Who's Your Foredaddy?

Shame. When we think of our American forefathers we never think of slaves even though the slave experience is typified by all of the elements we consider American. Slaves engaged in commerce through selling crops, wares, or their labor. Slaves were deeply Christian. Many learned to read and write under the threat of severe physical injury. An estimated five thousand Slaves fought at sea and on the battlefield in the American Revolutionary War. Some earned enough money to purchase their own freedom and liberty. This was all in addition to having to complete their proprietary work.

If you can’t ace the character section on your forefather application with those qualifications no one can. Though the rank of Founding Father is usually restricted to members of the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention, there seems to be more latitude in determining a forefather. In Provincetown, Massachusetts, for example, there is the National Monument to the Forefathers dedicated to the Pilgrims.

In the spirit of acceptance I acknowledge the role of the Pilgrims as our American forefathers as I do the slaves. We should be far enough removed from any era in which doing this would have been a controversy. Retaining notion of slaves as just background players to history as most of us still do is more fitting to the America of Jim Crow. Today there is no reason why all Americans can not look upon the first African Americans with a sense of pride for their perseverance and stamina in a life of wrongful imprisonment.

 And speaking of monuments…