Congress has bestowed on National Mall Liberty Fund DC the honor of establishing a memorial in Washington’s Monumental Core to tens of thousands of African American solders, sailors, marines, patriots and liberty seekers of the Revolutionary War. In preparation for the design and construction of such a memorial, the National Mall Liberty Fund has been working to document the histories and stories of these valiant soldiers. We talk with Maurice Barboza, the Executive Director of the National Mall Liberty Fund.
Congress has bestowed on National Mall Liberty Fund DC the honor of establishing a memorial in Washington’s Monumental Core to tens of thousands of African American solders, sailors, marines, patriots and liberty seekers of the Revolutionary War. In preparation for the design and construction of such a memorial, the National Mall Liberty Fund has been working to document the histories and stories of these valiant soldiers. We talk with Maurice Barboza, the Executive Director of the National Mall Liberty Fund.
WEBVTT
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good morning everyone
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welcome to the revolution
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250 podcast I'm bob allison
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I chair the revolution 250
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advisory group we are a
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consortium of 70 plus
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organizations in
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massachusetts looking ways
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to commemorate the
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beginnings of american
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independence and our guest
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today is maurice barboza is
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a actually he is a I'll let
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you tell us more about who
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you are maurice you grew up
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in plainville connecticut
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got a law degree at Rutgers,
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and now for 40 years have
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been working on the
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National Mall Liberty Fund,
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that is building a monument
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on the National Mall to the
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African American patriots
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who served in the revolution.
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Yes,
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I didn't set out to build a monument
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or to battle for, well,
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40 years with the Daughters
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of the American Revolution.
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I just thought,
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There was a picture on my
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grandmother's living room
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wall of a man dressed in a
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Civil War uniform.
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All I knew was his last name
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and that was my
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grandmother's grandfather.
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That was about it.
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We knew they were from Maine.
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After my grandmother's death in 1975,
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my mother asked one of my
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aunts if I could take that
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picture and she agreed.
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uh gave it to me and um I
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continued to think about it
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then in 1978 after having
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seen roots and having been
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through the semi the
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bicentennial I decided to
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go to the archives and
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figure out who this person
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was and to my surprise I
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found his war records um
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and it was easy because um
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They were in folders.
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They gave me three at a time.
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I looked through the first one.
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I knew it wasn't my ancestor.
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The next one,
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I saw all these familiar names,
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names that my aunts and
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uncles had been named.
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and other information that, of course,
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my great-grandfather's name
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as the son of the soldier.
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And so that's what got me going.
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And I traveled through museums, libraries,
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cemeteries, beginning in Maine,
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which was Massachusetts at the time,
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Union, Maine.
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And then I traveled through
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museums in Massachusetts, bookstores.
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And I discovered the family
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dating back to 1630 and the
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arrival of John and Mary at
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Watertown in Massachusetts.
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And the family just
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burgeoned and moved to Rentham and
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Watertown and other places.
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So it was just such an enjoyable trip.
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Oh yeah, it is.
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It's really a captivating
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thing exploring these
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different generations.
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Now,
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who was this individual whose picture
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captivated you as a boy?
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Who was the individual whose
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picture you saw?
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Oh,
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the photograph is of my
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great-great-grandfather, John Curtis Gay,
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who enlisted in the Civil
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War at the age of 38, Union Army.
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And he was sent to,
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eventually he made his way
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from January when he
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enlisted to June 1st or 3rd.
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He found himself at a very bad place,
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the Battle of Cold Harbor.
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And he was wounded.
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His leg was amputated.
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He was taken to a military
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hospital in New York from Virginia.
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Cold Harbor is just outside of Richmond.
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And then eventually,
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He was taken to a hospital in Augusta,
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Maine,
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where he died on Christmas Day of 1864.
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So his military service was
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just really a matter of
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four or five months.
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I like to think that the
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Emancipation Proclamation
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had something to do with
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his decision to join.
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I saw nothing in these
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records that would have
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suggested any of his
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ancestors had anything to
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do with the institution of
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slavery or subjugating other people.
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That was a good thing to know.
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So and then did you find
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ancestors in the Revolutionary War?
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Yes.
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I guess it was my trip to
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Maine and to Union, Maine,
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where and I just love this memory.
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I called ahead of time and they said, oh,
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sure, come down.
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We'll make the records
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available for this particular family.
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And when I walked into the
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small town hall,
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I saw that there was an
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enormous walk-in safe with
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huge volumes stacked up
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against all three walls
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that were visible.
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And so I explained who I was
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and they remembered the
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phone call and said, oh,
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come on in and just walk in.
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The records beginning with G
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are on this side and I
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started taking these large volumes.
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They seem to be like two
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feet by three feet or
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whatever with this
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remarkable handwriting.
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I can't recall how far I got back.
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I believe it was to the
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grandfather of John Curtis Gay,
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the Civil War soldier.
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thought at that moment that
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maybe there was a
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possibility that one of his
00:06:06.023 --> 00:06:07.803
ancestors had served in the
00:06:07.843 --> 00:06:09.043
Revolutionary War.
00:06:09.103 --> 00:06:10.845
There were two previous
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generations in that town of
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gays after they had left Massachusetts.
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And I decided to go to the
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archives in Augusta.
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And I found another half of the family,
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which I thought may have
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had a connection.
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It wasn't until I got back
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to Washington that I
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confirmed finding a very
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detailed genealogy,
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which I discovered at the
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Daughters of the American
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Revolution Library.
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And it contained the name of
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my great-grandfather.
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every generation,
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eight or nine generations,
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going back to John Gay,
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who arrived on the John and
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Mary and eventually settled
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in Dedham and was active in
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some of the town hall
00:07:05.206 --> 00:07:08.468
meetings that I was
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discussing with Jonathan Lane.
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Interesting.
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Interesting.
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And your aunt, Lena Ferguson, you
00:07:17.713 --> 00:07:18.975
you became a member of the
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Sons of the American
00:07:20.014 --> 00:07:21.336
Revolution and then pushed
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for her to join the DAR.
00:07:23.317 --> 00:07:25.398
And then that's a story in
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and of itself of her
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attempt to join the DAR.
00:07:30.360 --> 00:07:34.202
And she did ultimately.
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And I wonder if we can talk about that,
00:07:37.024 --> 00:07:37.785
but also I really wanna
00:07:37.824 --> 00:07:38.985
know what sparked you then
00:07:39.024 --> 00:07:41.305
to the idea of a monument
00:07:41.427 --> 00:07:43.166
on the National Mall to the
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black soldiers and others
00:07:44.827 --> 00:07:46.009
at the time of the revolution.
00:07:46.932 --> 00:07:47.211
Well,
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I was welcomed into the Sons of the
00:07:51.134 --> 00:07:52.095
American Revolution.
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The book collector, Charles Bloxson,
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who donated 50,000 volumes
00:07:59.220 --> 00:08:00.060
to Temple University,
00:08:00.120 --> 00:08:00.961
it's now somewhere about
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half a million volumes of
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the roles of
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African-Americans in history.
00:08:06.204 --> 00:08:07.786
And I met him one day and I
00:08:07.985 --> 00:08:09.346
told him what I'd done,
00:08:09.427 --> 00:08:10.588
just as I've explained to you.
00:08:10.608 --> 00:08:10.827
And he said,
00:08:11.007 --> 00:08:12.069
you ought to join the Sons of
00:08:12.108 --> 00:08:13.088
the American Revolution.
00:08:13.370 --> 00:08:14.350
I'd never heard of the Sons
00:08:14.389 --> 00:08:15.170
of the American Revolution.
