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Benjamin Bannaker was infuriated. After designing the nation's capital and inventing gadgets

to benefit everyday life, our people were still treated like channel. It was time for a public

dragging and he knew exactly whose wig he needed to snatch.

This is two-minute black history, what you didn't learn in school.

Aside from being a free black man during a time in this country when most of our people

were enslaved, Benjamin Bannaker was also a genius. He designed, invented, and engineered

so well that even the most racist of Americans respected his work. That was the problem.

Only Bannaker's work was respected, not his personhood. So he decided to publicly challenge the biggest hypocrite in the white leadership of this country, Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson squawked about all men being equal and free,

but still enslaved our people and considered us inferior to whites. Bannaker took the two-faced

forefather to task in a letter that went viral. He pointed out that his own genius disproved

black inferiority, and he called for Jefferson

to end slavery and to mandate that all men could truly be free. Bannocker's public challenge of

the powerful white man was unheard of. On top of that, he said what he said. His letter was

forceful and did not sugarcoat his demand for Jefferson to end slavery.

The result?

We already know that white allieship can be performative.

Jefferson wrote a short response saying Bannaker was right, but put zero actions behind his words. Meanwhile,

Bannaker's letter inspired millions to seek the abolition of slavery. In our fight for liberation,

we must always keep speaking truth to power. In order to move towards the future, you've got to look to the past.

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