A Memorial to Black Patriots
Commentary and Opinion
The Washington Post
March 31, 1985
by Maurice A. Barboza
There is a movement now under way to construct
a memorial in Washington to black patriots of the American
Revolution. If the sponsors get their way, the memorial will
be built on land visible from the steps of both Constitution
Hall (the meeting place of the Daughters of the American Revolution)
and the Lincoln Memorial. These sites, tinged with irony,
are key factors in the instigation of this project, second
only to the bravery and deeds of the men and women who will
be honored.
Between 1775 and 1783, more than 5,000 black
slaves and free persons fought in the revolution. Serving
side-by-side with whites in all of the major battles from
Lexington and Concord to Yorktown, blacks were wounded, disabled
and captured, just as were white patriots.
There were many heroes. Most black patriots,
regardless of when they enlisted, were in the war for the
duration. That was generally the agreement they reached with
their masters in exchange for personal freedom. And thousands
of slaves ran away or filed petitions with courts and legislatures
demanding their freedom. This activity weakened the institution
of slavery and made a mockery of it. Responding to this black
"declaration of independence" (as historian Benjamin
Quarles refers to the Revolution), several New England and
Middle Atlantic states, by the turn of the 19th century, had
banned slavery; other states passed laws to make it easier
to free slaves.
Families, churches and self-help organizations
that black soldiers and freedom-seekers founded nurtured the
struggle against slavery and became the rock upon which the
modern civil rights movement sits. Yet two generations after
the revolution, these patriots and their deeds were erased
from memory and degraded by discrimination against their descendants.
On April 9, 1939 -- 155 years after these black
patriots returned home as free men and second-class citizens-a
chilly breeze whipping in from behind the Lincoln Memorial
carried the words of the spiritual, "Nobody Knows the
Trouble I've Seen"-as if from generations beyond - in
the voice of black contralto Marian Anderson. Eyes closed
and standing erect in front of the statue of Lincoln, she
appeared to be almost in its embrace. The spiritual continued,
"Nobody knows my sorrow.
A sea of 75,000 people stretched outward to
the Washington Monument. The good was flowing, the dignitaries
were abundant. Then came to listen to the voice that Arturo
Toscanini said "one hears once in a hundred years'' and
to protest the fateful decision of the DAR to bar Anderson
from the use of Constitution Hall for this Easter Sunday concert.
A controversy of international proportions arose.
America's affliction with racism and hypocrisy was laid bare
before world opinion, much like South Africa's is today. The
DAR was condemned, and people wondered how the republic could
allow itself for so long to treat blacks-even of Marian Anderson's
stature-as something less than Americans.
Unwittingly, the DAR (because it honors Revolutionary
War patriots) made her a bridge between six generations of
blacks who had struggled to win American independence and
end slavery and the next two generations that would struggle
to end segregation and discrimination. She returned to the
Lincoln Memorial in 1963 to sing the national anthem during
the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the modern equivalent
of a black "declaration of independence." But the
irony of the 1939 concert and the DAR's action would not become
apparent until 1984, when the DAR would again rebuff a black
woman because of her race.
Last spring, when Lena Santos Ferguson's four-year
struggle with the DAR over membership became public, it received
national attention. Few people realized that any black woman
could be a descendant of a Revolutionary War patriot.
Ferguson waged a quiet campaign to gain acceptance
into a local chapter and to force the DAR to honor the role
blacks played in winning American independence. On Feb. 28,
1984 -- 45 years and one day after Eleanor Roosevelt announced
her resignation from the DAR in protest over its treatment
of Marian Anderson -- Lena Ferguson was instrumental in getting
the House of Representatives to pass a resolution (now Public
Law 98-245) honoring the contributions of blacks to the American
Revolution. The DAR passed a similar resolution last April.
When the pressure became too great and the DAR
was finally ready to accept Ferguson into a local chapter,
she refused to join unless they would agree in writing to
bar discrimination in membership (which they will do this
April) and to identify each and every black patriot who served
in the American Revolution and to publish their names.
When Marian Anderson was introduced that Easter
Sunday, credit for her being a free person was given to Washington,
Jefferson and Lincoln. Now -- thanks to Lena Ferguson and
contemporary black historians -- we know that substantial
credit should go to the black patriots and freedom-seekers
of the revolutionary period.
The memorial to them will tell us something about the trouble
these patriots saw in their lifetimes, and how it inspired
them to shape the struggle for freedom. Together with the
memorial, the project being undertaken by the DAR will reveal
hundreds of unknown heroes who will serve as an example and
a reminder to Americans. And tens of thousands of their black
descendants will be able to trace their ancestry back to the
Revolution.
The national will be constructed entirely with
private funds. Legislation authorizing its site, H.J. Res.
142, was introduced in the House last month by Reps. Nancy
L. Johnson (R-CT.) and Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), along with
70 cosponsors. Like Marian Anderson's concert of 1939 and
appearance of 1963, the memorial will bring Americans of all
races and religions together this time in a common understanding
of our nation's racially diverse history.