00:08:17.216 --> 00:08:18.357
Made a phone call to the
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office in Washington and
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they explained to me what I needed to do.
00:08:21.458 --> 00:08:24.759
You needed two members to
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sign your application
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papers and they gave me the
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papers and I filled them out.
00:08:30.843 --> 00:08:32.464
And one Saturday morning I
00:08:32.544 --> 00:08:34.926
called the two men and they said, okay,
00:08:34.966 --> 00:08:36.167
come by and we'll talk to
00:08:36.187 --> 00:08:36.706
you a little bit.
00:08:36.787 --> 00:08:38.508
And they did and they signed my paper.
00:08:39.048 --> 00:08:40.727
my papers and I submitted
00:08:40.768 --> 00:08:42.609
them the next monday and
00:08:43.149 --> 00:08:45.570
within two months I heard
00:08:45.649 --> 00:08:47.929
back that I accepted and
00:08:48.070 --> 00:08:49.471
that they wanted me to come
00:08:49.551 --> 00:08:51.910
to a formal uh dinner that
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they were having so they
00:08:52.931 --> 00:08:54.552
could get my certificate so
00:08:54.572 --> 00:08:55.392
it was a wonderful
00:08:55.451 --> 00:08:57.633
experience I i like the
00:08:57.673 --> 00:08:59.773
association with these guys
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uh and um then um I was
00:09:03.974 --> 00:09:06.855
showing the photographs the other
00:09:08.115 --> 00:09:10.017
findings of my trips to
00:09:10.236 --> 00:09:12.197
Massachusetts and Maine to my aunts,
00:09:12.258 --> 00:09:12.998
three of my aunts,
00:09:13.057 --> 00:09:14.238
including Lena Ferguson.
00:09:15.019 --> 00:09:16.479
And I said to them,
00:09:16.678 --> 00:09:18.179
would you want to join the
00:09:18.220 --> 00:09:19.080
Daughters of the American
00:09:19.120 --> 00:09:20.259
Revolution because your
00:09:20.279 --> 00:09:21.280
requirements are the same?
00:09:22.436 --> 00:09:25.458
and um nina said that
00:09:26.360 --> 00:09:27.980
maurice I'll do it but it's
00:09:28.041 --> 00:09:30.202
not going to be easy and
00:09:30.823 --> 00:09:32.965
she more than any of the
00:09:33.105 --> 00:09:35.628
other uh aunts and uncles
00:09:36.227 --> 00:09:37.610
well I don't know whether I
00:09:37.629 --> 00:09:39.071
should say that but she
00:09:39.130 --> 00:09:41.993
understood racism and she had come from
00:09:42.854 --> 00:09:42.894
in 1950.
00:09:42.994 --> 00:09:45.495
And so she knew what it was
00:09:45.554 --> 00:09:46.634
like to sit on the back of
00:09:46.654 --> 00:09:49.735
the bus in restaurants.
00:09:50.716 --> 00:09:52.437
And she knew all about the DAR.
00:09:52.496 --> 00:09:53.378
And in fact,
00:09:53.697 --> 00:09:56.239
she told me that she and my
00:09:56.298 --> 00:09:57.839
grandparents and others in
00:09:57.859 --> 00:09:59.320
the family had watched
00:09:59.379 --> 00:10:00.700
Marian Anderson's concert.
00:10:01.220 --> 00:10:02.701
So she immediately wrote to
00:10:02.721 --> 00:10:04.501
the DAR and asked for
00:10:04.522 --> 00:10:07.022
information and explained
00:10:07.042 --> 00:10:07.962
that I was a member of the
00:10:08.003 --> 00:10:09.182
Sons of the American Revolution.
00:10:12.105 --> 00:10:14.092
A few days later, she called me and said,
00:10:14.113 --> 00:10:18.061
I have this letter from the –
00:10:18.061 --> 00:10:19.322
the registrar for,
00:10:19.341 --> 00:10:21.764
or I think she was a higher level.
00:10:21.823 --> 00:10:23.085
I'm not quite sure she was
00:10:23.125 --> 00:10:24.547
the top person in Washington.
00:10:25.486 --> 00:10:29.270
And it was a recitation of the bylaws.
00:10:29.291 --> 00:10:30.932
You need to have two sponsors.
00:10:30.971 --> 00:10:31.572
You need to do this.
00:10:31.993 --> 00:10:33.494
So it was a standoffish
00:10:33.573 --> 00:10:35.676
letter that adjusted to
00:10:35.735 --> 00:10:38.918
Lena that they really don't want me.
00:10:41.461 --> 00:10:41.980
And so that's...
00:10:43.361 --> 00:10:45.923
That was the beginning of
00:10:46.442 --> 00:10:47.163
this whole thing.
00:10:47.263 --> 00:10:49.224
And she went to meetings,
00:10:49.303 --> 00:10:50.844
eventually found a sponsor.
00:10:51.844 --> 00:10:52.284
In 1983,
00:10:52.284 --> 00:10:54.625
there was a story in the Post about it,
00:10:54.725 --> 00:10:56.405
that the DAR didn't want
00:10:56.426 --> 00:10:57.326
her in a local chapter.
00:10:57.346 --> 00:10:58.785
And at the same time, the DAR was...
00:11:02.707 --> 00:11:05.389
was pocketing 800 to a
00:11:05.408 --> 00:11:06.828
million dollars a year and
00:11:06.969 --> 00:11:09.029
tax breaks from the District of Columbia.
00:11:09.049 --> 00:11:10.629
There were no black members
00:11:11.009 --> 00:11:12.630
and people were happy about it.
00:11:14.530 --> 00:11:18.412
I called the Washington Post
00:11:18.812 --> 00:11:19.472
several times.
00:11:19.552 --> 00:11:22.513
Finally, I hit pay dirt and they said,
00:11:22.533 --> 00:11:23.754
come on in, we'll talk about it.
00:11:25.046 --> 00:11:26.988
did interviews with the D.A.R.
00:11:27.028 --> 00:11:27.828
president general,
00:11:27.889 --> 00:11:28.529
and she said some
00:11:28.590 --> 00:11:29.991
remarkable things like
00:11:30.011 --> 00:11:31.714
yelled at dinner party.
00:11:31.793 --> 00:11:32.475
Well,
00:11:33.735 --> 00:11:35.697
and somebody came and they weren't
00:11:35.738 --> 00:11:36.139
invited.
00:11:36.239 --> 00:11:36.980
What would you do?
00:11:37.340 --> 00:11:38.802
And what she was expressing
00:11:38.881 --> 00:11:41.924
was a generations long
00:11:45.042 --> 00:11:46.523
effort to prevent Black
00:11:46.562 --> 00:11:47.423
people from joining.
00:11:47.783 --> 00:11:49.322
So they had various rules.
00:11:49.363 --> 00:11:51.844
The chapters could blackball
00:11:51.884 --> 00:11:52.663
a member if they didn't
00:11:52.724 --> 00:11:55.624
like them for various reasons.
00:11:55.764 --> 00:11:56.543
That's how it started.
00:11:56.844 --> 00:11:58.764
And the memorial came out of that.
00:11:58.804 --> 00:11:59.725
I said to myself, well,
00:11:59.804 --> 00:12:01.024
I'm sure there were a
00:12:01.044 --> 00:12:01.945
handful of Blacks who
00:12:01.965 --> 00:12:04.466
served in the Revolutionary War.
00:12:05.346 --> 00:12:08.365
That's how I discovered Dr. Corral's book.
00:12:08.426 --> 00:12:09.486
And I thought, right, God,
00:12:09.527 --> 00:12:10.366
he estimates that there
00:12:10.386 --> 00:12:11.787
were 5,000 and they ought to be honest.
