gets infantile paralysis and has to wear braces
so he can’t play football with the rest of us
I will say this: I think any black who can compete with a white
can get a better break than a white man. I wish they’d tell me
where in the world they have it better than right here in America
I’ve directed two pictures and I gave the blacks
their proper position. I had a black slave in The Alamo
a correct number of blacks in The Green Berets
Playboy: For years American Indians have played a subordinate
role in your Westerns. Do you feel empathy with them
Wayne: I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country
from them, if that’s what you’re asking. Our so-called stealing
of this country was a matter of survival. There were great numbers
of people who needed new land the Indians were selfishly
trying to keep for themselves. Look, I’m sure there have been
inequalities. If those inequalities are presently affecting any
of the Indians now alive they have a right to a court hearing
I wasn’t alive when reservations were created. I have no idea
the best method of dealing with the Indians in the 1800s
Our forefathers thought they were doing the right thing
I’ve gone without a meal or two in my life, and I don’t expect
the government to turn over any of its territory to me. Years ago
I didn’t have all the opportunities, either. But you can’t bellyache
’cause somebody else got a good break and you didn’t
That’s what we’re doing. We allow dirty loudmouths to publicly
call policemen pigs; we let a fella make a speech to the Black Panthers
saying that the ghetto is theirs, and that if police come into it
they have a right to shoot them. That dirty, no-good son of a bitch
And when they start shooting policemen, the time has come
to knock them off, far as I’m concerned. I’d sure as hell shoot back
I think we should break up those organizations make ‘em illegal
The American public is getting sick and tired of these people
We’re remembering that the past can’t be so bad. We built
a nation on it. We must also look always to the future. Tomorrow
is one of many things that are wonderful in life. So’s a good horse
Or the only campfire for miles around. Or a quiet night and a nice
soft hunk of ground to sleep on. Or church bells sending out
their invitations. A mother meeting her first-born. Tomorrow
is the most important thing. Comes in to us at midnight very clean
puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday
Playboy: The America you grew up in and the America of today, has it changed
Wayne: The only difference I see is that we have an enemy within
Playboy: What legacy do you hope to leave behind
Wayne: Well, you’re going to think I’m being corny, but
I hope my family and my friends will be able to say
I was an honest, kind and decent man
_
Reagan (the “Great Communicator,” 40th)
Opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, called it
a bad piece of legislation
Opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, called it
humiliating to the South
In 1966, assisted California Real Estate Association
in drafting proposition to block California’s Fair Housing Act
If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes
in selling or renting his house, it is his right to do so
Opposed the Fair Housing Act of 1968
Referred to Black neighborhoods as jungles
men receiving food stamps as young bucks
Opposed legislation to create Martin Luther King Jr. Day
until it garnered overwhelming support in house, senate
public. Writing to former New Hampshire Governor
Meldrim Thompson, who’d urged him not to sign it
as Thompson believed King a communist
Reagan responded, I have the same reservations
_
Lee Atwater (Republican Party Political Strategist)
Race didn’t become an issue in the South, again, until 1954
Everyone was operating within a segregated society. From 1954 to 1966,
race was the issue. Goldwater (in other words, the South in 1964)
was considered reactionary, Neanderthalic, because we weren’t mainstream
on the race thing. What happens is Reagan who campaigns in 1980
on a 1964 Goldwater platform, minus the Voting Rights Act, all that bullshit
But the South went from being behind the times to being the mainstream
The Southern strategy was based on coded racism. The whole thing. Bussing
Anything could be traced back to race. So the Southern strategy, you start in 1954
by saying ‘nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger,’ that hurts you
backfires, so you say stuff like ‘forced bussing, states rights’ and you’re getting
so abstract. Now you’re talking about cutting taxes. You’re talking
about economic things, and the byproduct is Blacks get hurt worse than whites
Because sitting around saying, ‘we want to cut taxes’ is much more abstract
than even the bussing thing, and a hell of lot more abstract than, ‘nigger, nigger’
_
Donald Trump (Real Estate Developer, 45th)
On Native Americans, while building his casinos
[while attempting to block Native gaming, telling the US
House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources
that Native casinos were ethically bankrupt, as well as
not Native]: They don’t look like Indians to me. I have more
Indian blood than these Indians opening up so-called reservations.
Ads placed by Trump in New York papers, with pictures
of hypodermic needles, lines of cocaine, asking Are these the neighbors
we want? Mohawk Indian record of criminal activity well documented
On African Americans, Jewish Americans working in casinos:
Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people
I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes
Laziness a trait in blacks
On Mexico and its citizens, while campaigning for president:
When Mexico sends its people, they’re bringing drugs, crime. They’re rapists
On our 44th:
Why doesn’t he show his birth certificate? Something on that certificate he doesn’t like / Somebody told me where it says ‘religion,’ might have ‘Muslim’ / I have people studying it, they cannot believe what they’re finding. If he wasn’t born in this country, a real possibility, he has pulled one of the great cons in history / His grandmother in Kenya said, ‘he was born in Kenya I was there I witnessed the birth.’ She’s on tape that tape’s going to be produced soon. / [Obama releases long-form certificate; short-form released prior to presidency] Many people do not think it was authentic. His mother was not in the hospital. There are many other things / An extremely credible source called my office told me @BarackObama’s birth certificate a fraud / Was it a birth certificate? You tell me. Some people say not. I’m saying I don’t know. Nobody knows / How amazing, the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama’s “birth certificate” died in plane crash today. All others lived / There are three things that could happen. One of them did happen. He was perhaps born in Kenya. He was perhaps born in this country. But said he was born in Kenya because if you say you were born in Kenya, you got aid and you got into colleges / Attention all hackers: You are hacking everything else so please hack Obama’s college records (destroyed? check “place of birth.” / Who knows about Obama? Who cares? I have my own theory. Someday I will write a book, and it will do very successfully
On himself:
I can never apologize for the truth. I’m not a racist. I don’t have
a racist bone in my body. I’m the least racist person
On women:
I cherish women. I want to help women
I’m going to be able to do things for women
no other would be able to
Come here; where are you from? A nice smile
You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful
I just start kissing. It’s like a magnet
I understand beauty. I own Miss Universe
I own Miss USA. I did try and fuck her
Moved on her like a bitch but I couldn’t get there
You know, it really doesn’t matter
what the media write as long as you’ve got
a young, and beautiful, piece of ass
Heidi Klum. Sadly, no longer a 10
Rosie’s a loser. A real loser
I look forward to taking lots of money
from my nice fat little Rosie
She is a dog who wrongfully comments on me
She was an eating machine
You could see blood coming out of her
I heard poorly rated low-IQ crazy
came to Mar-a-Lago bleeding badly
from a face-lift I said no
I’m not saying she’s unattractive
but she’s no beauty
And now she’s, like, a representative
of the United Nations and world peace
on hunger all of this crap—it’s called
give me a break. I understand why
her husband left her for a man
A person who’s flat-chested
is very hard to be a 10
If Hillary Clinton
can’t satisfy her husband
what makes her think
she can satisfy America
You know what? The women get it better than we do
I have days where, when I come home and dinner’s not ready
I go through the roof. I think that putting a wife to work
is dangerous. After they’re a star, the fun is over
It’s a creation process
You have to treat ‘em like shit
I am going to be dating [references ten year old girl, ascending
mall escalator] in ten years. Can you believe it
I better use some Tic Tacs just in case. You know
I just start kissing. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star
they let you. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy
Pretty picture, you dropping to your knees
I have always treated women with great respect
I understand beauty I own
