Is it true that slaves built the capitol building? Just heard

[coffeenap]

this on the tv machine.

[lisa58]

1. they built the white house

[Bicoastal]

2. Absolutely they did, and the White House too...

...where else did you get cheap labor back then?

[coffeenap]

3. Thank you --this is going directly to my kid's high school

history teachers! How the hell could I be a progressive all of my life and NEVER put this in my mind? I feel like such an ass!!!!!

[Spangle]

14. Because it's not in the South

I know folks who think their family wasn't racist because they were from the North. And many folks who assume if a person is from the South they are racist.

It's because our racial bigotry is ignored in the History books, except for the Southern Slavery. It might ignore it there too, if it wouldn't be odd to live out the Civil War, etc.

We have black history month for a reason. White persons who wrote our history books for educations, refused to include alot of information that should have been in there.

I'm one of those who believe we should stop trying to hid our past and freely talk about it. YES it did happen. Buy we as a nation surivived it. We over come it. We should honestly talk about who built our country. It wasn't just white folks. But many different types of folks. WE don't talk about the many Chinese Americans who died building our railroads. The slave stories are cake walks to the Chinese stories.

WE built this country. WE are made of many colors.

[wishlist]

4. Yes, Donna Brazile said her ancestors built steps up to Capitol

Donna Brazile was on ABC this morning and mentioned that every time she goes up the Capitol steps for years she has thought about her slave ancestors who were the builders and the meticulous care and hard work it involved.

[raccoon]

5. That's why it galls me when anyone talks about how white men

carved an empire out of the wilderness in the antebellum South. True, I don't think I ever heard that except in a blurb on a novel taking place in the antebellum South. Well, anyway, THEY didn't, their slaves did.

[annabanana]

6. absolutely positively the truth. . . . . .n/t

[Clareman]

7. There's a recent book about it

A fellow who works for the AP (whose name unfortunately escapes me at the moment) wrote a book about slaves building the Capitol within the last year or so. C-Span2 had a great interview with him in the last year or so... it's probably still on their site in the booktv archives.

[coffeenap]

9. I will find it and donate copies to our schools--thanks! nt

[coffeenap]

11. dupe, sorry

[NOLALady]

8. Freed and enslaved blacks

provided the bulk of labor that built the White House, the United States Capitol, and other early government buildings, as well as the rest of the country.

[arthritisR_US]

10. they built the WH so it's about bloody time they got to live in it! :-) n/t

[coffeenap]

12. Hell yes!!

[burythehatchet]

13. There was an episode of John Adams when he moves into the White House

while it is being constructed. The visualization struck me as accurate, though I have no way of knowing.