00:12:13.270 --> 00:12:15.792
It's an amazing number.
00:12:15.892 --> 00:12:17.932
And then you've found that a
00:12:18.273 --> 00:12:19.692
big percentage were from
00:12:20.332 --> 00:12:22.594
Massachusetts and New England.
00:12:22.634 --> 00:12:25.355
So I'm wondering, and you've broken this.
00:12:25.495 --> 00:12:25.715
I mean,
00:12:25.735 --> 00:12:27.315
you see the monument is more than
00:12:27.414 --> 00:12:29.096
simply a piece of marble.
00:12:29.135 --> 00:12:30.976
It's really an educational tool.
00:12:31.157 --> 00:12:32.277
And you've done tremendous
00:12:32.356 --> 00:12:33.716
research into the people
00:12:33.777 --> 00:12:36.557
behind the monument and the
00:12:36.597 --> 00:12:37.678
stories behind them and the
00:12:37.719 --> 00:12:38.839
towns they came from.
00:12:40.003 --> 00:12:41.065
Yes,
00:12:42.947 --> 00:12:45.552
after the front page story hit the
00:12:45.633 --> 00:12:46.214
Washington Post,
00:12:51.302 --> 00:12:53.384
It created a firestorm and the D.A.R.
00:12:53.404 --> 00:12:54.946
was with the loss of its tax
00:12:54.985 --> 00:12:57.707
exemption line called and
00:12:57.967 --> 00:12:59.168
said that she worked with
00:12:59.249 --> 00:13:01.711
the Washington Lawyers
00:13:01.770 --> 00:13:02.510
Committee and they were
00:13:02.551 --> 00:13:04.072
interested in talking to my aunt.
00:13:04.932 --> 00:13:06.653
We did with them and they
00:13:06.673 --> 00:13:08.095
decided that they would ask
00:13:08.154 --> 00:13:09.556
the law firm Hogan Hartson
00:13:10.096 --> 00:13:12.197
to take this on as a case.
00:13:12.918 --> 00:13:13.038
And
00:13:15.639 --> 00:13:17.280
Lena did not want to sue them,
00:13:17.701 --> 00:13:19.360
so we came up with ideas
00:13:19.561 --> 00:13:21.721
that would cause them to,
00:13:22.562 --> 00:13:25.481
maybe over a period of time, to change.
00:13:25.581 --> 00:13:27.003
And one of them was, of course,
00:13:27.043 --> 00:13:28.243
to bar discrimination in
00:13:28.283 --> 00:13:30.043
membership and to explain
00:13:30.102 --> 00:13:32.063
to respective members that
00:13:32.423 --> 00:13:33.923
they could join the
00:13:33.984 --> 00:13:35.283
organization if they had an
00:13:35.384 --> 00:13:36.524
ancestor regardless of
00:13:36.544 --> 00:13:37.865
their color in the Revolutionary War.
00:13:38.465 --> 00:13:39.986
But the real key thing was
00:13:40.006 --> 00:13:41.748
the requirement that they
00:13:42.889 --> 00:13:44.750
research and publish a
00:13:44.770 --> 00:13:46.993
document that contained the
00:13:47.033 --> 00:13:48.754
names of every African
00:13:48.793 --> 00:13:50.436
American who served in the
00:13:50.475 --> 00:13:52.837
Revolutionary War, patriots and soldiers,
00:13:52.898 --> 00:13:55.179
people who would have made
00:13:55.480 --> 00:13:56.981
their descendants eligible
00:13:57.062 --> 00:13:58.283
to join the organization.
00:14:01.687 --> 00:14:06.231
And several steps were published,
00:14:06.251 --> 00:14:07.994
a series of pamphlets that
00:14:08.114 --> 00:14:10.817
were incomplete and did not,
00:14:11.278 --> 00:14:13.519
in our opinion, meet the requirements.
00:14:14.280 --> 00:14:15.562
They did a compendium in
00:14:15.562 --> 00:14:16.744
2001 that nearly got to
00:14:16.823 --> 00:14:17.465
about 2,000 soldiers.
00:14:20.707 --> 00:14:22.289
I did an op-ed in The New
00:14:22.330 --> 00:14:23.850
York Times with the great
00:14:23.870 --> 00:14:26.511
historian Gary Nash and
00:14:26.832 --> 00:14:28.033
claimed that they were
00:14:28.193 --> 00:14:29.615
using criteria that would
00:14:29.855 --> 00:14:31.235
automatically limit the
00:14:31.275 --> 00:14:33.236
number of African-Americans
00:14:33.256 --> 00:14:34.197
who were identified.
00:14:36.188 --> 00:14:37.409
And the year later,
00:14:37.450 --> 00:14:39.812
they asked Gary Nash to
00:14:39.852 --> 00:14:40.773
conduct a seminar at
00:14:40.832 --> 00:14:43.316
Constitution at our headquarters,
00:14:43.355 --> 00:14:45.217
and he brought in a number of historians.
00:14:45.658 --> 00:14:47.158
And they went through my
00:14:47.320 --> 00:14:48.980
explanations of the reasons
00:14:49.061 --> 00:14:50.322
why these criteria were
00:14:51.243 --> 00:14:52.605
improper and limited.
00:14:54.644 --> 00:14:55.544
The only people they would
00:14:55.585 --> 00:15:00.486
include were black, rather, Negro,
00:15:00.767 --> 00:15:03.768
mulatto, and the term black.
00:15:04.067 --> 00:15:05.947
So it left out all the mixed
00:15:06.048 --> 00:15:07.148
race people who might have
00:15:07.208 --> 00:15:10.208
been described as yellow, copper, bronze,
00:15:10.349 --> 00:15:10.688
brown.
00:15:11.289 --> 00:15:12.289
And there were ways to
00:15:12.529 --> 00:15:14.210
verify that these people
00:15:14.269 --> 00:15:16.711
were in fact of African descent.
00:15:24.495 --> 00:15:25.855
I went to Congresswoman
00:15:25.895 --> 00:15:26.816
Nancy Johnson from
00:15:26.996 --> 00:15:28.998
Connecticut and got a lot of support.
00:15:29.018 --> 00:15:32.181
In fact,
00:15:32.280 --> 00:15:34.381
Massachusetts were of great help
00:15:34.481 --> 00:15:37.284
in this legislation from Congress.
00:15:37.304 --> 00:15:38.785
But President Reagan signed
00:15:38.846 --> 00:15:40.967
a bill that was introduced
00:15:41.008 --> 00:15:43.208
to honor the role of African-Americans.
00:15:43.690 --> 00:15:44.811
That was at the same time
00:15:44.850 --> 00:15:46.412
the Post article hit the paper.
00:15:46.432 --> 00:15:46.532
Right.
00:15:48.013 --> 00:15:50.234
And so gave us a little bit of, well,
00:15:50.354 --> 00:15:52.014
quite a bit of leverage at the time.
00:15:53.053 --> 00:15:54.434
And then the idea came at
00:15:54.475 --> 00:15:56.475
the end of 1984 when people,
00:15:56.774 --> 00:15:58.115
after the settlement had been signed,
00:15:58.296 --> 00:16:00.196
people were, reporters rather,
00:16:00.235 --> 00:16:01.596
were still calling Lena and me,
00:16:02.255 --> 00:16:04.136
and I decided that we
00:16:04.177 --> 00:16:05.657
needed to build a monument.
00:16:05.836 --> 00:16:08.977
And that came about.
00:16:09.057 --> 00:16:09.878
Right, right.
