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The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture is on its way! I was just talking about this museum in a Voice of America interview early this A.M.!

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¶ Smithsonian announces winning design team to create black history museum on National Mall
¶ By BRETT ZONGKER
¶ Associated Press Writer
¶ WASHINGTON (AP) _ A glowing bronze crown meant to evoke historical imagery of African-Americans emerged Tuesday as the winning architectural concept for a new black history museum on the National Mall.
¶ A Smithsonian Institution jury selected the team Freelon Adjaye Bond, in association with SmithGroup, from six finalists in a design competition to build the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
¶ Members of the group previously designed San Francisco's Museum of the African Diaspora and the Nobel Peace Centre in Oslo, Norway.
¶ The bronze, layered corona atop a stone base would be the defining element of the structure, which could be the last major building added to the expanse between the U.S. Capitol and Washington Monument.
¶ "I think it definitely gave us a very clear position that was different to the other schemes," said lead designer David Adjaye, 42, who was born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and is now based in London and New York. His parents are both from Ghana. "We are celebrating an incredible journey and looking to the future."
¶ The crown concept, which would allow natural light to flow into the structure through bronze screens, was inspired by images from African and American history, Adjaye said, "this idea of uplifted praise sort of imagery."
¶ It evokes traditional headdresses worn by African-American women, as well as the colonial crown from Africa and the idea "that a hat-wearing person is a free person ... who doesn't have to carry a load but could wear a hat," he said.
¶ The bronze exterior would have a "dynamic and changing view," depending on the sun's angle and cloud cover. At night, it would glow with light emerging from its skin, the architects said.
¶ Adjaye, who designed the Nobel Centre in Norway, said winning the National Mall project is the defining moment of his career.
¶ The design process will take up to three years and is subject to approval from groups that oversee architecture in the nation's capital. Construction is expected to begin in 2012, with an opening slated for 2015.
¶ Congress has pledged to provide half of the museum's $500 million cost, with private fundraising to cover the rest.
¶ Museum Director Lonnie Bunch said he was looking for a building that would speak of the resiliency, optimism and spirituality of the African-American community.
¶ "This does it," Bunch said, standing near a model of the proposed design. The shimmering bronze, he said, "talks of a people's presence, regardless of what happens," and will mark a change in Washington architecture.
¶ "Even though it's geometric, it still breaks the kind of neoclassical formality of the rest of the mall," Bunch said. "I think that's a good thing to come."
¶ The Freelon Bond group was familiar to Smithsonian officials, who had contracted it to determine the structural needs for the museum's galleries and theaters and presented the plan to all of the competing teams.
¶ J. Max Bond Jr., a principal on the team's planning phase and a prominant black architect, died of cancer in February.
¶ Philip G. Freelon, a North Carolina-based principal of the team, said the museum would complement the mall and its tallest neighbor, the Washington Monument.
¶ "We're not looking to mimic what's around us but to complement the mall and the buildings around and also to create a statement of our own," he said, and the design will evolve. "It's not a building yet; it's an idea."
¶ Freelon has designed prior black history projects, including Baltimore's Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African American History and Culture.
¶ The six finalists for the project will remain on view at the Smithsonian Castle through Thursday. Visitors had mixed reactions to the various concepts, which all depart from the mostly boxy museums of Washington.
¶ Margaret Gass, 56, of Carlisle, Iowa, got a peak at the designs while visiting her son in Washington.
¶ "It's stark," Gass said of the winning design concept, adding that it was not her favorite. Still, she said, "it's different enough to be recognizable."
¶ She preferred an oval-shaped design from a team led by acclaimed architect Sir Norman Foster of London. But her son, Charles Bibilos, 31, said the winning design could be a good fit for the city.
¶ "I think this is conservative enough for the mall," he said. "As a building, I think it fits a little bit better with everything else that's going on on the mall."
¶ ___
¶ On the Net:
¶ National Museum of African American History and Culture: http://nmaahc.si.edu/

First, I want to thank everyone again for supporting "Black Men Built The Capitol: Discovering African American History In and Around Washington, D.C." For a few weeks, BMBTC was the No. 2 selling African American themed book on Amazon.com, behind only Barack Obama's "Dreams of My Father." That is incredible, and thanks to all of the support I've gotten from you, the readers.

The exciting news I have today is something you may have already noticed if you're a fan of e-books. "Black Men Built The Capitol: Discovering African American History In and Around Washington, D.C." is now available on Amazon's Kindle reader. That means if you have one of those fabulous Kindles (A friend of my wife has one and absolutely raves about it) you can now buy BMBTC as an e-book. Isn't that cool?

And to make it even better, Amazon has now made their Kindle library available for those people who have iPhones and iPod Touches. Now that's a great business decision, considering how many people have iPhones and iPods (including me!) The day they announced that Kindle books would be available on the iPod, I went out and downloaded the software so I could buy BMBTC! After a couple of false starts, I got my book on my iPod this morning and it looks great!

(By the way, Black Men Built The Capitol ranked as the No. 1 Kindle book in the Americana section earlier today. Wow!)

And here's a second bit of news on the format front! "Black Men Built The Capitol: Discovering African American History In and Around Washington, D.C." is about to go hardcover! For those who don't already have a copy of BMBTC, the edition available in most stores is a softcover version. But now, if you're a member of the Black Expressions book club, you can get a special edition of Black Men Built The Capitol in hardcover!

If you don't know what Black Expressions is, it's one of the most popular African American book clubs in the nation. Part of that is because Black Expressions Book Club's parent company, Doubleday Entertainment, calls itself the preeminent marketer of books and merchandise via direct mail and e-commerce in the U.S. (Yowza!)

The hardcover edition will only be available through Black Expressions, so if you want a copy, you have to join up! (I don't even have a copy of the hardback version! I'm going to join up with Black Expressions at http://www.blackexpressions.com, just so I can buy some of the hardback versions.)

We expect the book to be listed sometime around May or June, so keep your eyes peeled. A hardcover version. Wow.

