Although it is well-known enslaved Black people built America, it’s important to recognize just how in-depth their involvement was. However, understanding the plight of black people also helps prove how and why the Black community is still setback today.
Amid the national movement calling for an end to police brutality and racial injustice, many organizations and companies have come to terms with their racist history. As confederate monuments and flags are coming down and companies such as Mars and Quaker Oats rebrand their racist characters like Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima, people are either coming forward or getting called out, including the following seven.
1.New York Life Insurance Company. One of America’s largest life insurance companies has admitted that its predecessor company, Nautilus Insurance Company, insured the lives of slaves for their owners. In 2001, the company handed over archival records to the New York Public Library, which showed policies sold to slave owners.
“Our predecessor company, Nautilus Insurance Company, sold policies on the lives of enslaved persons between 1846-1848,” the company said on its website.
“We have been open and transparent about this brief and regrettable period of our history, with the Nautilus sale of slave policies covered in news accounts and books dating back to 1895.” Nautilus insured more than 500 people who were either identified as slaves or were likely to have been enslaved and had even paid out the claims of 15 of those who died. But the company assures they are committed to “fostering a greater understanding of slavery in America and supporting the Black community.”
2.Yale University. The school apparently got its name from Elihu Yale, a former slave trader who profited from Black human lives. However, in June, the school’s president told Yale Daily News that there has been no thought in changing the university’s name.
#cancelYale began trending in June, after a bulletin on 4chan, an online platform that frequently features extremist content. However, the hashtag gained more steam after Jesse Kelly, host of the nationally syndicated show, “I’m right with Jesse Kelly,” called out the school in a tweet that revealed the school was named after a slave trader.
Back in 2017, the school was also blasted by campus protesters who demanded it change the name of the Calhoun College building, which was named after John C. Calhoun, a white supremacist who considered slavery as a “positive good.” Eventually, the school changed the name to Grace Hopper College.
Since then, Yale has launched the Yale Slavery and Abolition Portal to help students and researchers “find primary sources to slavery, abolition, and resistance.” Harvard, Princeton, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Virginia, and Georgetown University are among other U.S. Universities that have ties to slavery.
3.CSX Transportation. The company owns a railroad system built by the hands of enslaved people. The Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad in Virginia, which was acquired by CSX in 2003, owned and hired Slaves between 1834 to 1865, the end of the Civil War.
“The company shares the nation’s deep remorse for the shameful institution of slavery and racial discrimination that has occurred in the country,” Cindy Schild, a CSX spokeswoman, told CNN in an email. “CSX opposes any form of discrimination and is committed to raising awareness regarding racial disparities.”
4.Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey. As you can see, Slaves had a helping hand in building all parts of America; even alcohol is connected to slavery. Jack Daniel never owned slaves. However, he learned how to make his famous whiskey in Tennessee from a slave named Nathan “Nearest Green” who was owned by a Lutheran minister, the company said. Daniel purchased the business from the minister and then hired Nathan as his first head distiller.
The New York Times shed light on the story in 2016, and the company has since launched Uncle Nearest, a whiskey brand that honors Green and is led by an all minority group.
Jack Daniel’s spokesperson Svend Jansen told CNN that the company has “known and been public about the special relationship between Jack Daniel and Nearest Green for many years, and it is a common story in Lynchburg, (Tennessee).” Several of Green’s children and grandchildren have worked for the company. In March 2018, the company created a Nearest Green exhibit at its visitor center. “We continue to be thoughtful regarding other ways to honor the story of Nearest,” he said.
5. Wall Street. Before Wall Street became the world’s largest stock exchange, it was a booming slave market between 1711 and 1762, according to the digital library JSTOR Daily. In 2015, Mayor Bill de Blasio memorialized a marker to the slaves that laid Wall Street’s foundation.
“This place reminds of us of one of the worst chapters in our history,” de Blasio said at the time. “Three-hundred-four years ago, with the approval of the city government, this became a place for buying and selling and renting human beings.”
New York’s first lady, Chirlane McCray, said that slavery built the city’s foundation, and its slave market was only rivaled by the market in Charleston, South Carolina.
“You could come here any day and see it happening, and somehow it was considered normal in this city. It continued elsewhere in the city for close to 80 years more,” de Blasio said.
6. The White House and U.S. Capitol Building. Number 6 may come as no surprise, especially after Michelle Obama’s 2016 true comments that she lived in a house built by slaves.
When the plan to employ European workers to construct the original 1792 white house failed, leaders turned to free and enslaved Black people, reports the White House Historical Association. Slaves also crafted the U.S. Capitol building in 1793. When officials struggled to find skilled labor, they rented slaves from their owners.
In 2012, congress unveiled a marker, honoring slaves who built the Capitol.
Obama’s comments helped launch research into slavery and its relationship with U.S. Presidents and the White House, Matthew Costello, a senior historian said. The research helped create the website “Slavery in the President’s Neighborhood” in February.
“We have to give those people their voices back. Historically speaking, people are interested in presidents and first ladies, but what about behind those closed doors? Who are the people that really make the White House function and operate?” Costello told CNN.
7. George Washington. It’s evident that Washington participated in slavery, but the extent of those connections may be surprising to some. Apparently, slaves formed part of Washington—literally.
Although there is no evidence to support the claims, the first president’s mouth was said to be full of walrus, hippopotamus, and slaves’ teeth. It has also been said that Washington paid an under-market price for their teeth, according to Alexis Coe, best-selling author of “You Never Forget Your First. A Biography of George Washington.”
Washington also executed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, which allowed slave owners to arrest fugitive slaves and reclaim them as property.
“The propensity to put Washington on a pedestal does us no favors,” Coe said. “It keeps us removed from the man himself because it’s a dishonest reading of his life.”
So when Black people say we have been disadvantaged, this is proof. Not only did white people profit off our lives by receiving insurance policies on our behalf, but they also built large brands that will financially suit their families for generations to come off our ideas. Even worse, they honored those that enslaved us by establishing institutions that we weren’t allowed to go and made us build a house for America’s most powerful figures, many who supported slavery for years. And the list goes on.
Every aspect of America seems deeply-rooted to slavery, and we want change.
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