00:16:09.898 --> 00:16:11.119
It's fascinating.
00:16:11.139 --> 00:16:12.739
We're talking with Maurice Barboza,
00:16:12.839 --> 00:16:14.798
who is the founder and CEO
00:16:14.919 --> 00:16:16.559
of the National Liberty Memorial.
00:16:23.056 --> 00:16:25.158
in the Revolutionary War.
00:16:25.957 --> 00:16:26.618
And as I said,
00:16:26.638 --> 00:16:28.259
you've come up with a
00:16:28.379 --> 00:16:31.761
tremendous database of people and places.
00:16:31.861 --> 00:16:32.881
So I'm just looking at it
00:16:32.903 --> 00:16:35.504
and seeing that there were
00:16:35.504 --> 00:16:36.605
115 actually from what is
00:16:36.664 --> 00:16:37.905
now the city of Boston,
00:16:37.905 --> 00:16:39.527
93 from the town of Boston,
00:16:39.567 --> 00:16:41.107
others from Charlestown, Roxbury,
00:16:41.148 --> 00:16:41.868
Dorchester.
00:16:42.749 --> 00:16:42.869
And
00:16:43.703 --> 00:16:44.465
And you've done similar
00:16:44.504 --> 00:16:45.865
things in other states like
00:16:45.945 --> 00:16:48.167
North Carolina and South,
00:16:48.187 --> 00:16:49.326
have you done South Carolina?
00:16:49.807 --> 00:16:50.048
Yes.
00:16:51.008 --> 00:16:54.190
And one of the really
00:16:54.350 --> 00:16:55.410
interesting things is
00:16:55.490 --> 00:16:56.792
tracking then the stories
00:16:56.851 --> 00:16:57.972
of these individuals,
00:16:58.113 --> 00:17:01.073
both at the time and afterward.
00:17:01.094 --> 00:17:03.316
I know in the New Jersey site,
00:17:03.436 --> 00:17:04.316
there is a fellow named
00:17:04.375 --> 00:17:05.717
Cesar who lives to be 106.
00:17:05.717 --> 00:17:06.196
I mean,
00:17:06.817 --> 00:17:08.919
the story itself is interesting and it's,
00:17:16.137 --> 00:17:17.239
that you've been uncovering
00:17:17.278 --> 00:17:20.721
in this project yes um I uh
00:17:20.862 --> 00:17:22.063
this person is not from
00:17:22.103 --> 00:17:23.664
massachusetts but his story
00:17:23.724 --> 00:17:26.307
is so remarkable it just
00:17:27.468 --> 00:17:29.309
excuse me his name is james
00:17:29.390 --> 00:17:32.172
robinson and I became aware
00:17:32.211 --> 00:17:34.114
of him I believe he's mentioned in uh
00:17:35.196 --> 00:17:36.357
Dr. Coral Burke.
00:17:38.278 --> 00:17:39.979
And I knew he'd served in the Revolution.
00:17:40.098 --> 00:17:41.640
He also served in the War of 1812.
00:17:43.240 --> 00:17:45.602
And how he got there is remarkable.
00:17:45.701 --> 00:17:46.961
He was born in Maryland.
00:17:47.482 --> 00:17:49.663
He went and served in the
00:17:49.703 --> 00:17:52.565
Revolutionary War with his master.
00:17:54.046 --> 00:17:57.507
He served the full eight years of the war.
00:17:58.528 --> 00:17:59.768
And in fact, when
00:18:04.271 --> 00:18:07.236
His master's name was Scales.
00:18:07.276 --> 00:18:09.538
He died before.
00:18:10.159 --> 00:18:12.241
He volunteered to take all
00:18:12.261 --> 00:18:13.643
of his possessions in a
00:18:13.702 --> 00:18:15.605
wagon from Pennsylvania
00:18:16.105 --> 00:18:18.269
back to the eastern shore of Maryland.
00:18:18.328 --> 00:18:20.050
So he was a guy who was...
00:18:22.494 --> 00:18:25.057
who understood who who felt
00:18:25.136 --> 00:18:27.577
the the sense of duty so he
00:18:28.078 --> 00:18:29.680
he his the promise to free
00:18:29.720 --> 00:18:34.623
him um and he was instead
00:18:34.903 --> 00:18:36.724
sent deeper into the south
00:18:36.845 --> 00:18:38.986
into slavery to uh new
00:18:39.066 --> 00:18:40.386
orleans and then to
00:18:40.507 --> 00:18:44.970
mississippi and he um he
00:18:45.009 --> 00:18:46.711
was stripped of his medals
00:18:46.810 --> 00:18:48.392
he was at yorktown and he
00:18:48.451 --> 00:18:49.932
was decorated by lafayette
00:18:53.806 --> 00:18:56.467
He, one day,
00:18:56.487 --> 00:18:59.628
none other than Andrew Jackson
00:19:00.009 --> 00:19:03.010
comes by and is recruiting blacks,
00:19:03.070 --> 00:19:04.411
just as they did during the
00:19:04.570 --> 00:19:05.592
Revolutionary War.
00:19:05.892 --> 00:19:06.551
We're going to give you your
00:19:06.571 --> 00:19:08.532
freedom if you join up and
00:19:08.913 --> 00:19:10.854
serve in this war.
00:19:10.913 --> 00:19:12.654
So he said he was reluctant
00:19:12.694 --> 00:19:15.317
to do it because he'd been there before,
00:19:15.616 --> 00:19:16.057
but he did.
00:19:16.297 --> 00:19:18.718
And he served one or two years in the...
00:19:21.457 --> 00:19:23.298
in the War of 1812,
00:19:23.298 --> 00:19:24.819
and he remained a slave.
00:19:24.861 --> 00:19:26.382
He came back in Jackson and said,
00:19:26.902 --> 00:19:28.884
we're not going to free you.
00:19:28.983 --> 00:19:30.685
You'll have to ask your
00:19:30.726 --> 00:19:32.347
masters to do that.
00:19:32.367 --> 00:19:34.169
He was never paid.
00:19:34.210 --> 00:19:35.330
He never received a pension.
00:19:36.692 --> 00:19:40.015
And then after the war, it was about,
00:19:40.395 --> 00:19:42.057
I guess, Buchanan and
00:19:43.178 --> 00:19:45.278
He somehow made his way to
00:19:45.319 --> 00:19:46.420
Washington and he pleaded
00:19:46.460 --> 00:19:48.701
with Buchanan for help getting a pension.
00:19:49.321 --> 00:19:50.282
He was refused.
00:19:50.623 --> 00:19:52.223
Somehow he made it to Detroit.
00:19:52.743 --> 00:19:55.526
And by now, that is well into his 70s.
00:19:55.546 --> 00:19:57.426
He lived to be 115 years old.
00:19:57.586 --> 00:19:58.067
That's pretty old.
00:20:01.849 --> 00:20:04.291
example, and he became a preacher,
00:20:05.833 --> 00:20:08.134
you know, a citizen of Michigan,
00:20:08.154 --> 00:20:12.337
and he's buried, and he has a headstone,
00:20:13.077 --> 00:20:15.740
and a wonderful member of
00:20:15.779 --> 00:20:17.240
the Michigan Sons of the
00:20:17.300 --> 00:20:18.541
American Revolution,
00:20:18.561 --> 00:20:28.269
Elijah Elijah Elijah Shato had
00:20:31.484 --> 00:20:33.669
honored him by getting an
00:20:33.788 --> 00:20:36.212
SAR plaque and ceremony.
00:20:36.292 --> 00:20:37.034
And it was great.