It's been a while since I've posted but wasn't Inauguration Week fun?
And BMBTC got great play! I'm going to be posting some of my appearances on television and newspapers over the next few days. Here's the first one!

Democracy Now!

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/20/jesse_holland_black_men_built_the

¶ WASHINGTON (AP) _ Six design teams _ all with prominent black principals _ will compete for two months to design a national black history museum on the National Mall, the Smithsonian Institution announced Thursday.
¶ The National Museum of African American History and Culture will likely be the last new museum building added to the grounds between the Washington Monument and Capitol. The design finalists have created structures that include the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco and an expanded Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York.
¶ Museum Director Lonnie Bunch, who will lead a jury to make the final selection, is looking for a design that "speaks about resiliency and optimism and spirituality," he said.
¶ In early April, the six design proposals will go on display at the Smithsonian Castle for the public to help choose a winner by April 10. It will be the first time the Smithsonian has sought public comment in a museum design competition, spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas said.
¶ The museum did not require design teams to include black architects. But the groups had to show an appreciation of black history and culture. During the design phase, "they've got to embrace and wrestle with the African American experience," Bunch said.
¶ One practical question: "How do you build something right by the Washington Monument and the White House?" Bunch said.
¶ The building, set to open in 2015, would be the closest museum to the towering marble obelisk and is to be the first museum on the Mall to be certified as environmentally friendly. Each design team will receive a $50,000 stipend for the competition.
¶ Another prominent black history project in Washington has drawn scrutiny for its design. Organizers of the planned Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial have been criticized for selecting a Chinese sculptor to create the central King statue, though the primary architect for the project is an African American.
¶ For the last museum built on the Mall, the National Museum of the American Indian, there was no design competition. The Smithsonian hired a Canadian architect with roots in the Blackfoot tribe in 1993 but fired him about five years later after a dispute with his U.S. partners over money. Smithsonian planners said they are trying to avoid such problems by hiring a collaborative group.
¶ "This is a long-term relationship and national museums take a long time to develop," said Sheryl Kolasinski, director of Smithsonian planning and project management. "We're selecting an architectural team as much as a design."
¶ Congress has pledged to provide half of the museum's $500 million cost, with private fundraising to cover the balance.
¶ The finalists for the project are:
¶ _ Devrouax & Purnell Architects/Planners, P.C, and Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects, LLP
¶ _ Diller Scofidio + Renfro in association with KlingStubbins
¶ _ Foster + Partners/URS
¶ _ Freelon Adjaye Bond in association with SmithGroup
¶ _ Moody Nolan Inc. in association with Antoine Predock Architect PC
¶ _ Moshe Safdie and Associates Inc. in association with Sultan Campbell Britt & Associates
¶ ^___=
¶ On the Net:
¶ National Museum of African American History and Culture: http://nmaahc.si.edu/
^

And did you catch me on on PBS's NewsHour on Friday?
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=46057421106&h=Fitts&u=FSQ9R

And here's a mention in Clarence Page's column!
http://www.hutchnews.com/Columns/pagecctc

Bush's lessons for Obama

OK, how many of you are going to miss the George W. Bush years? Can I see a show of hands?
There is little question that President Bush became an extremely valuable, if involuntary asset to Barack Obama's long march to the White House. I think Bill Maher was the first comedian I heard joke that President Bush messed up the country so badly that the voters felt they had to send in a black man to clean it up.

Lenny Bruce said humor is tragedy plus time. A lot of tragedy preceded the joy that Obama's landmark inauguration celebrates. The White House and the U.S. Capitol were constructed with slave labor, we are reminded by a new book, "Black Men Built the Capitol" by Jesse J. Holland. That's no joke.

Near the Mall that stretches in front of the Capitol to the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, African-American slaves once were held in pens, ready for auction. Eight presidents owned slaves.

President George W. Bush quoted one of them, Thomas Jefferson, in his televised farewell speech: "I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past." To that Bush added, "As I leave the house he occupied two centuries ago, I share that optimism." Bush has good reason to be optimistic about the country. The American people are resilient and resourceful enough to survive all kinds of presidencies, even his.

Yet there is a lot that Obama can learn from Bush's past, if only to avoid taking the sort of plunge that Bush's approval ratings took from the great heights he achieved after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

First, presidents should encourage long-range thinking, not just short-term planning.

Toppling Saddam Hussein was easy. Everyone with any knowledge of our military capabilities knew that. Managing Iraq through its transition to self-government is hard. The result is a stain on Bush's record to rival the one that Vietnam left on our memory of Lyndon B. Johnson's years.

Second, certainty and clarity are admirable, but don't get too full of yourself to listen to opposing views.

Obama has shocked some of his fellow left-progressives with his outreach to conservative politicians, columnists and clergy. Bush was cordial enough to everyone, but not known to dine with liberals the way Obama did with conservative columnists at George Will's house recently. Imagine Bush inviting Jon Stewart or Arianna Huffington to tea? Not gonna happen.

Third, sympathy and empathy are not the same. Bush still seemed rather puzzled at his final presidential press conference by the backlash he received for his slow response to Hurricane Katrina. Bill Clinton's critics make fun of his "I feel your pain" line, but his sentiment is better than Bush's inaction, which seemed to tell people in distress that he didn't feel their pain at all.

Fourth, after hearing both sides and pondering the options, make up your mind. Bush, proclaiming himself "the decider," was good at that part. "Like all who have held this office before me, I have experienced setbacks," he said, almost like a benediction. "There are things I would do differently if given the chance. Yet I've always acted with the best interests of our country in mind. I have followed my conscience and done what I thought was right. You may not agree with some of the tough decisions I have made. But I hope you can agree that I was willing to make the tough decisions."

