Apparently saying that the White House was built by slaves is considered “race baiting” by the conspiracy-theorist-in-chief Alex Jones. Maybe some of you have seen an uproar on the social media about this. Maybe some of you have social media contacts who are pushing this.
For your counterpunching quiver, I give you a little history and some handy links. I don’t even need Snopes on this one, although they back up the statement.
“The D.C. commissioners, charged by Congress with building the new city under the direction of the president, initially planned to import workers from Europe to meet their labor needs. However, response to recruitment was dismal and soon they turned to African American—enslaved and free—to provide the bulk of labor that built the White House, the United States Capitol, and other early government buildings.
Stonemason Collen Williamson trained enslaved people on the spot at the government's quarry at Aquia, Virginia. Enslaved people quarried and cut the rough stone that was later dressed and laid by Scottish masons to erect the walls of the President's House. The slaves joined a work force that included local white laborers and artisans from Maryland and Virginia, as well as immigrants from Ireland, Scotland, and other European nations.”
Or the Smithsonian, referring to the Capitol
“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
There was even an official report, History of Slave Laborers in the Construction of the United States Capitol. The above quote is from a forward to the report.
And to those who want to trot out Bill O’Reilly:
Bill O'Reilly: Slaves who built White House were 'well-fed and had decent lodgings'
Fine, slaves weren’t the only people who worked on the White House. That doesn’t discredit Michelle Obama’s claim ONE FREAKING IOTA.
And if you need to resort to the “we fed and housed them well” defense of slavery, you have already conceded the point that slavery was awful and unforgivable by trying to whitewash it.