00:20:37.054 --> 00:20:39.096
It was in the various newspapers,
00:20:39.478 --> 00:20:40.398
the Washington Post and the
00:20:40.439 --> 00:20:41.259
Baltimore paper.
00:20:44.580 --> 00:20:47.083
uh so he eventually many
00:20:47.143 --> 00:20:48.483
generations later was
00:20:49.045 --> 00:20:51.646
recognized for his service
00:20:51.787 --> 00:20:53.567
his patriotism I don't know
00:20:53.587 --> 00:20:54.108
whether you call it
00:20:54.128 --> 00:20:55.308
patriotism or not he
00:20:55.690 --> 00:20:56.830
certainly had an interest
00:20:56.871 --> 00:20:57.851
just as all these others
00:20:57.871 --> 00:20:59.472
had an interest in winning
00:20:59.492 --> 00:21:01.013
their freedom and so as
00:21:01.094 --> 00:21:02.013
coral said they were going
00:21:02.034 --> 00:21:03.855
to go to wherever they
00:21:03.895 --> 00:21:04.936
thought they could get the
00:21:04.957 --> 00:21:07.499
best deal and apparently uh
00:21:07.919 --> 00:21:09.079
his deal was not with uh
00:21:11.309 --> 00:21:14.392
with the side of the Americans,
00:21:14.912 --> 00:21:17.873
although... Well,
00:21:17.913 --> 00:21:19.134
that's where he thought it was.
00:21:19.233 --> 00:21:20.534
And then a lot of others
00:21:20.713 --> 00:21:23.055
served on the other side in
00:21:23.134 --> 00:21:24.336
the revolution,
00:21:24.435 --> 00:21:25.436
seeing that that would be
00:21:25.777 --> 00:21:28.238
the more advantageous deal for them.
00:21:29.637 --> 00:21:31.798
But then there are others who do serve.
00:21:31.838 --> 00:21:32.079
Again,
00:21:32.259 --> 00:21:33.819
we're always trying to understand
00:21:33.859 --> 00:21:35.260
what motivated people.
00:21:36.854 --> 00:21:40.756
Why if free men or in some
00:21:40.776 --> 00:21:42.317
cases enslaved men who
00:21:42.457 --> 00:21:44.518
didn't have to did serve?
00:21:44.637 --> 00:21:44.817
I mean,
00:21:44.938 --> 00:21:47.579
that's one of the big questions we
00:21:47.619 --> 00:21:48.740
have is what motivated
00:21:48.799 --> 00:21:49.641
these people and what do
00:21:49.661 --> 00:21:50.901
you see as the motivation
00:21:51.021 --> 00:21:53.063
for people of any kind to serve?
00:21:54.002 --> 00:21:55.384
I think it's human nature to
00:21:55.424 --> 00:21:56.205
want to be free.
00:21:56.365 --> 00:21:57.307
I don't think you want to
00:21:57.346 --> 00:21:59.109
hit your star to a dictator,
00:21:59.130 --> 00:22:03.555
a person or a society
00:22:03.595 --> 00:22:05.037
that's going to tell you what to do,
00:22:05.176 --> 00:22:08.441
where you can eat, whether you can work,
00:22:08.800 --> 00:22:10.522
whether you receive pay or
00:22:10.603 --> 00:22:12.144
pensions or whatever.
00:22:13.646 --> 00:22:15.567
they were intelligent people
00:22:15.607 --> 00:22:17.008
they're not going to be any
00:22:17.067 --> 00:22:19.509
different than the uh than
00:22:19.528 --> 00:22:21.068
uh african-americans of
00:22:21.209 --> 00:22:23.950
today uh yeah I mean and
00:22:23.990 --> 00:22:25.490
you think of the tragedy of
00:22:25.570 --> 00:22:27.030
losing all that brain power
00:22:27.191 --> 00:22:29.031
and yeah and and
00:22:30.092 --> 00:22:31.252
but the motivation was
00:22:32.374 --> 00:22:35.454
personal freedom and secure
00:22:35.575 --> 00:22:38.777
freedom for subsequent generations.
00:22:38.836 --> 00:22:40.178
And this was a generation
00:22:40.218 --> 00:22:41.357
that created the
00:22:41.479 --> 00:22:42.499
infrastructure for the
00:22:42.519 --> 00:22:43.359
civil rights movement.
00:22:43.700 --> 00:22:44.799
There would not be a civil
00:22:44.839 --> 00:22:45.421
rights movement.
00:22:45.461 --> 00:22:48.622
There would not be Prince
00:22:48.642 --> 00:22:52.924
Hall Masons or churches and
00:22:53.404 --> 00:22:56.567
self-help groups and the whole host of
00:22:57.595 --> 00:22:59.057
of institutions that were
00:22:59.136 --> 00:23:00.878
created by these people and
00:23:00.939 --> 00:23:03.761
inspired by them and passed on.
00:23:04.021 --> 00:23:06.423
And this desire to be free
00:23:06.503 --> 00:23:08.365
and to be fully citizens of
00:23:08.405 --> 00:23:09.788
the United States of America,
00:23:10.548 --> 00:23:11.670
that was passed on.
00:23:12.170 --> 00:23:13.151
And it just continued from
00:23:13.250 --> 00:23:14.313
one generation to the other.
00:23:14.853 --> 00:23:16.414
And it was
00:23:18.846 --> 00:23:19.846
It was something that was
00:23:19.945 --> 00:23:22.487
embedded in this culture
00:23:22.547 --> 00:23:23.586
and that these people could
00:23:23.987 --> 00:23:25.627
serve in subsequent wars
00:23:25.688 --> 00:23:28.647
like James Robinson serving
00:23:28.688 --> 00:23:30.288
in the War of 1812 and
00:23:30.308 --> 00:23:33.710
their descendants serving
00:23:33.750 --> 00:23:36.329
in the Civil War and World
00:23:36.349 --> 00:23:37.810
War I and World War II.
00:23:37.911 --> 00:23:42.332
And it seemed not to deter them
00:23:43.291 --> 00:23:44.752
uh and so that makes this
00:23:44.873 --> 00:23:45.933
the most remarkable story
00:23:45.953 --> 00:23:46.894
this is the most remarkable
00:23:46.934 --> 00:23:48.055
story in american history
00:23:48.095 --> 00:23:49.777
period uh these were the
00:23:49.817 --> 00:23:51.817
people who made the words
00:23:51.857 --> 00:23:53.419
that were written by those
00:23:53.959 --> 00:23:56.260
elegant eloquent men in
00:23:56.701 --> 00:23:58.622
philadelphia um they made
00:23:58.642 --> 00:24:00.022
it real just as in
00:24:00.143 --> 00:24:01.683
automobiles were perfected
00:24:02.045 --> 00:24:03.965
not because of the design
00:24:04.086 --> 00:24:07.327
of mr ben's or mr ford but
00:24:07.367 --> 00:24:08.608
because there were people
00:24:08.648 --> 00:24:09.710
who were willing to drive
00:24:09.750 --> 00:24:11.730
these things and test them out and
00:24:13.372 --> 00:24:15.353
demonstrate uh where they
00:24:15.394 --> 00:24:17.095
needed to be tweaked and uh
00:24:17.315 --> 00:24:19.155
and look at what we now um
00:24:19.316 --> 00:24:21.487
cars can go you know 200
00:24:21.487 --> 00:24:23.278
340 miles an hour so um
00:24:24.179 --> 00:24:25.259
this is the same thing with
00:24:25.279 --> 00:24:26.881
the democracy we're still
00:24:26.941 --> 00:24:27.840
learning and hopefully
00:24:27.901 --> 00:24:29.041
we've learned enough to be
00:24:29.102 --> 00:24:31.324
able to survive as such
00:24:32.463 --> 00:24:34.665
over the and between now and the
00:24:36.288 --> 00:24:40.531
semi-quincentennial and tricentennial.