Which leads to Bush's final lesson for presidents: Keep your sense of humor. Bush has said in his exit interviews that he thinks time will vindicate him, as it has for some other unpopular presidents. Could he be right? Humor is tragedy plus time. For now, I see mostly tragedy.

http://www.newkerala.com/topstory-fullnews-76428.html

Slaves built Capitol steps where Obama will stand

San Francisco/Washington, Jan 17: There will be no shortage of potent moments when Barack Obama stands on the steps on the West Front of the US Capitol Jan 20 to be sworn in as the 44th president of the US.

But few will match the poignancy of the fact that the first African-American president will be standing on a structure that was largely built by black slaves; that he will be sworn in using a Bible that was used by Abraham Lincoln, the martyred president who fought a Civil War to end slavery; or that he will be gazing down at the National Mall where Martin Luther King Jr inspired the civil-rights movement with his 1963 "I Have A Dream" speech.

"It closes the circle of history for African-Americans," said Jesse Holland, author of the recent book, "Black Men Built the Capitol", which documented the roles of slave labour in building the physical symbols of US democracy.

"The fact that you now have an African-American holding the highest office in the land - it doesn't indicate that everything is perfect, but it's a definite measure of success and improvement," he said in an interview with DPA.

Holland found that slave labour was involved in virtually every phase of the construction of the White House and the Capitol, from quarrying the Virginia limestone used in the imposing edifice of the Capitol to working on interior features.

He notes that the National Mall, which is now a vast, grassy park filled monuments, government offices and museums, was for many years the site of numerous slave markets.

"Slavery was legal in the District of Columbia until President Abraham Lincoln abolished it in 1865," he said. "Most of the early occupants of the White House were slave owners, so it's tremendously symbolic that Obama will hold his office inside a building that was constructed by slaves."

Obama himself does not descend from a slave family, though his wife Michelle does. Obama's black father was a Kenyan student in Hawaii, and genealogists have found that some ancestors on his white mother's side were actually slave owners.

Nevertheless, on Jan 20 the colour of his skin will speak louder than his specific ancestry - symbolising the progress that African-Americans have made in a country that still enshrined legal segregation in some states less than 50 years ago.

Africans were mostly enslaved in America for some 250 years after they first started arriving in 1607. The Union victory in the US Civil War freed an estimated four million slaves by 1865, by which time they constituted some 10 percent of the entire country's population.

But discrimination continued for more than 100 years as poll taxes, literacy tests and outright terrorism were all tools used to keep blacks from voting across the South. The one-time stronghold of slavery had a rigid system of apartheid, which subjected African- Americans to constant humiliation. Intimidation and lynchings were commonplace and mostly unprosecuted.

Despite the success of the civil rights movement, the black community continues to suffer from a lack of education and a paucity of economic opportunities. Blacks, who are 13 percent of the US population, suffer worse health and shorter life expectancy and account for 45 percent of the prison population.

The poverty rate among African-Americans is 24.5 percent, nearly twice the national rate and more than three times the poverty rate among non-Hispanic whites, according to US census figures.

Obama has acknowledged these difficulties, at the same time as he has challenged the black community to do more to fix its cultural problems and avoid wallowing in the stigma of victimhood. His ascension to power could provide a dramatic boost to those efforts.

"The potency of the moment will travel far beyond the precincts of blackness," journalist Terence Samuel wrote on TheRoot.com, a website of black thought. "His success has been a repudiation of an ugly past and some absolution for our long and sinful racial history. That is an American story, and this is a different America."
--- IANS

Words for This Journey

By Michael Gerson
Friday, January 16, 2009; A19



Along the Mall, off Independence Avenue near Seventh Street, there once stood a building known as the Yellow House. According to Jesse Holland's book "Black Men Built the Capitol," it appeared from the outside like other dwellings. In the basement, with iron bars on the windows and rings in the floor for chains, and in a yard enclosed by a 12-foot wall, enslaved human beings were kept and sold.

One of them was Solomon Northup, a free black man from New York who was kidnapped, sold into slavery and imprisoned there. He later wrote, "Strange as it may seem, within plain sight of this same house, looking down from its commanding height upon it, was the Capitol. The voices of patriotic representatives boasting of freedom and equality, and the rattling of the poor slave's chains, almost commingled."

In a few days, President Barack Obama's voice will mingle with those ghostly sounds and be added to others. Marian Anderson singing "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," though the Daughters of the American Revolution had mocked that hymn's premise. Martin Luther King Jr. speaking on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where a small plaque now marks a holy place of American rhetoric.

If Obama and his talented speechwriter, Jon Favreau, cannot find poetry in this place, they will never find it.

No doubt they will. But there are enemies of poetry and ambition in every speechwriting process. The political advisers who chant, "It's the economy, stupid." The focus group disciples who explain that the dial groups don't like the words "slavery" or "injustice"; they prefer words such as "buttercup" and "marshmallow." The communication consultants who use "rhetorical" as a pejorative because formality doesn't play well "around the kitchen table." Especially in producing an inaugural address, all of them must be ignored. It is appropriate to mention current events, but the State of the Union allows for specificity soon enough. An inaugural presents different tests for a new president: Can he stop talking like a candidate, and speak for the country and its purposes? Can he place his barely started chapter in the context of the American story?

That story has many themes, but one major challenge: a desperate, sometimes bloody, search for unity. The consequential inaugurals confront the issue directly. Presidents before Lincoln attempted to maintain a political union of fractious states. Once shattered, warned Franklin Pierce, "no earthly power or wisdom could ever reunite its broken fragments." Lincoln set out the ideal of a spiritual union -- a union of idealism and of shared suffering -- that transcended race and took a century to even partially achieve. Presidents in the tradition of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt asserted a national unity founded on democratic idealism, in a world gone mad from imperialism, racism and ideology. "The democratic aspiration is no mere recent phase in human history," FDR said in his third inaugural. "It is human history."

In an earlier inaugural speech, Roosevelt observed, "In every land there are always at work forces that drive men apart and forces that draw men together." Those forces remain at work. Through the tumults of the '60s and '70s, America experienced divisions that turned generation against generation. Today our cultural and political differences seem mainly expressed by derision, in a kind of spiritual secession from one another.

