Benjamin Banneker

Benjamin Banneker: Surveyor, Astronomer, Publisher, Patriot

The son of a freed slave, Benjamin Banneker spent only a few winters in school.  But he overcame racial prejudice and lack of formal education to become a widely respected astronomer and mathematician.

For most of his life, Banneker grew tobacco on a small farm in Maryland.  In his 50s, he taught himself mathematics, astronomy, and surveying, using a neighbor’s books and instruments.  He used his knowledge to write a series of popular almanacs with accurate information about the movements of the sun, moon, and stars and predications of tides and weather.  In 1791, Banneker helped survey the new capital, Washington D.C.…He saved the project from disaster when the supervisor quit, taking the plans for the new city with him.  Banneker was able to reconstruct the plans from memory. 

B anneker spoke out strongly against slavery and prejudice.  When Thomas Jefferson questioned the abilities of African-Americans, Banneker wrote him, defending his race.  He won Jefferson’s friendship and support.  Banneker’s remarkable achievements as a self-taught scientist were cited by 18^th century abolitionists as proof that “the powers of the mind are disconnected with the color of the skin.”

When Banneker was 22, he built a wooden striking clock, even though he had never seen one.  He carved every piece himself by hand.

African Americans

Unlike immigrants from other lands, ancestors of most African-Americans came to America by force rather than by choice. One million arrived aboard slave ships between 1619 and 1808. As slaves, they were property that could be bought and sold. Often, families were divided up. Most slaves were forced to work hard and live in poor conditions, and many were badly abused.

The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution freed all slaves when the North won the Civil War. But this freedom did not bring equality. Soon, many states enacted “black codes,” laws that kept African-Americans segregrated from “whites” for another 100 years. “Blacks” had to attend separate schools, drink from separate fountains, stay in separate hotels, and ride in the back of the bus.

Yet with courage and persistence, African-Americans have gradually gained legal rights to equal opportunity. Meanwhile, they have also made rich contributions to American culture most visibly in music, politics, and sports. Although prejudice still exists, African Americans have won recognition for excellence in every field.

Today, African-Americans make up 12 percent of today’s U.S. population.

Roots

When Alex Haley was a child, his grandmother told him wondrous stories about his family. The stories had been passed down orally from generation to generation for almost 200 years. The “furtherest-back-person” in those stories was Toby, “the African,”, whose real name was “Kin-tay.”

Many years later, Haley began a quest to trace his family’s history back to its African beginnings. Roots, the 1976 book about what he found, was a best-seller. And the following first part of the book made television history. It was watched by more than half of all Americans, many of whom came to understand for the first time the heroic struggle of African-Americans to regain their freedom.

Roots begins in 1750 in Gambia in West Africa. There Haley’s ancestor, Kunta Kinte---Toby, the African, in Haley’s grandmother’s stories---is captured by slave traders and shipped to America in chains. The miniseries then follows seven generations of the Haley family through a century of slavery. It concludes with their emacipation after the Civil War.

Roots won nine Emmy Awards. Its final episode was the highest-rated television program up to that time. And it inspired many Americans of all ethnic backgrounds to search for their own roots.

A second miniseries, Roots, the Next Generation, was aired in 1979. Based on the second half of Haley’s book, it continued the Haley family saga through the 1960s.

Fisk Jubilee Singers

“The magic of their song kept thrilling hearts,” the African-American leader W.E.B. Du Bois said of the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University.

The “Jubilees” were the first choral group to perform slave spirituals such as “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” for white audiences. Their thrilling concerts made them world famous in the 1870s.

The first “Jubilees” were nine students at Fisk University, in Nashville, Tennessee. Fisk had been founded in 1866 to educate former slaves, and in 1871, George L. White, Fisk’s treasurer, organized the choral group. The Jubilees’ concerts were so popular in Nashville that White thought they might help the school with the financial troubles that plagued its early years. He took the Jubilees on a national tour, which was a great success. Mark Twain, the famous author of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, said, “I think that in the Jubliees and their songs America has produced most perfect flower of the ages.” The chorus toured American and Europe for several years and raised $150,000, an enormous sum in those days.

England’s Queen Victoria was so delighted by the Jubilee Singers that she commissioned a painting of the choral group.

The Fisk Jubliee Singers still rank among the nation’s top choral groups. The university invites all students to audition for the group. But it cautions that “only the finest voices on campus are chosen.”

You can learn more here.