00:24:43.433 --> 00:24:45.295
We're talking with Maurice Barboza,
00:24:45.355 --> 00:24:47.056
who is the founder and
00:24:47.115 --> 00:24:48.457
chief executive officer of
00:24:48.497 --> 00:24:50.198
the Liberty National Memorial.
00:24:50.597 --> 00:24:53.599
So where is the memorial going to be?
00:24:54.580 --> 00:24:54.800
Yes.
00:24:58.071 --> 00:24:59.755
We looked at 42 sites in
00:24:59.795 --> 00:25:02.239
Washington and the day that
00:25:02.298 --> 00:25:04.602
we took a tour with the
00:25:04.762 --> 00:25:06.965
National Park Service representative,
00:25:06.986 --> 00:25:08.489
he took us to a spot
00:25:10.675 --> 00:25:12.577
that I thought this couldn't be real.
00:25:12.877 --> 00:25:14.579
It's a little hidden now
00:25:14.660 --> 00:25:17.061
because it's a parking lot on the mall.
00:25:17.162 --> 00:25:17.942
It's probably the only
00:25:18.002 --> 00:25:19.544
parking lot on the mall,
00:25:19.944 --> 00:25:21.006
Washington Monument.
00:25:21.266 --> 00:25:22.606
And it's hidden behind
00:25:23.407 --> 00:25:25.670
shrubbery and trees and everything else.
00:25:27.251 --> 00:25:27.672
And he said,
00:25:27.711 --> 00:25:29.374
this is the site and it's on the mall,
00:25:29.413 --> 00:25:30.055
it's available.
00:25:30.714 --> 00:25:32.076
And I thought, this is the one.
00:25:32.115 --> 00:25:33.096
We looked at all the others.
00:25:34.356 --> 00:25:36.397
And after submitting site
00:25:36.478 --> 00:25:38.700
studies and discussions
00:25:38.759 --> 00:25:40.560
with both agencies,
00:25:40.701 --> 00:25:44.182
we were able to narrow it
00:25:44.282 --> 00:25:45.384
down to two sites.
00:25:45.483 --> 00:25:48.105
The site is directly across
00:25:48.144 --> 00:25:50.467
from the Washington Monument.
00:25:50.666 --> 00:25:54.749
It's on 14th Street and
00:25:55.348 --> 00:25:56.410
Independence Avenue.
00:25:57.076 --> 00:25:59.259
And if you're coming in from Virginia,
00:26:00.421 --> 00:26:02.022
this is the busiest route
00:26:02.443 --> 00:26:04.306
coming into and out of Washington.
00:26:04.326 --> 00:26:05.267
You pass the Pentagon.
00:26:05.586 --> 00:26:07.990
You cross over what was the
00:26:08.170 --> 00:26:12.095
Trail of Rochambeau heading south.
00:26:13.936 --> 00:26:15.798
And you cross the Rochambeau Bridge,
00:26:15.877 --> 00:26:17.357
or better known as the 14th
00:26:17.397 --> 00:26:18.058
Street Bridge.
00:26:18.838 --> 00:26:21.400
And when you approach Independence Avenue,
00:26:21.559 --> 00:26:22.359
just to the right,
00:26:23.260 --> 00:26:24.601
as you're heading into
00:26:24.980 --> 00:26:28.102
downtown Washington in the city hall,
00:26:28.843 --> 00:26:30.143
you pass this site that
00:26:30.222 --> 00:26:32.284
sort of juts out into the street.
00:26:33.183 --> 00:26:35.285
And there is a place that we
00:26:35.325 --> 00:26:36.645
want to place the memorial.
00:26:37.145 --> 00:26:41.307
And with the sufficient support to do so,
00:26:41.367 --> 00:26:42.028
we need to do an
00:26:42.087 --> 00:26:43.388
environmental assessment
00:26:43.528 --> 00:26:44.449
and some preliminary
00:26:44.509 --> 00:26:47.589
designs in order to secure the site.
00:26:47.650 --> 00:26:49.891
So it went from 42 sites to two sites.
00:26:50.291 --> 00:26:51.432
And this is a favorite site
00:26:51.571 --> 00:26:54.894
of the foundation and the preferred site.
00:26:55.054 --> 00:26:55.473
Also,
00:26:57.015 --> 00:27:00.695
we were told by various commissions
00:27:00.756 --> 00:27:02.217
and agencies which thought that
00:27:02.797 --> 00:27:04.317
This would indeed tell the
00:27:04.397 --> 00:27:06.438
story of African Americans
00:27:06.458 --> 00:27:08.058
in the Revolutionary War by
00:27:08.818 --> 00:27:10.619
its relationship with the
00:27:10.680 --> 00:27:11.880
Washington Monument,
00:27:12.180 --> 00:27:13.861
the African American History Museum,
00:27:14.421 --> 00:27:15.981
the Holocaust Museum,
00:27:16.761 --> 00:27:20.042
and other remarkable
00:27:21.584 --> 00:27:24.365
museums nearby on the Mall.
00:27:26.704 --> 00:27:29.246
And it's about 2.2 miles
00:27:29.286 --> 00:27:30.426
from the Pentagon and then
00:27:30.446 --> 00:27:31.267
another two miles
00:27:31.977 --> 00:27:33.557
continuing on 14th Street,
00:27:33.979 --> 00:27:35.220
you come to U Street,
00:27:35.299 --> 00:27:37.300
an area that was a haven
00:27:37.381 --> 00:27:38.422
for African-Americans
00:27:38.461 --> 00:27:40.523
during Jim Crow segregation.
00:27:40.544 --> 00:27:42.105
So, you know,
00:27:42.125 --> 00:27:45.288
if you couldn't stay at the Willard Hotel,
00:27:45.667 --> 00:27:47.329
you went to U Street and
00:27:47.349 --> 00:27:48.411
you had your meal,
00:27:48.510 --> 00:27:50.813
you enjoyed entertainment
00:27:51.472 --> 00:27:53.474
and you could function as a human being.
00:27:54.796 --> 00:27:56.998
Well, that's fascinating.
00:27:57.357 --> 00:27:59.038
And so how far along are we
00:27:59.078 --> 00:28:00.079
in the process of
00:28:01.791 --> 00:28:04.073
making sure it is available
00:28:04.153 --> 00:28:06.295
for the next generations to enjoy?
00:28:09.736 --> 00:28:13.137
We need to raise some serious money.
00:28:14.019 --> 00:28:14.659
First off,
00:28:14.818 --> 00:28:16.440
to be able to do the things that
00:28:16.559 --> 00:28:18.621
I explained, the environmental assessment,
00:28:19.201 --> 00:28:21.643
and that's going to cost us funding.
00:28:21.942 --> 00:28:25.424
And I think I can be
00:28:25.505 --> 00:28:28.727
optimistic that even though we still have
00:28:31.641 --> 00:28:33.041
There's three years
00:28:33.182 --> 00:28:35.682
remaining on the authorization.
00:28:37.022 --> 00:28:38.104
This couldn't be a better
00:28:38.163 --> 00:28:40.285
time to talk about the role
00:28:40.365 --> 00:28:42.226
of a forgotten people in
00:28:42.385 --> 00:28:43.746
the Revolutionary War.
00:28:43.806 --> 00:28:46.167
It's like once in a
00:28:46.248 --> 00:28:51.269
generation appearance of an eclipse.