It is the primary purpose of presidential leadership to be a force that draws us together -- to declare, as Jefferson did, that we are "brethren of the same principle," to state and plead, as Lincoln did, that "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies." The origin of this unity for Americans is not an accident of blood or birth, but certain shared moral affirmations about the rights and dignity of all men and women -- assertions contained in the Declaration of Independence, and uncontained in their global influence. The existence of those rights imposes duties on government -- and creates obligations of citizens to each other.

In an inaugural address equal to his moment, Obama will summarize a historical achievement he already symbolizes -- and explain how this flawed, grand, God-shaken story moves forward to include everyone. This hope of unity is stronger than all the hypocrisy of our past and louder than the clank of chains. It led men and women to travel on immigrant ships and the Underground Railroad -- and it explains the amazing journey from the Yellow House to a white one just down the street.

michaelgerson@cfr.org

At Capitol, slavery's story turns full circle
Historians hope significance comes to light as Obama takes office

By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff | December 28, 2008

WASHINGTON - When Barack Obama takes the oath of office at the US Capitol, the first African-American to become president will be standing amid stonework laid by slaves more than two centuries ago. He will appear before a crowd massed on the Mall, where slaves were once held in pens, ready for auction. He will end his inauguration route at the White House, where the foundations were laid by slaves, and where eight presidents held blacks as their human property.

At nearly every turn of Obama's march to history, the thread that deeply intertwines the founding of the nation with its great stain, slavery, will be evident. Yet for all the attention on Obama's racial breakthrough, the full story of slavery in the nation's capital remains beneath the surface.

While the Lincoln Memorial on the far end of the Mall draws attention to the fight to end slavery, there is no memorial at the spot near the Capitol where slaves were once kept and sold in a three-story building called the Yellow House.

"Many people come down to the National Mall and never realize that they are walking on the site of the slave markets," said Jesse J. Holland, author of the recent book, "Black Men Built the Capitol." Now, with Obama's inauguration, historians are hoping that the role of slaves in the history of building Washington will become more widely recognized.

Obama is the son of a black African father and a white Kansan mother, while his wife, Michelle, has a direct connection to America's history of enslavement, as Obama noted during the presidential campaign, saying the next first lady "carries within her the blood of slaves and slave owners." Her great-great grandfather, on her father's side, was born into slavery and is believed to have lived in a small cabin at a coastal South Carolina rice plantation.

Thus, a story that begins with slavery comes full circle with the arrival of the Obamas. "It is an affirmation of the whole democratic ideal in American history," said historian William Seale, author of "The President's House."

It was in the early 1790s that the government of the United States, founded on the notion that "all men are created equal," began to pay slaveholders for the work of their slaves on both the Capitol and the White House.

"Keep the yearly hirelings at work from sunrise to sunset - particularly the Negroes," the commission that oversaw construction of the Capitol instructed a supervisor, according to documents in a recently compiled congressional report. From 1795 to 1801, there were 385 payments for what was called "Negro hire," referring to the hiring of slaves from their masters to help build the Capitol.

From quarrying sandstone to sawing giant logs, the slaves gradually shaped the Capitol's foundation. While the building has been reconstructed and expanded many times over the years, the stonework laid by slave labor can still be seen at the west elevation of the old North Wing, near where Obama will take the oath of office. Relatively little is known about the slaves who helped build the Capitol, but pay records do provide some of their names, including Gerrard, who was leased for $13, and Will, who was leased for $12.91. One record notes that "Caleb Varnal's Negro Sawyer" was leased for $20.33 on July 6, 1795. The documents don't specify the duration of the slaves' service.

Overlooking the inaugural scene will be the Statue of Freedom, the figure that stands grandly atop the Capitol dome. Yet, as documented in a congressional report, it was a slave named Phillip Reid who played a crucial role in turning a plaster cast into the statue. It is "one of the great ironies in the Capitol's history," the report says, that the statue was made possible by "a workman helping to cast a noble allegorical representation of American freedom when he himself was not free." Reid, who had been purchased for $1,200, later did become free and may have seen the statue hoisted atop the dome.

Similarly, the President's House, as the White House was first known, was constructed with significant help from slave labor, as well as free blacks and whites. Slaves lived in huts amid a cacophony of brick kilns and sawing operations, probably on the site of what is now Lafayette Park. One slave, George, was owned by James Claggett and leased to the federal government for five months, according to a pay stub recently put on display by the National Archives. The document, in elegant script, says that "the commissioners of the Federal District" paid Claggett "for hire of Negro George," for "working at the President's House."

The construction of the President's House began in 1792, with slaves often toiling "seven days a week during the high construction summer months alongside white workers and artisans," according to a history compiled by the White House Historical Association. An estimated 120 slaves helped dig the foundation of the White House and brought stonework to the site. Some of the stonework can still be seen in the exterior of the original, central portion of the building.

The first president to move into the mansion, John Adams of Massachusetts, was antislavery. But his successor, Thomas Jefferson, at various times brought a number of slaves to live with him in the White House. The other presidents who owned slaves while living in the White House were James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, John Tyler, William Henry Harrison, James Polk, and Zachary Taylor, according to the historian Seale.

Part of the history of slaves who lived in the White House is preserved in the thin but remarkable memoir of Paul Jennings, who was owned by Madison and published a volume titled, "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison."

"When Mr. Madison was chosen President, we came on and moved into the White House," Jennings wrote. "The east room was not finished, and Pennsylvania Avenue was not paved, but was always in an awful condition from either mud or dust. The city was a dreary place."

Jennings recalled how he set up a table at the White House with "ale, cider, and wine, and placed them in the coolers," when a free black raced up and announced that British invaders were on their way into the city. "Clear out, clear out!" the man yelled. The Madison family and Jennings fled just before the arrival of the British, who "ate up the very dinner, and drank the wines, &c., that I had prepared for the President's party," Jennings wrote.

