I just read an article in the Atlanta Black Star by Zellie Imani about a new Scholastic book: A Birthday Cake for George Washington. (Amazon link) This is a children’s book about how happy the SLAVE chef is to make a cake for Washington. The flap portrays this as a true story.
This story, told in the voice of Delia, Hercules’s young daughter, is based on real events and underscores the loving exchange between a very determined father and his eager daughter, who are faced with an unspoken, bittersweet reality. No matter how delicious the president’s cake turns out to be, Delia and Papa don’t have the sweetness of freedom.
Zellie points out that this is not so:
Hercules was not in fact a “happy or joyful” enslaved person, he actually escaped to freedom on February 22, 1797 – Washington’s 65th birthday – which the president celebrated in Philadelphia. According to a diary entry of Louis-Philippe, the future king of the French:
The general’s cook ran away, being now in Philadelphia, and left a little daughter of six at Mount Vernon. Beaudoin ventured that the little girl must be deeply upset that she would never see her father again; she answered, “Oh! Sir, I am very glad, because he is free now.
So we have a book that celebrates slavery, no matter how they frame it, and also LIES to do so. To children.
This is beyond deplorable. I am also linking to an article with the petition information.
Please sign and share.
Source: Enslaved Africans of George Washington Depicted as ‘Happy and Joyful’ in New Children’s Book
Further: Atalanta Black Star article on the petition
Change. org petition