00:28:51.910 --> 00:28:54.730
Everything comes together at this point.
00:28:54.810 --> 00:28:57.553
We have year 77 organizations.
00:28:57.613 --> 00:29:00.074
We have organizations that were set up
00:29:01.494 --> 00:29:02.595
in their charters like the
00:29:02.635 --> 00:29:03.675
Sons and the Daughters of
00:29:03.695 --> 00:29:05.258
the American Revolution to
00:29:05.337 --> 00:29:06.838
honor people who served in
00:29:06.858 --> 00:29:07.679
the Revolutionary War.
00:29:07.699 --> 00:29:08.299
And if you're not going to
00:29:08.319 --> 00:29:09.961
honor them at this time,
00:29:10.682 --> 00:29:14.384
as we await the semi-quintennial,
00:29:15.105 --> 00:29:16.105
then there must be
00:29:16.165 --> 00:29:18.847
something wrong then with
00:29:18.867 --> 00:29:20.028
the thinking that's going on,
00:29:20.068 --> 00:29:22.171
because this is new history.
00:29:22.290 --> 00:29:24.532
It's not history in the last 40 years.
00:29:27.723 --> 00:29:29.505
Ira Berlin and other great
00:29:29.545 --> 00:29:32.684
historians undertaken these
00:29:34.165 --> 00:29:35.806
efforts to honor these people.
00:29:35.905 --> 00:29:38.686
And they've added great scholarship,
00:29:38.846 --> 00:29:42.788
books and other ways of
00:29:42.827 --> 00:29:43.788
depicting these people.
00:29:45.128 --> 00:29:45.568
Just made it...
00:29:46.596 --> 00:29:48.939
incumbent on us to get this done.
00:29:49.699 --> 00:29:49.900
Right.
00:29:50.279 --> 00:29:52.362
So this is our task now, you know,
00:29:52.422 --> 00:29:54.605
the generation of Benjamin Quarles,
00:29:54.684 --> 00:29:56.125
Gary Nash advanced the
00:29:56.165 --> 00:29:57.587
story in the scholarly
00:29:57.667 --> 00:29:59.589
field that is identifying
00:29:59.670 --> 00:30:02.894
and reshaping the story and now ours is
00:30:03.564 --> 00:30:04.604
getting the monument so the
00:30:04.644 --> 00:30:05.984
next generation can start
00:30:06.025 --> 00:30:06.845
there and not have,
00:30:06.944 --> 00:30:08.526
this won't be a hidden history.
00:30:09.486 --> 00:30:12.007
So it will be something that
00:30:12.086 --> 00:30:13.826
is part of the narrative.
00:30:14.166 --> 00:30:15.528
So what's the best way if
00:30:15.607 --> 00:30:17.067
people wanted to support this?
00:30:17.127 --> 00:30:18.068
What would you suggest
00:30:18.189 --> 00:30:19.308
someone who's listening
00:30:19.808 --> 00:30:20.929
might do if they wanted to
00:30:20.990 --> 00:30:22.190
help move this along?
00:30:22.869 --> 00:30:23.190
Yeah,
00:30:23.349 --> 00:30:24.351
one of the things that we'd like to
00:30:24.391 --> 00:30:26.171
do is we'd like these communities,
00:30:26.711 --> 00:30:31.252
as you explained so well, who now know
00:30:32.272 --> 00:30:33.874
that they were a community
00:30:33.933 --> 00:30:36.453
where African-Americans had
00:30:36.954 --> 00:30:39.174
served from in the Revolutionary War.
00:30:39.796 --> 00:30:42.715
And we received,
00:30:43.457 --> 00:30:44.196
I think it was something
00:30:44.217 --> 00:30:46.038
like 14 resolutions from
00:30:46.077 --> 00:30:47.478
communities and counties
00:30:47.577 --> 00:30:50.259
and cities in Massachusetts
00:30:50.378 --> 00:30:54.380
and Virginia and seven or
00:30:54.420 --> 00:30:56.080
eight other states as well.
00:30:56.780 --> 00:30:59.021
And we'd like to translate this
00:30:59.741 --> 00:31:02.484
into a realization that they
00:31:02.505 --> 00:31:03.986
have a stake in seeing this
00:31:04.066 --> 00:31:06.248
built and that it'll be on
00:31:06.288 --> 00:31:08.108
the National Mall and it
00:31:08.170 --> 00:31:10.771
will define not only American history,
00:31:10.811 --> 00:31:11.813
but it'll define the
00:31:11.853 --> 00:31:13.253
history of these localities
00:31:13.354 --> 00:31:15.596
and their remarkable involvement.
00:31:15.776 --> 00:31:17.577
So we want them to tell their legislators,
00:31:21.048 --> 00:31:25.171
pass appropriations and get them,
00:31:25.471 --> 00:31:26.632
put some money into this
00:31:26.912 --> 00:31:28.373
and make this a central
00:31:28.532 --> 00:31:31.194
theme of the semi-quincentennial.
00:31:31.355 --> 00:31:32.336
Because if it's not,
00:31:33.476 --> 00:31:35.116
future generations and leaders,
00:31:36.817 --> 00:31:38.959
if we still care about these things,
00:31:38.979 --> 00:31:39.779
you know,
00:31:39.799 --> 00:31:41.000
five or 10 years from now are
00:31:41.020 --> 00:31:42.402
gonna be wondering, well, gee,
00:31:42.602 --> 00:31:44.583
we went through the, you know,
00:31:47.778 --> 00:31:51.462
The centennial, 1876, 1976,
00:31:51.462 --> 00:31:54.586
we saw tall ships, and we saw very little,
00:31:54.885 --> 00:31:55.646
if anything,
00:31:56.827 --> 00:32:00.050
that promoted new history and
00:32:00.711 --> 00:32:01.612
forgotten history.
00:32:04.694 --> 00:32:06.596
So I'm excited by the fact
00:32:06.856 --> 00:32:07.939
that we're in this
00:32:07.979 --> 00:32:09.119
situation at this point.
00:32:09.579 --> 00:32:10.881
This is a very exciting place to be.
00:32:10.901 --> 00:32:11.780
And let me just say,
00:32:11.961 --> 00:32:13.721
I focused on the folks from
00:32:13.781 --> 00:32:15.682
around Boston who were part of this,
00:32:15.762 --> 00:32:18.224
but then there were 23 from
00:32:18.325 --> 00:32:22.047
Andover and 15 from Concord,
00:32:22.047 --> 00:32:23.768
25 from the town of Dartmouth,
00:32:23.768 --> 00:32:25.749
12 from Falmouth, which is probably
00:32:26.108 --> 00:32:27.509
Smith, Portland up in Maine,
00:32:28.269 --> 00:32:30.951
nine from Grafton, 23 from Lancaster,
00:32:30.951 --> 00:32:35.031
18 from Newbury, 15 from Marblehead,
00:32:35.031 --> 00:32:36.353
10 from Northampton.
00:32:36.373 --> 00:32:37.613
That is a surprising number
00:32:38.073 --> 00:32:40.114
from places like Taunton, Swansea,
00:32:41.054 --> 00:32:42.674
who are part of this
00:32:42.815 --> 00:32:44.996
communities then and now.
00:32:45.415 --> 00:32:45.915
So you're right.
00:32:45.955 --> 00:32:48.557
And then on your website, you also have
00:32:49.137 --> 00:32:51.682
in Connecticut and in North Carolina,
00:32:51.761 --> 00:32:52.583
South Carolina,
00:32:52.663 --> 00:32:54.365
actually where individuals
00:32:54.425 --> 00:32:56.951
were from in these towns.