After Madison died, Jennings was able to buy his freedom from Dolley Madison, who later became relatively destitute for a time. Jennings, hearing of the plight of Mrs. Madison, wrote that he "occasionally gave her small sums from own pocket, though I had years before bought my freedom of her."

Now, exactly two centuries after Madison became president and brought slaves with him to the White House, Barack and Michelle Obama will move into the home.

A previous president from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, signed the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves. Asked to explain his decision, Lincoln sat in his White House office, in what is now known as the Lincoln Bedroom, and took out a piece of Executive Mansion stationary. "If slavery is not wrong," Lincoln wrote, "nothing is wrong."

http://mije.org/richardprince/7-candidates-journalists-library

I got a shout-out from Richard Prince! Yay!

So, did you catch me on CNN's The Situation Room yesterday? If not, here's the transcript!

BLITZER: Today, a rare look at some historic papers that highlight a shameful part of America history, documents about the slaves who helped build the White House right here in Washington. It's an interesting twist to the celebration of the first African- American president of the United States.

Our Samantha Hayes has been looking into these documents.

It shows how the White House was built.

SAMANTHA HAYES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. This is something that the National Archives did for the news media today, because there has been so much intense interest after Barack Obama's election. So, it really was a closer look at those who built the White House brick by brick who never had a chance to experience freedom.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HAYES (voice-over): They are fragile pieces of paper that show whose hands built the president's house, at the bottom, their first names only.

REGINALD WASHINGTON, NATIONAL ARCHIVES: Here, these people endured slavery, endured working essentially for free.

HAYES: Reginald Washington is an expert in African-American records, and can immediately identify slaves on this accounting document, essentially a 200-year-old pay stub.

WASHINGTON: You can see that the slaves are being paid a lesser amount, at five shillings, four shillings, and again four shillings. HAYES: A third the pay of other workers, and that money went to their owners.

Author Jesse Holland notes in his book that the man in charge of building the president's house owned slaves.

JESSE HOLLAND, AUTHOR, "BLACK MEN BUILT THE CAPITOL": James Hoban, the man who designed and was the architect for the construction of the White House, he brought up some of his own personal slaves from South Carolina to work on these projects. And since he was in charge of construction in the White House, he paid himself for the use of his slaves in the construction of the White House and the Capitol.

HAYES: A story not often told about the nation's history, but of particular significance now.

WASHINGTON: And now there's an African-American poised to become the president of the United States. This is somewhat like poetic justice in a way.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HAYES: Well, those old documents have been shown before in 2001, and they may go on display again. It is something that the Archives will consider, depending on public interest.

Obviously, the White House looked a lot different then than it does now, so we will want to show you -- I think we have -- yes, this is very interesting. Of course, this is what it looked like in 1792, which is when some of the documents I was just talking about were made.

Now, later on, in 1824, the South Portico was constructed, in 1830, the North Portico, 1902, the West Wing that we're familiar with. A few years later, the Oval Office was constructed. And, in 1942, the East Wing.

So, Wolf, that is the White House that we know.

BLITZER: Yes, the White House we love. I spent seven years of my life covering the White House.

HAYES: And you know it well.

BLITZER: It was a thrill every single day when I walked through that northwest gate to cover that story. It was a great, great building and a lot of history.

Thanks for bringing it to us, Samantha.

HAYES: Sure.

Here's a link to the story. http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081208/white_house_african_americans.html?.v=1

You can also read it below ...


Blacks and the White House: Slavery and service through history

By JESSE J. HOLLAND
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON — The first child born at the White House was the grandson of president Thomas Jefferson. The second child born there was his property - the African-American baby of Jefferson's two slaves.

Yes, slaves not only helped build the White House - for decades men and women in bondage served America's presidents and first families as butlers, cooks and maids.

Two hundred years later, Barack Obama's election as the 44th president - the first black chief executive - is casting a spotlight on the complicated history of African-Americans and the exalted place they called home - the White House.

During and after slavery, black workers have made the White House work. Obama's entry on Jan. 20, 2009, will be a moment for the ages that few of them could imagine.

"I'm very proud of the fact we're going to have an African-American president, and I think the help is going to be pleased to be working for an African-American president," said 89-year-old William Bowen Jr., a second-generation White House butler who worked for presidents Dwight Eisenhower to George H.W. Bush.

It was a different era when Bowen started at the White House. The civil rights movement was still in its infancy, segregation was still legal and African-Americans were just penetrating the upper echelons of government service with Mary McLeod Bethune's appointment at the National Youth Administration by president Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936.

To people like Bowen, employed at the White House before the civil rights and feminist movements, they were the "help."

Surrounded by presidential memorabilia in his suburban Maryland home - including a newspaper trumpeting Obama's victory - Bowen is contemplating coming out of retirement just to work for the first black president.

"I never thought, coming up, that this would ever happen, not in my lifetime," Bowen said.

His father, William Bowen, left his job at the Washington Navy Yard after the First World War to become a White House butler. He soon recruited his son to work there as a part-time butler and mail carrier. It was the senior Bowen who taught him the White House domestic code of silence, something that is followed by current White House workers to this day.

"Pay attention, and don't be talking to people while on your assignment," Bowen Jr., remembered his father lecturing. "Don't unnecessarily engage some of the guests unless they speak to you, and don't go up and start to speaking to the guests unless they start speaking to you."

It was hard sometimes, with celebrities like Duke Ellington and Pearl Bailey, frequenting White House parties and dinners. To this day, Bowen remembers conversations with presidents and first ladies - something that he still won't repeat - another of his father's codes of conduct while wearing White House tuxedoes and tails.

"You don't talk about things that happened on the job," Bowen said.

A century before the Bowens, slaves who worked inside and outside the White House were known for their labours. Washington planner Pierre L'Enfant rented slaves from nearby slave owners to dig the foundation for the White House, and White House designer James Hoben used some of his slave carpenters to build the White House.

