How This Great Inventor Called Out Thomas Jefferson’s Hypocrisy
Black History Year
PushBlack
4.6 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2023
⏱️ 3 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Benjamin Banneker was infuriated! After designing the nation’s capital and inventing gadgets to benefit everyday life, our people were STILL treated like chattel. It was time for a public dragging, and he knew exactly whose wig he needed to snatch.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Benjamin Bannaker was infuriated. |
| 0:05.6 | After designing the nation's capital and inventing gadgets to benefit everyday life, |
| 0:10.5 | our people were still treated like channel. |
| 0:13.2 | It was time for a public dragging and he knew exactly who's wig he needed to snatch. |
| 0:19.3 | This is two minute black history, what you didn't learn in school. |
| 0:29.8 | Aside from being a free black man during a time in this country when most of our people |
| 0:34.8 | were enslaved, Benjamin Bannaker was also a genius. |
| 0:39.6 | He designed, invented and engineered so well that even the most racist of Americans respected |
| 0:45.9 | his work. |
| 0:47.7 | That was the problem. |
| 0:53.7 | Only Bannaker's work was respected, not his personhood. |
| 0:58.7 | So he decided to publicly challenge the biggest hypocrite in the white leadership of this |
| 1:04.0 | country, Thomas Jefferson. |
| 1:06.6 | Jefferson squawked about all men being equal and free, but still enslaved our people and |
| 1:13.2 | considered us inferior to whites. |
| 1:16.0 | Bannaker took the two-faced forefather to task in a letter that went viral. |
| 1:21.0 | He pointed out that his own genius disproved black inferiority and he called for Jefferson |
| 1:26.8 | to end slavery and to mandate that all men could truly be free. |
| 1:32.9 | Bannaker's public challenge of being powerful white man was unheard of. |
| 1:37.0 | On top of that, he said what he said. |
| 1:40.0 | His letter was forceful. |
| 1:41.5 | It did not sugarcoat his demand for Jefferson to end slavery. |
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