00:32:58.113 --> 00:32:59.895
Jonathan's reminded me of Bridgewater.
00:32:59.935 --> 00:33:01.198
We don't want to forget Bridgewater.
00:33:01.218 --> 00:33:02.098
Yes.
00:33:03.375 --> 00:33:05.637
So yes, and Bridgewater,
00:33:05.657 --> 00:33:07.419
did I say 40 people from Bridgewater,
00:33:08.400 --> 00:33:09.641
which is an amazing number.
00:33:10.721 --> 00:33:11.863
And you think about areas
00:33:11.942 --> 00:33:15.306
where maybe historians
00:33:15.346 --> 00:33:16.567
don't realize the presence
00:33:16.586 --> 00:33:17.647
of the people of color in
00:33:17.667 --> 00:33:19.788
these communities then and
00:33:19.909 --> 00:33:21.089
their importance in the
00:33:21.150 --> 00:33:22.892
community so that they're part
00:33:26.077 --> 00:33:30.162
all comes on April of 1775, they're there.
00:33:30.923 --> 00:33:31.563
We know about some
00:33:31.583 --> 00:33:33.285
individuals like Peter
00:33:33.345 --> 00:33:35.386
Salem and Salem Poor.
00:33:35.686 --> 00:33:37.828
And I think one of the real
00:33:38.089 --> 00:33:39.570
things that this work has
00:33:39.651 --> 00:33:41.313
done is highlight
00:33:41.853 --> 00:33:43.973
how many individuals there were.
00:33:44.034 --> 00:33:45.714
It's not just the few whose
00:33:45.795 --> 00:33:46.994
names we have been taught
00:33:47.035 --> 00:33:48.276
over the last 40 years,
00:33:48.355 --> 00:33:50.916
but virtually every community.
00:33:50.936 --> 00:33:52.737
You're going to find people of color,
00:33:53.538 --> 00:33:55.057
free or enslaved,
00:33:55.137 --> 00:33:56.479
and many in Massachusetts
00:33:56.519 --> 00:33:57.598
actually agitating for the
00:33:57.659 --> 00:33:58.460
end of slavery.
00:33:58.960 --> 00:34:00.160
Jonathan's reminding us of
00:34:00.200 --> 00:34:01.181
the first Rhode Island
00:34:01.260 --> 00:34:02.280
regiment that's now getting
00:34:02.300 --> 00:34:03.402
a lot of attention that was
00:34:03.761 --> 00:34:05.423
two companies of free or
00:34:05.522 --> 00:34:06.742
enslaved or indigenous
00:34:06.782 --> 00:34:08.623
people who served at the
00:34:08.664 --> 00:34:09.764
Battle of Rhode Island and
00:34:09.804 --> 00:34:10.525
in other places.
00:34:12.556 --> 00:34:12.956
You're right.
00:34:13.016 --> 00:34:13.838
This is a story.
00:34:13.898 --> 00:34:15.579
It's essential that part of
00:34:15.659 --> 00:34:17.440
our legacy be making sure
00:34:17.460 --> 00:34:19.981
the next generations know
00:34:20.181 --> 00:34:21.661
about this history so
00:34:21.681 --> 00:34:22.583
they're not starting off
00:34:22.603 --> 00:34:23.503
where you and your Aunt
00:34:23.543 --> 00:34:25.264
Lena did and just trying to
00:34:25.784 --> 00:34:26.525
learn the story.
00:34:27.105 --> 00:34:27.806
That's perfect.
00:34:28.025 --> 00:34:28.626
That's perfect.
00:34:28.927 --> 00:34:29.166
Yes.
00:34:31.487 --> 00:34:33.628
So we've been talking with Maurice Barboza,
00:34:33.789 --> 00:34:35.789
who is from the National Liberty Memorial,
00:34:36.431 --> 00:34:38.731
and you can add it and tell
00:34:38.751 --> 00:34:40.213
your legislators to support
00:34:40.253 --> 00:34:41.554
this on their website,
00:34:53.268 --> 00:34:53.929
work you're in.
00:34:54.889 --> 00:34:56.010
So thank you so much, Maurice,
00:34:56.050 --> 00:34:56.992
for taking this on.
00:34:57.733 --> 00:34:58.733
Thank you so much, Bob.
00:34:58.753 --> 00:34:59.454
It was a pleasure.
00:34:59.474 --> 00:35:02.137
I enjoyed it.
00:35:02.478 --> 00:35:04.481
Let's know how we can continue helping.
00:35:04.981 --> 00:35:06.362
I will, absolutely.
00:35:07.123 --> 00:35:07.543
Very good.
00:35:07.623 --> 00:35:08.545
So thank you.
00:35:09.065 --> 00:35:09.885
So thank you.
00:35:09.927 --> 00:35:10.867
Tremendous work,
00:35:10.947 --> 00:35:12.389
the National Liberty Memorial,
00:35:12.829 --> 00:35:14.391
and tremendous work,
00:35:17.914 --> 00:35:20.016
by going onto your website
00:35:20.056 --> 00:35:20.797
and exploring it,
00:35:20.918 --> 00:35:22.398
which I've been able to do.
00:35:23.478 --> 00:35:25.059
And so thank you for doing this.
00:35:25.079 --> 00:35:25.981
Thank you.
00:35:26.041 --> 00:35:29.182
Let me also thank our producer,
00:35:29.222 --> 00:35:30.003
Jonathan Lane,
00:35:30.043 --> 00:35:31.764
who's been reminding me of
00:35:31.824 --> 00:35:32.965
things during the show.
00:35:33.025 --> 00:35:34.746
And if you have a topic you
00:35:34.786 --> 00:35:35.748
want to raise or if you
00:35:35.788 --> 00:35:38.550
want to talk to Jonathan,
00:35:38.590 --> 00:35:40.552
jlane at revolution250.org.
00:35:40.851 --> 00:35:41.831
And also I want to thank our
00:35:41.891 --> 00:35:43.253
listeners around the country,
00:35:43.293 --> 00:35:44.273
actually around the world,
00:35:44.313 --> 00:35:45.434
who tune in regularly
00:35:48.461 --> 00:35:48.942
communities.
00:35:49.021 --> 00:35:50.302
If you're in one of these places,
00:35:50.362 --> 00:35:51.762
send Jonathan Lane an email
00:35:51.802 --> 00:35:54.123
at jlane at revolution250.org.
00:35:54.503 --> 00:35:55.405
They'll send you one of our
00:35:55.445 --> 00:35:57.005
posters or lapel pins.
00:35:58.025 --> 00:35:59.967
And this week, Midlothian, Virginia,
00:36:00.347 --> 00:36:02.967
Concord, Massachusetts, Mishawaka,
00:36:03.108 --> 00:36:03.648
Indiana,
00:36:04.128 --> 00:36:06.548
San Juan Capistrano in California.
00:36:06.688 --> 00:36:07.469
Spring comes.
00:36:07.650 --> 00:36:08.250
Inevitably, we
00:36:08.510 --> 00:36:09.791
about the Swallows returning
00:36:09.851 --> 00:36:11.992
to Capistrano and Ashford
00:36:12.052 --> 00:36:13.574
and County Wicklin in
00:36:13.695 --> 00:36:15.335
Ireland and all places
00:36:15.436 --> 00:36:16.536
between and beyond.
00:36:16.617 --> 00:36:17.818
Thanks for joining us and
00:36:17.878 --> 00:36:19.559
now Jonathan will pipe us
00:36:19.659 --> 00:36:20.880
out on the road to Boston.