President George Washington forced slaves from Mount Vernon to work as staff inside "the President's House" in Philadelphia during his term, starting a tradition of enslaved men and women working for the president in his residence that would continue until the 1850s. Not only did they work in the White House, enslaved men and women lived there as well.

According to the White House Historical Association, the slave and servant quarters were in the basement, now called the ground floor. The rooms now include the library, china room, offices and the formal Diplomatic Reception Room. At least one African-American baby was born there, in 1806 to Fanny and Eddy, two of Jefferson's slaves. The child, who was considered a slave too, died two years later.

History values these slaves for more than just their labour.

Paul Jennings, Madison's personal slave, told the very first tale of White House life written by someone who lived there. Jennings, in his memoirs, debunked the oft-repeated White House legend of first lady Dolley Madison saving the portrait of Washington from invading British troops.

"This is totally false," Jennings said. "She had no time for doing it. It would have required a ladder to get it down. All she carried off was the silver."

Instead, a Frenchman, John Suse, and Magraw, the president's gardener, took the painting down and sent it off on a wagon, said Jennings, who later in his life would give part of the money he earned as a freedman to help out a destitute Dolley Madison who suffered financially after the death of James Madison.

As the years progressed, the role of African-Americans inside the White House also progressed.

Blacks moved from slaves at the White House to honoured guests - president Abraham Lincoln met with abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth in the White House - to indispensable parts of White House life reflected in William Slade's appointment by president Andrew Johnson as the very first White House steward, the person charged with running the domestic side of the White House.

Not only did blacks work in the White House, they also started working at the White House. E. Frederick Morrow was the first African-American to be officially appointed a White House aide by Eisenhower in 1955; John F. Kennedy named Andrew Hatcher associate press secretary in 1960.

The progress was hardly smooth.

In 1901, president Theodore Roosevelt formally invited Booker T. Washington to the White House for dinner. But as Republican presidential candidate John McCain noted in his concession speech, Southern newspapers were outraged and condemned Roosevelt publicly after they learned of the invitation from an Associated Press dispatch. Roosevelt never invited another African-American to a White House dinner again.

All the while, African-American domestic workers like John Pye kept the White House working smoothly behind the scenes.

"These are the folks who not only keep the leadership comfortable, but they make the White House into a home for those occupants, and they make government service more than tolerable for high-level staffers who are working long hours," said Gail Lowe, senior historian at the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum. "Without their eyewitness to history, we probably would not have as full a story as we have of the inner workings of the White House."

The Smithsonian holds memorabilia belonging to John Pye, who worked as valet, messenger, driver, cook and butler in the White House during president Franklin Roosevelt's administration.

Sometimes the workers also made history, Lowe said.

"When the first war bonds were issued in April 1942, president Roosevelt did a little presale as a publicity move, and the first person to whom he sold a war bond was John Pye," said Lowe. "It cost $18.75. And as president Roosevelt made his pitch for the war bonds - 'This is to support our war effort. Our young men are serving overseas. They're giving their lives; we can lend our money.' - And almost before the words were out of his mouth, John Pye had stepped forward to purchase the bond."

Despite their contributions, blacks experienced racism even inside the White House.

Alonzo Fields, a former maitre d' who worked in the White House for 31 years, said they had segregated dining rooms for the workers at one point.

"I'm good enough to handle the president's food - to handle the president's food and do everything, but I cannot eat with the help," Fields, who died in 1994, told the Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife Programs & Cultural Studies for its "Workers in the White House" project.

Pye faced at least one incident with Richard M. Nixon, then vice-president, who came him and asked about some leftover White House food.

Nixon said: "Boy, what are y'all going to do with the rest of the food," Lowe said. "Mr. Pye did not like being called 'boy' and he didn't like to be questioned about how the kitchen would deal with leftovers."

Pye told him that the food went to charity, but it turned out Nixon wanted to eat the leftovers.

"Pye made sure they went to charitable organizations that day," Lowe said.

Associated Press writer Jesse J. Holland is the author of the book, "Black Men Built The Capitol: Discovering African American History In and Around Washington, D.C."
On the Net:

* Paul Jennings' "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison": http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/jennings/jennings.html
* Smithsonian Institution Anacostia Community Museum: http://anacostia.si.edu/
* White House Historical Association African American timeline: http://www.whitehousehistory.org/05/subs/05-c.html
* Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife Programs & Cultural Studies: http://www.folkways.si.edu/

Here's some new information connected to "Black Men Built The Capitol." They should have talked to me! (But they're making up for it soon)


Slaves helped build White House, U.S. Capitol

* Story Highlights
* Obamas will make history as first African-American first family in White House
* Slaves often worked seven days a week to build White House, U.S. Capitol
* Twelve presidents owned slaves; eight owned slaves while in office
* Historian: Obamas moving into White House "a very great and hopeful sign"

By Susan Roesgen and Aaron Cooper
CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In January, President-elect Barack Obama and his family will make history, becoming the first African-American first family to move into the White House -- a house with a history of slavery. In fact, the legacy of American presidents owning slaves goes all the way back to George Washington.

Twelve American presidents owned slaves and eight of them, starting with Washington, owned slaves while in office. Almost from the very start, slaves were a common sight in the executive mansion. A list of construction workers building the White House in 1795 includes five slaves - named Tom, Peter, Ben, Harry and Daniel -- all put to work as carpenters. Other slaves worked as masons in the government quarries, cutting the stone for early government buildings, including the White House and U.S. Capitol. According to records kept by the White House Historical Association, slaves often worked seven days a week -- even in the hot and humid Washington summers.

In 1800, John Adams was the first president to live in the White House, moving in before it was finished. Adams was a staunch opponent of slavery, and kept no slaves. Future presidents, however, didn't follow his lead. Thomas Jefferson, who succeeded Adams, wrote that slavery was an "assemblage of horrors" and yet he brought his slaves with him. Early presidents were expected to pay their household expenses themselves, and many who came from the so-called "slave states" simply brought their slaves with them.

Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant all owned slaves but not during their time in office. James Madison, Jefferson's successor, held slaves all of his life including while he was in office. During the war of 1812 Madison's slaves helped remove material from the White House shortly before the British burned the building. VideoMichelle Obama uncovers slaves in her family »

In 1865 one of Madison's former slaves, Paul Jennings, wrote the first White House memoir: "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of Life in the White House." In the book, Jennings called Madison "one of the best men that ever lived" and said Madison "never would strike a slave, although he had over one hundred; neither would he allow an overseer to do it."

There were other presidents who treated their slaves less kindly.

James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, John Tyler, James K. Polk and Zachary Taylor all owned slaves while they were in office. The last of these, President Taylor, said owning slaves was a Constitutional right and he said slave-owners like himself would "appeal to the sword if necessary" to keep them. The Civil War, of course, put that opinion to the test.

Now, the Obamas are moving into the White House.

"The apple cart has been turned over here when you have the Obamas -- the first African-American couple -- now actually management and you are having in some cases white Americans serving them," says presidential historian Doug Brinkley.

Michelle Obama learned this year that one of her great-great grandfathers was a slave who worked on a rice plantation in South Carolina. She says finding that part of her past uncovered both shame and pride and what she calls the tangled history of this country.

For many, the historic election on November 4 marked a new beginning.

Though Michelle Obama's ancestors had to come through the ordeal of slavery, "Her children are sleeping in the room of presidents," said Brinkley. "It's a very great and hopeful sign."

The most exciting thing about this story is the fact that the MLK National Memorial is only about $5 million away from full funding!


Federal arts panel looks at revised, softened design for King Memorial in Washington, D.C.
By BRETT ZONGKER
Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON (AP) _ Artists working on a Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial submitted changes Thursday to address concerns that a proposed rendering made him look confrontational and like a socialist leader.

Changes to the 28-foot "Stone of Hope" sculpture were requested by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, a federal panel that helps oversee monuments and memorials on the National Mall.

The commission didn't vote, but members indicated they would approve the changes.

"This is how people are going to remember (King)," said commission vice chairman Pamela Nelson. "It's critical to his legacy for ages to come. That's why we're so careful."

Ed Jackson Jr., the project's executive architect, said architects softened King's face slightly at the brow and the mouth. The updated design maintains King's look of consternation but turns his mouth up slightly to resemble the hint of a smile.

"Whether it is a concerned look or a much more pleasant face, what's most important though, to us, is you've got to capture this," Jackson said, motioning to a photograph showing determination in King's eyes.

Officials with the King memorial foundation refused to release a photograph showing the facial changes.

The revised design depicts King's upper body emerging from "The Stone of Hope" with rocky granite covering most of his legs to help emphasize King's emergence as a symbol of hope, Jackson said. The quote inscribed on the centerpiece will read "Out of a mountain of despair, a stone of hope."

King's arms remain firmly crossed in the sculpture.

"This is the most talked about aspect of the memorial _ whether or not Dr. King would stand with his arms folded," Jackson said. "We felt that this image of Dr. King was visually positive, representing him as someone who was self-contained, calm, introspective, confident and determined."

The critique of the King statue follows criticism last year over the selection of Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin to carve its central element. Critics said the sculptor should be black, or at least American, and that King would have been appalled by China's poor record on human rights.

Harry Johnson, president of the foundation overseeing the project, said the design is still a work in progress until final approval from regulators in Washington.

Fundraising for the memorial stands at $94.8 million of the $100 million goal, though Johnson said the foundation will announce a higher goal in coming weeks.

At a dinner scheduled for Thursday night in Atlanta, the foundation was to announce a $1 million gift from Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., $250,000 from CVS Caremark Corp., the nation's largest pharmacy chain, and $1.8 million from other donors.

The King memorial would be the first major tribute to the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize winner outside Atlanta, where he was born in 1929. It is to be built on the banks of the Tidal Basin, between the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials.

The memorial will feature a granite carving, a raised walkway and King's celebrated quotes engraved in stone walls. The statue of King will be the largest on the Mall.

I'm not going to use this space to recommend many books, but I'll break this rule for this book: Evernight.

Here's the Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Evernight-Claudia-Gray/dp/0061284394/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212007148&sr=1-1

and here's the author's Web site:
http://www.claudiagray.com/

First and most importantly (to me), she's my friend. I've known her since my Mississippi days, and you can't find a better person. Her knowledge about writing is unparalleled, and I wish I had half her skill at writing and putting together believable plots while writing fiction. She's truly my writing hero, and I'm soo glad she's now writing her own stuff instead of fan fiction (though her fan fiction is excellent and her fanon has replaced some official canon in my mind for Buffy, Angel, Alias, X-Files, Lost and other shows we share interest in.

Secondly, Evernight's an excellent book. If you enjoy vampire lore, then you'll love some of the twists and turns she's come up with in building this world. As with all of her stuff, you end up slapping yourself on the head and going, "Of course they would do that! Why didn't I think of it?" Like all excellent ideas, it just seems natural once you think about it but of course, it takes someone like Claudia to put it out there. And of course, her characterizations are spot on. It seems like she's writing about real people, even though she's writing about vampires and such. She's that skillful.

I know that this is marketed as a teen book. But so was Harry Potter, and I enjoyed reading Evernight just as much. In fact, it's sitting on my nightstand along with the last Harry Potter book; my latest Walter Mosely, "Blonde Faith"; "Blacks in the Bible"; and my ever present stack of comic books; ready to be re-read at a moment's notice. If your tastes run toward modern vampire lore, pick up Evernight. You won't regret it, and Claudia, congratulations! I can't wait for the next book!

"Black Men Built The Capitol" has made its very first best seller list!

MosaicBooks.com has named BMBTC one of its best sellers of 2008 (so far). Don't believe me? Here's a link!

http://www.mosaicbooks.com/whatshot.html

Who is MosaicBooks.com?

Here's a description from the African American Literature Book Club or AALBC.com:

"Launched in 1996, Mosaicbooks.com is the first website dedicated to showcasing African American literature. Since their premiere, they have remained one of the most important sites for showcasing new books. They have also built the largest listing of African American book clubs and booksellers on the internet.

Mosaicbooks.com has been cited in Essence, Library Journal, The New York Daily News, News12 The Bronx (TV), Black Issues Book Review, Publishers' Weekly, the New York Times, Bronx Times, and Washington Post have all cited Mosaicbooks.com for excellence."

Yay!

Hopefully, this project will soon be on better footing ...

Slavery museum delayed by funding woes
Sunday, March 23, 2008 3:12 AM
By Dionne Walker
Associated Press

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. -- Near battlefields where soldiers fought to preserve slavery, a solemn stone figure stands, arms outstretched, face turned skyward as if rejoicing over the broken shackles etched into its arms.

The sculpture anchors the Spirit of Freedom Garden, a gathering of artwork that's the first, and so far the only, sign of a $200 million U.S. National Slavery Museum long anticipated in a region heavy with Civil War history.

It was 1993 when L. Douglas Wilder, the nation's first black elected governor and the grandson of slaves, proposed a museum that would tell their story.

Years later, the museum's future has become clouded by shifting opening dates and stalled fundraising.

Despite millions in private and public dollars committed to the museum, organizers have given an unclear accounting of their finances: While the museum cites $50 million available, a 2006 tax return details $17.6 million in assets, much of that believed to be the value of a 38-acre proposed site.

And almost five years after a ceremonial groundbreaking, the opening has drifted to 2008 and beyond.

Conceived by Wilder during a trip to Africa, the project was considered for several Virginia regions before organizers chose a Fredericksburg plot donated by developers in 2001. When complete, the center will feature a full-scale replica slave ship and artifacts -- from manacles to logbooks -- detailing one of America's most horrific chapters within more than 100,000 square feet of exhibit space.

A $500 million National Museum of African American History and Culture, part of the Smithsonian Institution, is planned to open in 2015 about an hour north, in Washington.

For now, though, grass marks the site of the Fredericksburg museum along the Rappahannock River.

Organizers blame fundraising, which they say has slowed amid a struggling economy; Wilder has tapped powerful friends to help out.

In June 2006, entertainers Bill Cosby and Ben Vereen hosted a fundraiser in Washington, and that September, Cosby called on Americans to each donate $8, a number symbolizing slave shackles. Museum director Vonita Foster said the efforts raised about $50,000 and less than $1 million, respectively.

Foster said donations arrive at her office daily -- slightly less than $20,000 in gifts each month.

"People do want us to begin construction, and I want us to begin construction. Nobody wants it as much as I do," Foster said. "It's a viable project. It will happen. We will build in 2008."

Fredericksburg officials speak tentatively about the project.

"I hope it does happen. I guess I have to leave it at that," said Mayor at-large Thomas Tomzak.

Tourism officials say they've stopped promoting the museum. Meanwhile, a request to put a City Council member on the museum's board for accountability has stalled, according to Councilman Matthew Kelly.

"As far as I'm aware," he said, "they're still thinking about it."

Setbacks aren't uncommon among new museum projects, explained Ford Bell, president of the American Association of Museums. Bell cited Washington's National Museum of the American Indian, established in 1989.

"The building wasn't completed until 2004," Bell said. "So it can take a long time sometimes to get your story together, and you've got to do a lot of pavement pounding and convincing people."

Bell warned that the slavery project could be in trouble if organizers lose community support.

The only problem Foster sees is a troubled economy.

She said the museum is stuck trying to raise money amid shifting priorities in America -- "People are losing their homes" -- and negative media coverage.

Wilder sees a different obstacle.

"It can open when people who you encourage to contribute do so -- when the naysayers quit bothering us and when people really want to learn more about their history (and) show that they do."

I actually own a German Shepherd mix ...

This has nothing to do with "Black Men Built The Capitol," but ....

My wife and I are expecting the birth of a baby boy in July!

Yay!!!

This'll be our second child. We already have a little girl, Rita, but now she'll have a baby brother.

Yayyy!


Jesse

I've had a great couple of days when it comes to letting people know about Black History Month and "Black Men Built The Capitol: Discovering African American History In and Around Washington, D.C."

Here's a couple of videos that have been released in the last two days:

http://video.ap.org/v/default.aspx?g=a9349ea9-ffd7-42a1-96c6-0a704038899c&f=&fg=email

http://www.myfoxdc.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=71C27A61B36DCD6EC74B5A08ADCCD923?contentId=5843306&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1

If you're new to the blog, and want to get an autographed copy of the book, head over to http://www.jessejholland.com/BlackMenBuiltTheCapitol/Appearances.html and it'll tell you where I'll be signing books over the next few months.

Also, you can go to http://www.jessejholland.com/BlackMenBuiltTheCapitol/Buy%20The%20Book%21.html to buy an autographed copy directly from me!

I know, I know, I'm 14 days late.

But it's been crazy! And today's Valentine's Day as well. Luckily, I remembered this year, and made dinner reservations.

Now that I have a couple of seconds, here's a Black History fact from "Black Men Built The Capitol(I'll post some more later):"

The first African American man to serve a full term in the United States Senate was Blanche Bruce of Mississippi. Elected to the U.S. Senate by the Mississippi state legislature during Reconstruction in 1874, Bruce served only one term, but during that time he became the first African American to preside over the Senate.
A former slave who had escaped to freedom from Virginia, Bruce moved to Mississippi, bought a cotton plantation, and became rich through real estate before being sent to the Senate.
The end of Reconstruction denied Bruce a second term when his first one ended in 1881, as southern states began to enact Jim Crow style laws.
Bruce worked several other government jobs and posts including two tenures as register of the treasury, where he was the first African American with his signature on U.S. currency until his death in 1898.
A painting of Bruce hangs on the third floor of the Senate wing of the U.S. Capitol.


Interested in more facts like this? Buy "Black Men Built The Capitol: Discovering African American History In and Around Washington, D.C."